'O Miriam! have you given your ring to her? O Miriam!' Miriam redden'd, Muriel clench'd The hand that wore it, till I cried again: 'O Miriam, if you love me take the ring!' She glanced at me, at Muriel, and was mute. 'Nay, if you cannot love me, let it be.' Then-Muriel standing ever statue-likeShe turn'd, and in her soft imperial way And saying gently: Muriel, by your leave,' ( Unclosed the hand, and from it drew the ring, And gave it me, who pass'd it down her own, 'Io t'amo, all is well then.' Muriel fled. Miriam. Poor Muriel! Father. Ay, poor Muriel when you hear What follows! Miriam loved me from the first, Not thro' the ring; but on her marriage Had graspt a daisy from your Mother's And all her talk was of the babe she grave loved; So, following her old pastime of the By the lych-gate was Muriel. 'Ay,' she You scorn my Mother's warning, but the Is paler than before. We often walk And shroud the tower; and once we Your gilded vane, a light above the mist' She threw the fly for me; but oftener left That angling to the mother. 'Muriel's health Had weaken'd, nursing little Miriam. She used to shun the wailing babe, and On this of yours.' But when the matin saw That hinted love was only wasted bait, Not risen to, she was bolder. 'Ever since You sent the fatal ring-I told her 'sent To Miriam,' 'Doubtless-ay, but ever, since In all the world my dear one sees but you In your sweet babe she finds but you - Her heart a mirror that reflects but you.' For one monotonous fancy madden'd her, Till I myself was madden'd with her cry, And even that 'Io t'amo,' those three sweet Italian words, became a weariness. My people too were scared with eerie sounds, A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls, A noise of falling weights that never fell, Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand, Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door, And bolted doors that open'd of themselves: And one betwixt the dark and light had seen Her, bending by the cradle of her babe. rose, She clung to me with such a hard e brace, So lingeringly long, that half-amazed I parted from her, and I went alone. And when the bridegroom murmer With this ring,' 6 I felt for what I could not find, the ka The guardian of her relics, of her ting I kept it as a sacred amulet About me, — - gone! and gone in the embrace! Then, hurrying home, I found her not in house Or garden- up the tower—an icy air Fled by me.- -There, the chest was ope -- - all The sacred relics tost about the floorAmong them Muriel lying on her faceI raised her, call'd her, Muriel, Murie, wake!' The fatal ring lay near her; the glazed eye Glared at me as in horror. Dead! I took |