deliberation. Decide quickly. We will seize your horse's bridle, and take you with us by force. Well do we know that you come willingly; but so will you avoid disgrace, should defeat be our lot. You must with us-by force. If we succeed, yours the glory; if we fall, the guilt is ours, since we compel you. Play your part! Defend yourself! Cut one or two of us from our saddles, the first who lays hand on your rein - see, I grasp it! Strike, Captain, and with a will." -- He did as he said, and seized the horse's bridle; whilst, on the other side, an old serjeant laid hand on its mane. The horse stirred not. The Captain gazed hard at them, each in turn; but he raised not his sabre to strike. Behind him his forsaken bride, before him the mountain frontier of his native land. On the one hand, a heaven of love and happiness; on the other, glory and his country's cause. Two mighty passions striving against each other with a giant's force. The fierce conflict went nigh to overpower him; his head sank upon his breast. Suddenly blared the trumpets in rear of the squadron; at the martial sound his eager war-horse bounded beneath him. With awakening enthusiasm the rider raised his head and waved his sabre. "Forward, then," he cried, "in God's name!" And forward he sprang into the river, the two hussars by his side; the cloven waters plashing in pearls around their heads. Forward, forward to the blue mountains! In lengthening column, the hussars followed across the stream-the horses bravely breasting the flood, the bold riders singing their wild Magyar ditty. But dark and gloomy was their leader's brow, for each step led him farther from happiness and his bride. In the midst of the troop rode George of St Thomas, in his hand the banner of Hungary. His cheek glowed, his eye flashed: each step brought him nearer to revenge. The troubled stream is once more stilled, the fir-wood receives the fugi Back to thy lair, bloodthirsty monster, back and sleep! Let the forest-grass grow over the ensanguined plain. How much is destroyed, how much has passed away. How many good men, who were here, are here no longer; and how many who remain would grieve but little if they, too, were numbered with the dead. The hero of battles is once more a robber and a fugitive. The iron hand of the law drives him from land's end to land's end. In the mad-house mopes a captain of hussars, and ever repeats,—“WAIT BUT A MOMENT! None there can guess the meaning of his words. Only George of St Thomas is happy. He sleeps in a welcome grave, dreaming of sweet renown and deep revenge. We have suppressed two chapters of this tale, both for want of space, and because they are unpleasantly full of horrors. They are chiefly occu pied with the vengeance wreaked by George, who is frightfully mutilated in the course of the war, upon the Serbs, and especially upon his deadly foe Basil; and include an account of the capture by assault, and subsequent conflagration, of the town of St Thomas. They are in no way essential to heighten or complete the interest of those we have given; and L'Envoy is as appropriately placed at the end of the third chapter as at the close of the fifth. The plot of the whole tale, if such it may be called, is quite unimportant; but there is an originality and a wild vigour in many of the scenes, which justify, in combination with other German translations from the Magyar that have lately reached us, an anticipation of yet better things from the present generation of Hungarian poets and novelists. THE MESSAGE OF SETH. AN ORIENTAL TRADITION. BY DELTA. I. PROSTRATE upon his couch of yellow leaves, In purity's own robes when garmented, Where fruits and flowers hung temptingly o'erhead, Eden's blue streams he traced, by bliss ecstatic led. II. Before him still, in the far distance seen, Living in sight of Heaven made Earth a Hell; Spake of the guardian sword aye flickering to and fro III. The fiery sword that, high above the trees, Flashed awful threatenings from the angel's hand, Who kept the gates and guarded:-nigh to these, A hopeless exile, Adam loved to stand Wistful, or roamed to catch a breeze that fanned The ambrosial blooms, and wafted perfume thence, As 'twere sweet tidings from a distant land No more to be beheld; for Penitence, However deep it be, brings back not Innocence. IV. Thus had it been through weary years, wherein Propping his father's head, in tenderness hung Seth. V. "Seth, dearest Seth," 'twas thus the father said, "Thou know'st-ah! better none, for thou hast been A pillow to this else forsaken head, And made, if love could make, life's desert greenThe dangers I have braved, the ills unseen, The weariness and woe, that, round my feet, Lay even as fowlers' nets; and how the wrath Strewed briars and thorns along each rugged path :- VI. "On darkness Dawn will break; and, as the gloom The penitential prostrate from the dust, And be the help of all who put in Him their trust. VII. "Know then, that day, as sad from Eden's home 6 Thy portion, yet a balsam sweet of scent For man hath been provided, which shall free From death his doom-yea, gain lost Eden back to thee. VIII. Although thy disobedience hath brought down The wrath of justice; and the penalty Are pangs by sickness brought, and misery's frown, And toil-and, finally, that thou shalt die; Yet will I help in thine extremity. In the mid garden, as thou know'st, there grows The Tree of Life, and thence shall preciously, One day, an oil distil, of power to close Sin's bleeding wounds, and soothe man's sorrows to repose. IX. "That promise hath been since a star of light, When stumbled on the mountains dark my feet; X. "Thine errand to the Angel tell, and He (Fear not, he knows that edict from the Throne) Fitful, now deems it day, and now is quenched in night." XI. Seth heard; and like a swift, fond bird he flew, With sudden lightning, which around him showered, XII. And in his ear and on his heart was poured, Returned; and of his voice the faltering tone, Meeting the listener's ear, scarce made its purpose known. XIII. "Beloved father!" thus 'twas through his grief Wells now the promised balsam from Life's Tree. Ere that day dawn; but Thou its beams shalt hail, And earth give up its dead, and Life o'er Death prevail. XIV. "Astounding are the visions I have seen : The clouds took shapes, and turned them into trees Passed to the dust, on which tears fell like rain; XV. "And the wide waters rose above the tops Of the high hills, and all looked desolate- In heaven; and there were wanderings to and fro; And, while beneath the multitudes await, Tables, by God's own finger written, show The Law by which He wills the world should walk below: XVI. "And ever passed before me clouds of change, Whose figures rose, and brightened, and declined; And, melting into vapours, left behind No trace; and, as to silence sank the wind, Appeared in heaven a beautiful bright star, Under whose beams an Infant lay reclined; And all the wheels of nature ceased their jar, And choiring angels hymned that Presence from afar. XVII. "And then, methought, upon a mountain stood It streamed, until the desert ceased to know Passed in their darkness from the noon; and lo! Even backwards flowed that brightness to this day, And, Father, showed me thee, encircled by its ray : XVIII. "It showed me thee, from whom mankind had birth, Methinks I list that glad Hosannah's tone, XIX. "A long, long future, freaked with sin and strife, "Freely then I go, For steadfast is the Lord his word to keep,' Said Adam, as his breathing, faint and slow, Ceased; and like zephyr dying on the deep, In hope matured to faith, the First Man fell asleep! |