Sat then Alipius silent there alone,
With fast-shut eyes and spirit far away?
Remained he there as stone upon the stone,

While the flushed conqu'eror asked the sign to slay
The stricken victim, who despairing dumb
Waited the sentence of the downward thumb?

The shock was too much for him-too, too strong
For that poor Reason and self-resting Pride;
And every evil fury that had long

Lain crouching in his breast leaped up and cried
"Yield, yield at once, and do as others do,
We are the Lords of all of them and you."

The Love of contest and the Lust of blood
Dwell in the depths of man's origi'nal heart,
And at mere shows and names of wise and good
Will not from their barbaric homes depart,

But half asleep await their time, and then
Bound forth, like tigers from their jungle-den:

And all the curious wicker-work of thought,
Of logical result and learned skill,
Of precepts with examples inter-wrought,
Of high ideals, and determinate will,—
The careful fabric of ten thousand hours,
Is crushed beneath the moment's brutal powers.

Thus fell Alipius! He, so grave and mild,
Added the bloody sanction of his hand
To the swift slaughter of that brother-child
Of his own distant Mauritanian land,
Seeming content his very life to merge
In the confusion of that foaming surge.

*

The rage subsided; the deep sandy floor

Sucked the hot blood; the hook, like some vile prey,
Dragged off the noble body of the Moor;

The Victor, doomed to die some other day,
Enjoyed the plaudits purposelessly earned,—
And back Alipius to himself returned.

There is a fearful waking unto woes,
When sleep arrests her charitable course,
Yet far more terrible the line that flows
From ebrious passion to supine remorse;
Then welcome death,-but that the suffe'rers feel
Wounds such as theirs no death is sure to heal!

But the demoniac power that well can use
Self-trust and Pride as instruments of ill,

Can such prostration to its ends abuse,

And poison from Humility distil :

"Why struggle more? Why strive, when strife is vain, -An infant's muscles with a giant's chain?"

So in his own esteem debased, and glad
To take distraction whencesoe'er it came,
Though in his heart of hearts entirely sad,
Alipius lived to pleasure and to fame : *
Sometimes remindful of his youth's high vow,
Of hopes and aspirations, fables now.

When came to Rome his sire of moral lore,
That Master, whom his love could ne'er forget,
He too a proud Philosopher no more,

He too his past reviewing with regret,

But preaching One, who can on man bestow
Truth to be wise and strength to keep him so.

Alipius was appointed Assessor of Justice to the Treasurer of Italy.

The secret of that strength the Christian sage
To his regained disciple there unsealed,

Giving his stagnant soul a war to wage

With weapons that at once were sword and shield;
And thenceforth ever down Tradition glide
Augustin and Alipius side by side.*

And in this strength years afterward arose
That aged priest Telemachus, who cast
His life among those brutalising shows,
And died a willing victim and the last,
Leaving that temple of colossal crime
In silent battle with almighty Time.

CHARLEMAGNE, AND THE HYMN OF CHRIST.

"And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives."-MATT. XXVI. 30; MARK XIV. 26.

THE great King Karl sat in his secret room,—

He had sat there all day;

He had not called on minstrel knight or groom

To wile one hour away.

Of arms or royal toil he had no care,

Nor e'en of royal mirth;

As if a poor lone monk he rather were,

Than lord of half the earth.

* They went together to Milan, where they were both baptised by St. Ambrose on Easter Eve, A.D. 387. Thence they returned to Africa, and lived in monastic community in their native town of Tagaste. Alipius afterwards removed to Hippo, and visited St. Jerome in Palestine: he was consecrated Bishop of Tagaste, A.D. 393.

But chance he had some pleasant company,
Dear wife, familiar friend,

With whom to let the quiet hours slip by,
As if they had no end?

The learned Alcuin, that large-browed clerk,
Was there within, and none beside;

A book they read, and, where the sense was dark,
He was a trusty guide.

What book had worth so long to occupy

The thought of such a king,

To make the weight of all that sovereignty
Be a forgotten thing?

Surely it were no other than the one,

Whose every line is fraught

With what a mightier King than He had done, Conquered, endured, and taught.

There his great soul, drawn onward by the eye, Saw in plain chronicle portrayed

The slow unfolding of the mystery

On which its life was stayed.

There read he how when Jesus, our dear Lord,
To men of sin and dust had given,

By the transforming magic of his word,
The bread of very Heaven;

So that our race, by Adam's fatal food
Reduced to base decline,

Partaking of that body and that blood,
Might be again divine,—

After this wondrous largess, and before
The unimagined pain,

Which, in Gethsemane, the Saviour bore
Within his heart and brain,—

He read, how these two acts of Love between,

Ere that prolific day was dim,

Christ and his Saints, like men with minds serene, Together sung a hymn.

These things he read in childly faith sincere,
Then paused and fixed his eye,

And said with kingly utte'rance—“I must hear
That Hymn before I die.

"I will send forth through sea and sun and snows,

To lands of every tongue,

To try if there be not some one which knows
The music Jesus sung.

"For I have found delight in songs profane
Trolled by a foolish boy,

And when the monks intone a pious strain,
My heart is strong in joy;

"How blessed then to hear those harmonies, Which Christ's own voice divine engaged! 'Twould be as if a wind from Paradise

A wounded soul assuaged."

Within the Empe'ror's mind that anxious thought Lay travailing all night long,

He dreamed that Magi to his hand had brought The burthen of the Song;