And when to his grave offices he rose,
He kept his earnest will,

To offer untold guerdons unto those
Who should that dream fulfil.

But first he called to counsel in the hall
Wise priests of reve'rend name,

And with an open counte'nance to them all
Declared his hope and aim.

He said, "It is God's pleasure, that my will

Is made the natural law

Of many nations, so that out of ill
All good things I may draw.

"Therefore this holy mission I decree, Sparing no pains or cost,

That thus those sounds of dearest memory

Be not for ever lost."

They spake.

"Tradition streameth thro' our race,

Most like the gentle whistling air,

To which of old Elias veiled his face,

Conscious that God was there:

"Not in the storm, the earthquake, and the flame,

That troubled Horeb's brow,

The splendour and the power of God then came, Nor thus he cometh now.

"The silent water filtereth through earth,
One day to bless the summer land;

The Word of God in Man slow bubbleth forth,
Touched by a worthy hand.

"Thus, in the memo'ry of some careful Jew May lurk the record of a tune

Wont to be sung in ceremonial due

After the Paschal noon;

"And thy deep yearning for this mystic song

May give mankind at last

Some charm and blessing that has slept full long
The slumber of the Past."

The King rejoiced, and, at this high behest,
Men, to all toil and change inured,

Passed out to search the World if East or West
That legend still endured.

What good or ill those venturous hearts befell,
What glory or what shame,—

How far they wandered, I have not to tell;
Each has his sepa'rate fame.

I only know, that when the weight of hours
The prime of mortal heads had bowed,
He, slowly letting go his outward powers,
Spoke from his couch aloud :-

"My soul has waited many a lingeʼring year To taste that one delight,

And now I know at last that I shall hear

The hymn of Christ to-night.

"Look out, good friends! be prompt to welcome home,

Straight to my presence bring,

My messengers, who hither furnished come

The Song of Christ to sing."

Dark sank that night, but darker rose the morn,
That found the western earth

Of the divinest presence stripped and shorn
It ever woke to birth.

It seemed beyond the common lawful sway
Of Death and Nature o'er our kind,
That such a one as He should pass away,
And aught be left behind.

In Aachen Abbey's consecrated ground,
Within the hollowed stone,

They placed the imperial body, robed and crowned,
Seated as on a throne.

While the blest spirit holds communion free

With that eternal quire,

Of which on earth to trace the memory

Was his devout desire.*

* It is probable that the hymn sung on this occasion was the Hallèl, or part of it. The Hallèl is invariably chanted in all Jewish families on the two first evenings of the Passover, and consists of Psalms 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, and 118, and is also read in the synagogue on every day

of that feast.

THE NORTHERN KNIGHT IN ITALY.*

THIS is the record, true as his own word,

Of the adventures of a Christian knight,

Who, when beneath the foul Karasmian sword +
God's rescued city sunk to hopeless night,
Desired, before he gain'd his northern home,
To soothe his wounded heart at holy Rome.

And having found, in that reflected heaven,
More than Cæsarean splendors and delights,
So that it seemed to his young sense was given
An unimagined world of sounds and sights ;—
Yet, half regretful of the long delay,

He joined some comrades on their common way.

The Spring was mantling that Italian land,
The Spring! the passion-season of our earth,
The joy, whose wings will never all expand,—
The gladsome travail of continuous birth,—
The force that leaves no creature unimbued
With amorous Nature's bland inquietude.

Though those hard sons of tumult and bold life,
Little as might be, own'd the tender power,
And only show'd their words and gestures rife
With the benign excitement of the hour,—
Yet one, the one of whom this tale is told,
In his deep soul was utterly controll❜d.

* The story of Tannhäuser is now so well known through Mr. Julian Fane's and other Poems, that it is unnecessary to repeat the historical notice of former editions: "Der Tannhäuser und Ewige Jude" of Grüsse (Dresden, 1861) gives the whole cycle of the Legend.

At the conclusion of the last crusade.

New thoughts sprung up within him,—

-new desires Opened their panting bosoms to the sun : Imagination scattered lights and fires O'er realms before impenetrably dun; His senses, energized with wondrous might, Mingled in lusty contest of delight.

The once-inspiring talk of steel and steeds
And famous captains lost its ancient zest;
The free recital of illustrious deeds

Came to him vapid as a thrice-told jest ;
His fancy was of angels penance-bound

To convoy sprites of ill through heavenly ground.

The first-love vision of those azure eyes,
Twin stars that blessed and kept his spirit cool,
Down-beaming from the brazen Syrian skies,
Now seem'd the spectral doting of a fool,—
Unwelcome visitants that stood between
Him and the livelier glories of the scene.

What wanted he with such cold monitors?
What business had he with the past at all?
Well, in the pauses of those clamo'rous wars,
Such dull endearment might his heart enthral,
But, in this universe of blissful calm,

He had no pain to need that homely balm.

Occasion, therefore, in itself though slight
He made of moment to demand his stay,
Where some rare houses, in the clear white light,
Like flakes of snow among the verdure lay;
And bade the company give little heed,
He would o'ertake them by redoubled speed.