Staggering, the King had risen, "Whate'er it be, 'Tis thine. By Mahomet I swear 'tis thine!

Then Dara laughed once more; her eyes were homes
Of luminous promise, and her lifted face

Beamed ravishment from symmetries unguessed
Till now. . . . "I ask the head of thine Esmeth!”

Between her words thus given, and what next fell,
It seemed to Shah-Zarar one moment's flash. . .
Later, vague memories thrilled him that he spoke
With harsh command, while hearing as in dream
Warnings from minions born but to obey,
And that in wrath he towered insistently
Till seized by fright men fled to work his hest,
However terrible, and that Dara danced
More near his throne's foot, and he stooped to her,
Infatuate, pleading she would share his power,
And rule, his Dara, Queen as he was King.

Then suddenly the wan mists fled and made
The audience-hall as ever it had been,

Save that a eunuch cowered before his throne,
Bearing a head whose neck yet dripped with blood,—
Esmeh's! And now crying out with grief,
The wild King burst the trammels of his trance;

And as he wakened, echoing his mad wail,

The sorceress vanished with a shriek of hate,
To leave him glaring at her ghastly work.

Many the silent centuries ago

Since fell this deed of shadowy tragedy;

But night winds breathe it yet o'er glades and dells
Of Persian hills; and moonlit streams that pour
From Demavênd's high snows yet murmur it;
And Caspian billows mourn it as they break ;
Or southward, where Persepolis rears pale
Her marble memories of dead state, the stars
Robe in their melancholy of eloquence,
Whose voice is light, the anguish of the tale.

A STRAGGLER.

I LEFT the throng whose laughter made.
That wide old woodland echo clear,
While forth they spread, in breezy shade,
Their plethoric hamperfuls of cheer.

Along a dark moss-misted plank
My way in dreamy mood I took,
And crossed, from balmy bank to bank,
The impetuous silver of the brook.

And wandering on, at last I found
A shadowy tranquil gladelike place,
Full of mellifluous leafy sound,

While midmost of its grassy space

A lump of rugged granite gleamed,
A tawny-lichened ledge of grey,
And up among the boughs there beamed
One blue delicious glimpse of day!

In fitful faintness on my ear

The picnic's lightsome laughter fell, And softly, while I lingered here, Sweet fancy bound me with a spell! In some bland clime across the seas

Those merry tones I seem to mark, While dame and gallant roamed at ease The pathways of some stately park.

And in that glimpse of amethyst air

I seemed to watch, with musing eye, The rich blue fragment, fresh and fair, Of some dead summer's morning sky! And that rough mass of granite, too,

From graceless outlines gently waned, And took the sculptured shape and hue Of dull old marble, deeply stained.

And then (most beauteous change of all!)
Strewn o'er its mottled slab lay low
A glove, a lute, a silken shawl,

A vellum-bound Boccaccio !

IVY.

ILL canst thou bide in alien lands like these,
Whose home lies over seas,

Among manorial halls, parks wide and fair,
Churches antique, and where

Long hedges flower in May, and one can hark
To carollings from old England's lovely lark!
Ill canst thou bide where memories are so brief,
Thou that hast bathed thy leaf

Deep in the shadowy past, and known strange things.
Of crumbled queens and kings;

Thou whose dead kindred, in years half forgot,
Robed the grey battlements of proud Camelot !
Through all thy fibre's intricate expanse

Hast thou breathed sweet romance;
Ladies that long are dust thou hast beheld
Through dreamy days of eld;

Watched in broad castle-courts the merry light
Bathe gaudy banneret and resplendent knight.
And thou hast seen, on ancient lordly lawns,
The timorous dappled fawns;

Heard pensive pages with their suave lutes play
Some low Provençal lay;

Marked beauteous dames through arrased chambers glide,
With lazy and graceful stag-hounds at their side.

And thou hast gazed on splendid cavalcades
Of nobles, matrons, maids,

Winding from castle gates on breezy morns,
With golden peals of horns,

In velvet and brocade, in plumes and silk,
With falcons, and with palfreys white as milk.

Through convent-casements thou hast peered, and there
Viewed the meek nun at prayer;

Seen, through rich panes dyed purple, gold and rose,
Monks read old folios;

On abbey-walls heard wild laughs thrill thy vine
When the fat tonsured priests quaffed ruby wine.
O ivy, having lived in times like these,
Here art thou ill at ease;

For thou art one with ages passed away,
We are of yesterday;

Short retrospect, slight ancestry is ours,

But thy dark leaves clothes history's haughty towers!

JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE.

Author of

[Born in Queen's County, Ireland, 31st May 1847. Songs and Satires (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1887), from which volume the four last poems are taken by special permission.]

SIR HUGO'S CHOICE.

IT is better to die, since death comes surely,
In the full noontide of an honoured name,
Than to lie at the end of years obscurely,

A handful of dust in a shroud of shame.

Sir Hugo lived in the ages golden,

Warder of Aisne and Picardy;

He lived and died, and his deeds are told in
The Book immortal of Chivalrie:

How he won the love of a prince's daughter-
A poor knight he with a stainless sword-
Whereat Count Rolf, who had vainly sought her,
Swore death should sit at the bridal board.
"A braggart's threat, for a brave man's scorning!
And Hugo laughed at his rival's ire,
But couriers twain, on the bridal morning,
To his castle gate came with tidings dire.

The first a-faint and with armour riven:

"In peril sore have I left thy bride,— False Rolf waylaid us. For love and Heaven! Sir Hugo, quick to the rescue ride!"

Stout Hugo muttered a word unholy;

He sprang to horse and he flashed his brand, But a hand was laid on his bridle slowly, And a herald spoke: "By the king's command,

"This to Picardy's trusty warder :

France calls first for his loyal sword,

The Flemish spears are across the border,
And all is lost if they win the ford."

Sir Hugo paused, and his face was ashen,
His white lips trembled in silent prayer—
God's pity soften the spirit's passion

When the crucifixion of Love is there!
What need to tell of the message spoken?

Of the hand that shook as he poised his lance?
And the look that told of his brave heart broken,
As he bade them follow, "For God and France!"
On Cambray's field next morn they found him,
'Mid a mighty swath of foemen dead;
Her snow-white scarf he had bound around him
With his loyal blood was baptisèd red.

It is all writ down in the book of glory,
On crimson pages of blood and strife,
With scanty thought for the simple story
Of duty dearer than love or life.

Only a note obscure, appended

By warrior scribe or monk perchance,

Saith: "The good knight's ladye was sore offended That he would not die for her but France."

Did the ladye live to lament her lover?

Or did roystering Rolf prove a better mate?
I have searched the records over and over,
But nought discover to tell her fate.