A double picture, with its gloom and glow,

The splendour overhead, the death below.

This sombre man counted each day as lost

On which his feet no sacred threshold crossed;

And when he chanced the passing Host

to meet,

He knelt and prayed devoutly in the

street;

Oft he confessed; and with each mutinous thought,

As with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought.

In deep contrition scourged himself in Lent,

Walked in processions, with his head down bent,

At plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of green.

His only pastime was to hunt the boar Through tangled thickets of the forest hoar,

Or with his jingling mules to hurry down To some grand bull-fight in the neighbouring town,

Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand, When Jews were burned, or banished from the land.

Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy;

The demon whose delight is to destroy Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet

He listened in the passage when they talked,

He watched them from the casement

when they walked,

He saw the gipsy haunt the river's side, He saw the monk among the cork-trees glide;

And, tortured by the mystery and the doubt

Of some dark secret, past his finding out, Baffled he paused; then reassured again Pursued the flying phantom of his brain. He watched them even when they knelt in church!

The old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words, Walked homeward with the Priest, and in his room

Summoned his trembling daughters to their doom.

When questioned, with brief answers they replied,

Nor when accused evaded or denied ;
Expostulations, passionate appeals,
All that the human heart most fears or
feels,

In vain the Priest with earnest voice essayed,

In vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed;

Until at last he said, with haughty mien, "The Holy Office, then, must intervene !"

And now the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, With all the fifty horsemen of his train, His awful name resounding, like the

blast

Of funeral trumpets, as he onward passed,

Came to Valladolid, and there began To harry the rich Jews with fire and ban. To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate Demanded audience on affairs of state, And in a secret chamber stood before A venerable graybeard of fourscore, Dressed in the hood and habit of a friar; Out of his eyes flashed a consuming fire, And in his hand the mystic horn he held, Which poison and all noxious charms dispelled.

He heard in silence the Hidalgo's tale, Then answered in a voice that made

His name has perished with him, and

no trace

Remains on earth of his afflicted race; But Torquemada's name, with clouds o'ercast,

Looms in the distant landscape of the Past,

Like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath,

Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath!

INTERLUDE.

THUS closed the tale of guilt and gloom,
That cast upon each listener's face
Its shadow, and for some brief space
Unbroken silence filled the room.
The Jew was thoughtful and distressed;
Upon his memory thronged and pressed
The persecution of his race,

Their wrongs and sufferings and dis

grace;

His head was sunk upon his breast,
And from his eyes alternate came
Flashes of wrath and tears of shame.

The Student first the silence broke,
As one who long has lain in wait,
With purpose to retaliate,

And thus he dealt the avenging stroke.

In such a company as this,

A tale so tragic seems amiss,
That by its terrible control
O'ermasters and drags down the soul
Into a fathomless abyss.

The Italian Tales that you disdain,
Some merry Night of Straparole,
Or Machiavelli's Belphagor,
Would cheer us and delight us more,
Give greater pleasure and less pain
Than your grim tragedies of Spain !"

And here the Poet raised his hand,
With such entreaty and command,
It stopped discussion at its birth,
And said: "The story I shall tell
Has meaning in it, if not mirth ;
Listen, and hear what once befell
The merry birds of Killingworth!"

404

noise

ago;

crow,

That mingled with the universal mirth,
Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe ;
They shook their heads, and doomed
with dreadful words

To swift destruction the whole race of
birds.

And a town-meeting was convened straightway

To set a price upon the guilty heads Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, Levied black-mail upon the gardenbeds

And corn-fields, and beheld without dismay

The awful scarecrow, with its fluttering shreds;

The skeleton that waited at their feast, Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased.

Then from his house, a temple painted white,

With fluted columns, and a roof of red,

The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight!

Slowly descending, with majestic tread,

Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right,

Down the long street he walked, as

one who said,

"A town that boasts inhabitants like me Can have no lack of good society!

The Parson too, appeared, a man austere, The instinct of whose nature was to kill;

The wrath of God he preached from year to year,

And read, with fervour, Edwards on the Will;