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النشر الإلكتروني

LXIV.-MONK FELIX.

LONGFELLOW.

1. One morning all alone,

Out of his convent of gray stone,
Into the forest older, darker, grayer,
His lips moving as if in prayer,
His head sunken upon his breast
As in a dream of rest,

Walked the Monk Felix. All about
The broad, sweet sunshine lay without
Filling the summer air;

And within the woodlands as he trod,
The twilight was like the truce of God,
With worldly woe and care.

2 Under him lay the golden moss;

And above him the boughs of the hemlock trees

Waved, and made the sign of the cross,

And whispered their Benedicites;

And from the ground

Rose an odor, sweet and fragrant,

Of the wild-flowers and the vagrant

Vines that wandered,

Seeking the sunshine round and round;
These he heeded not, but pondered

On the volume in his hand,
A volume of St. Augustin,
Wherein he read of the unseen
Splendors of God's great town

In the unknown and,

And, with his eyes cast down,

In humility he said:

"I believe, O God,

What herein I have read,

But, alas! I do not understand!"

3. And lo! he heard

The sudden singing of a bird,

A snow-white bird, that from a cloud
Dropped down,

And among the branches brown

Sat singing

So sweet, and clear, and loud

It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing,

And the Monk Felix closed his book,

And long, long,

With rapturous look,

He listened to the song,

And hardly breathed or stirred,

Until he saw, as in a vision,

The land of Elysian,

And in the heavenly city heard

Angelic feet

Fall on the golden flagging of the street.

And he would fain have caught the wondrous bird,

But strove in vain;

For it flew away, away,

Far over hill and dell,

And instead of its sweet singing

He heard the convent bell

Suddenly in the silence ringing

For the service of noonday.

And he retraced

His pathway homeward, sadly and in haste. 4 In the convent there was a change! He looked for each well-known face, But the faces were new and strange; New figures sat in the oaken stalls, New voices chanted in the choir; Yet the place was the same place, The same dusty walls

Of old gray stone;

The same cloisters, and belfry, and spire.

6. A stranger and alone.

Among that brotherhood

The Monk Felix stood.

66

Forty years," said a friar,

"Have I been prior

Of this convent in the wood;

But for that space,

Never have I beheld thy face!"

6. The heart of the Monk Felix fell;

And he answered with submissive tone, "This morning after the hour of Prime I left my cell,

And wandered forth alone,

Listening all the time

To the melodious singing

Of a beautiful white bird.

Until I heard

The bells of the convent ringing
Noon from their noisy towers.
It was as if I dreamed;

For what to me had seemed
Moments only, had been hours !"

7. "Years!" said a voice close by.
It was an aged monk who spoke,
From a bench of oak

Fastened against the wall;

He was the oldest monk of all.

For a whole century

Had he been there,

Serving God in prayer,

The meekest and humblest of his creatures.

He remembered well the features

Of Felix, and he said,

Speaking distinct and slow

"One hundred years ago,

When I was a novice in this place,

There was here a monk full of God's grace,

Who bore the name

Of Felix, and this man must be the same."

8. And straightway

They brought forth to the light of day

A volume old and brown,

A huge tome, bound

In brass and wild boar's hide,

Wherein was written down

The names of all who had died

In the convent since it was edified.

And there they found,

Just as the old monk said,

That on a certain day and date,

One hundred years before,

Had gone forth from the convent gate
The Monk Felix, and never more

Had entered that sacred door.

He had been counted among the dead!

And they knew, at last,

That such had been the power

Of that celestial and immortal song,

A hundred years had passed,

And had not seemed so long as a single hour!

LXIV. THE FIRST CRUSADE.

CONDENSED FROM MICHELET,

1. A Picard, usually called Peter the Hermit, is said to have powerfully contributed, by his eloquence, to the great popular movement. On his return from a pil

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