III.

A STREET IN STRASBURG.

Night. PRINCE HENRY wandering alone, wrapped in a cloak.

PRINCE HENRY.

Still is the night. The sound of feet
Has died away from the empty street,
And like an artisan, bending down
His head on his anvil, the dark town
Sleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet.
Sleepless and restless, I alone,

In the dusk and damp of these walls of stone,

Wander and weep in my remorse!

CRIER OF THE DEAD, ringing a bell.
Wake! wake!
All ye that sleep!
Pray for the Dead!
Pray for the Dead!

PRINCE HENRY.

Hark! with what accents loud and

hoarse

This warder on the walls of death
Sends forth the challenge of his breath!
I see the dead that sleep in the grave!
They rise up and their garments wave,
Dimly and spectral, as they rise,
With the light of another world in
their eyes!

CRIER OF THE DEAD.

Wake! wake!

All ye that sleep!

Pray for the Dead!
Pray for the Dead!

PRINCE HENRY.

Why for the dead, who are at rest?
Pray for the living, in whose breast
The struggle between right and wrong
Is raging terrible and strong,
As when good angels war with devils!
This is the Master of the Revels,
Who, at Life's flowing feast, proposes
The health of absent friends, and
pledges,

Not in bright goblets crowned with roses,

And tinkling as we touch their edges,
But with his dismal, tinkling bell,
That mocks and mimics their funeral
knell.

CRIER OF THE DEAD.
Wake! wake!
All ye that sleep!
Pray for the Dead!
Pray for the Dead!

PRINCE HENRY.

Wake not, beloved! be thy sleep
Silent as night is, and as deep!
There walks a sentinel at thy gate
Whose heart is heavy and desolate,
And the heavings of whose bosom num-
ber

The respirations of thy slumber,
As if some strange, mysterious fate
Had linked two hearts in one, and mine
Went madly wheeling about thine,
Only with wider and wilder sweep!

CRIER OF THE DEAD, at a distance.
Wake! wake!

Lo!

All ye that sleep! Pray for the Dead! Pray for the Dead!

PRINCE HENRY.

with what depth of blackness
thrown

Against the clouds, far up the skies
The walls of the cathedral rise,
Like a mysterious grove of stone,
With fitful lights and shadows blend-
ing,

As from behind, the moon ascending, Lights its dim aisles and paths unknown!

The wind is rising; but the boughs
Rise not and fall not with the wind,
That through their foliage sobs and
soughs;

Only the cloudy rack behind,
Drifting onward, wild and ragged,
Gives to each spire and buttress jagged
A seeming motion undefined.

Below on the square, an armèd knight,
Still as a statue and as white,

Sits on his steed, and the moonbeams quiver

Upon the points of his armor bright
As on the ripples of a river.
He lifts the visor from his cheek,
And beckons, and makes as he would
speak.

WALTER the Minnesinger. Friend! can you tell me where alight Thuringia's horsemen for the night?

I scatter downward through the night
My maledictions dark and deep.
I have more martyrs in your walls
Than God has; and they cannot sleep;
They are my bondsmen and my thralls;
Their wretched lives are full of pain,
Wild agonies of nerve and brain;
And every heart-beat, every breath,
Is a convulsion worse than death!
Sleep, sleep, O city! though within
The circuit of your walls there be
No habitation free from sin,
And all its nameless misery;
The aching heart, the aching head,
Grief for the living and the dead,
And foul corruption of the time,
Disease, distress, and want, and woe,
And crimes, and passions that may

grow

Until they ripen into crime!

SQUARE IN FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL.

Easter Sunday. FRIAR CUTHBERT preaching to the crowd from a pulpit in the open air. PRINCE HENRY and Elsie crossing the square.

PRINCE HENRY.

This is the day, when from the dead
Our Lord arose; and everywhere,
Out of their darkness and despair,
Triumphant over fears and foes,
The hearts of his disciples rose,
When to the women, standing near,
The Angel in shining vesture said,

The Lord is risen; he is not here!"
And, mindful that the day is come,
On all the hearths in Christendom
The fires are quenched, to be again
Rekindled from the sun, that high
Is dancing in the cloudless sky.

The churches are all decked with flow

PRINCE HENRY.

A pulpit in the open air,

And a Friar, who is preaching to the crowd

In a voice so deep and clear and loud,
That, if we listen, and give heed,
His lowest words will reach the ear.

FRIAR CUTHBERT, gesticulating and cracking a postilion's whip.

What ho! good people! do you not hear? Dashing along at the top of his speed, Booted and spurred, on his jaded steed, A courier comes with words of cheer. Courier! what is the news, I pray ? "Christ is arisen!" Whence come you? "From court."

Then I do not believe it; you say it in sport.

Cracks his whip again.

Ah, here comes another, riding this

way;

We soon shall know what he has to say. Courier! what are the tidings to-day? "Christ is arisen!" Whence come you? "From town."

Then I do not believe it; away with you, clown.

Cracks his whip more violently.

And here comes a third, who is spurring amain;

What news do you bring, with your loose-hanging rein,

Your spurs wet with blood, and your bridle with foam?

"Christ is arisen!" Whence come you? "From Rome."

Ah, now I believe. He is risen, indeed.

should carry

The tidings thereof to the Virgin Mary, Pierced to the heart with sorrows seven. Old Father Adam was first to propose, As being the author of all our woes; But he was refused, for fear, said they, He would stop to eat apples on the way! Abel came next, but petitioned in vain, Because he might meet with his brother Cain!

Noah, too, was refused, lest his weakness for wine

Should delay him at every tavern-sign; And John the Baptist could not get a vote,

On account of his old-fashioned camel'shair coat;

And the Penitent Thief, who died on the

cross,

Was reminded that all his bones were broken!

Til at last, when each in turn had spoken,

The company being still at loss,
The Angel, who rolled away the stone,
Was sent to the sepulchre, all alone.
And filled with glory that gloomy
prison,

And said to the Virgin, "The Lord is arisen!"

The Cathedral bells ring.

But hark! the bells are beginning to chime;

And I feel that I am growing hoarse.
I will put an end to my discourse,
And leave the rest for some other time.
For the bells themselves are the best of

Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon, and now a prayer.
The clangorous hammer is the tongue,

of Gold,

May be taught the Testaments, New

and Old.

And above it the great cross-beam of wood

Representeth the Holy Rood,

Upon which, like the bell, our hopes are hung.

And the wheel wherewith it is swayed and rung

Is the mind of man, that round and round

Sways, and maketh the tongue to sound!

And the rope, with its twisted cordage three,

Denoteth the Scriptural Trinity
Of Morals, and Symbols, and History;
And the upward and downward motion
show

That we touch upon matters high and low;

And the constant change and transmutation

Of action and of contemplation, Downward, the Scripture brought from on high,

Upward, exalted again to the sky;
Downward, the literal interpretation,
Upward, the Vision and Mystery!

And now, my hearers, to make an end,
I have only one word more to say;
In the church, in honor of Easter day
Will be presented a Miracle Play ;
And I hope you will have the grace to
attend.

Christ bring us at last to his felicity!
Pax vobiscum! et Benedicite!

IN THE CATHEDRAL.

CHANT.

Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison!