THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL

" Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled! "
That is what the Vision said.

In his chamber all alone,
Kneeling on the floor of stone,
Prayed the Monk in deep contrition
For his sins of indecision,
Prayed for greater self-denial
In temptation and in trial;
It was noonday by the dial,
And the Monk was all alone.

Suddenly, as if it lightened,
An unwonted splendor brightened
All within him and without him
In that narrow cell of stone;
And he saw the Blessed Vision

Well pleased the audience heard the tale
The Theologian said: " Indeed,
To praise you there is little need;
One almost hears the farmer's flail
Thresh out your wheat, nor does there fail
A certain freshness, as you said,
And sweetness as of home made bread
But not less sweet and not less fresh
Are many legends that I know,
Writ by the monks of long-ago,
Who loved to mortify the flesh,
So that the soul might purer grow,
And rise to a diviner state;
And one of these — perhaps of all
Most beautiful — I now recall,

LADY WENTWORTH

One hundred years ago, and something more,
In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door,
Neat as a pin, and blooming as a rose,
Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows,
Just as her cuckoo-clock was striking nine
Above her head, resplendent on the sign,
The portrait of the Earl of Halifax,
In scarlet coat and periwig of flax,
Surveyed at leisure all her varied charms,
Her cap, her bodice, her white folded arms,
And half resolved, though he was past his prime,

When the long murmur of applause
That greeted the Musician's lay
Had slowly buzzed itself away,
And the long talk of Spectre Ships
That followed died upon their lips
And came unto a natural pause,
" These tales you tell are one and all
Of the Old World, " the Poet said,
" Flowers gathered from a crumbling wall,
Dead leaves that rustle as they fall;
Let me present you in their stead
Something of our New England earth,
A tale, which, though of no great worth,
Has still this merit, that it yields
A certain freshness of the fields,

THE BALLAD OF CARMILHAN

I

At Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea,
Within the sandy bar,
At sunset of a summer's day,
Ready for sea, at anchor lay
The good ship Valdemar.

The sunbeams danced upon the waves,
And played along her side;
And through the cabin windows streamed
In ripples of golden light, that seemed
The ripple of the tide

There sat the captain with his friends,

" What was the end? I am ashamed.
Not to remember Reynard's fate;
I have not read the book of late;
Was he not hanged? " the Poet said
The Student gravely shook his head,
And answered: " You exaggerate.
There was a tournament proclaimed,
And Reynard fought with Isegrim
The Wolf, and having vanquished him,
Rose to high honor in the State,
And Keeper of the Seals was named! "

At this the gay Sicilian laughed:
" Fight fire with fire, and craft with craft;
Successful cunning seems to be
The moral of your tale, " said he.

THE COBBLER OF HAGENAU

I trust that somewhere and somehow
You all have heard of Hagenau,
A quiet, quaint, and ancient town
Among the green Alsatian hills
A place of valleys, streams, and mills,
Where Barbarossa's castle, brown
With rust of centuries, still looks down
On the broad, drowsy land below, —
On shadowy forests filled with game,
And the blue river winding slow
Through meadows, where the hedges grow
That give this little town its name

It happened in the good old times,

" I thought before your tale began, "
The Student murmured, " we should have
Some legend written by Judah Rav
In his Gemara of Babylon;
Or something from the Gulistan, —
The tale of the Cazy of Hamadan,
Or of that King of Khorasan
Who saw in dreams the eyes of one
That had a hundred years been dead
Still moving restless in his head,
Undimmed, and gleaming with the lust
Of power, though all the rest was dust.

" But lo! your glittering caravan
On the road that leadeth to Ispahan
Hath led us farther to the East

KAMBALU

Into the city of Kambalu,
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan,
At the head of his dusty caravan,
Laden with treasure from realms afar,
Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar,
Rode the great captain Alau.

The Khan from his palace-window gazed,
And saw in the thronging street beneath,
In the light of the setting sun, that blazed
Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised,
The flash of harness and jewelled sheath,
And the shining scimitars of the guard,

" Yes, well your story pleads the cause
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech,
Only a cry from each to each
In its own kind, with its own laws;
Something that is beyond the reach
Of human power to learn or teach, —
An inarticulate moan of pain,
Like the immeasurable main
Breaking upon an unknown beach. "

Thus spake the Poet with a sigh;
Then added, with impassioned cry,
As one who feels the words he speaks,
The color flushing in his cheeks,
The fervor burning in his eye:
" Among the noblest in the land,