Curse and scorn, that they quiver to hear,
With a half-dead heart and a sickening fear.

Curses that blast, and withering scorn;
Jesu! O had she never been born!

Jesu! O that the earth would break,

And straight the quick to the dead would take!

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Up, foul minion! your foul joy's past;

"Hate, and not love, is here at last.

"What! you must toy with a crownèd king, "With the hand that God saw set on this, this ring!

"Up! swore I not that we should meet?
"Up! ere I tread you beneath my feet.

66 Mercy? No-not in life nor death;
"The air is hell while it holds your breath.

"Mercy? Yes-for body and soul;

"Such mercy as lurks in this poniard and bowl.

"Well did you plot my mercy to earn!
"Rise! How, minion, your prayers I spurn!

"Thus I laugh at your vain despair;
"Rise, ere I tear you up by the hair.

"Rise, and shudder! I-Eleanor-I
"Hiss in your ears: Arise, and die !"

Up she rises, a ghastly sight;
O but her lips are cold and white!

O but white is her ghastly cheek!

And O but what horror her fix'd eyes speak!

Vacant of sense her glassy stare

On the cup thrust out, and the keen knife bare.

Her stare, that seems not to understand

What glares from each stony outstretch'd hand;

Her stare, that sees all as if it seem'd,
As if but a feverish dream it dream'd.

Yet real is the steel and real the draught,

The steel to be felt, or the death to be quaff'd.

Real the ghastly hush that she hears,

And the ghastly "Choose!" that shrills through her ears.

Which shall she seize, and which refuse?

For ever she hears that murderous "Choose i "

66

Choose, ere my dagger loose you to tell

"The tale of your cursed shame to hell!"

Not the stab from her hands! not a touch from them! Swift her fingers clutch on the gold cup's stem.

As if life were hateful, at once she drains
The draught, till no fearful drop remains.

As if life were fled from, and death were sweet,
She drinks, and lies at the fierce Queen's feet.

And sharp and shrill is her one wild cry, "O God, but to see my boys ere I die!

"O Henry!" and with that name her breath Flutters and stills to stirless death.

The deed is done-the deed of hell;

What the grim Queen feels what tongue may tell!

As she looks a look at the staring clay,
And wordless and frowning turns away.

Yet again she turns and stoops her down,
And darker and feller yet grows her frown.

A fair long tress her dagger has shorn;
That tress her page to the King has borne.

"A wifely gift to the Queen's Lord sent."
O but the grim King strode his tent!

With a wounded lion's growl and glare,
As he ground his teeth o'er the pale tress there.

As through his set teeth there raged an oath,
And he plighted again to the dead his troth.

And an oath of vengeance he fiercely swore,
To the white cold one he should see no more.

Well for you is it, darksome Queen,
The ocean rolls you and your Lord between!

Else small his mercy, and short the shrift

Of her who her hand 'gainst the Clifford dared lift.

Yet better were that than your fearsome doom,

That gives you, Queen, to a living tomb;

That gives your fierce life, day by day,
In a dungeon's darkness to chafe away.

To chafe and to rage, and to vainly tear
At the grate that bars you from light and air.

Your rage or your patience to him the same
To whom your token of vengeance came.

fierce heart feel

Till your blood grow tame and your
For pardon it well could grovel and kneel.

For the feel of the breeze and the warm free sun,

It could half wish its vengeful deed undone.

In Godstowe nunnery's shadowy gloom,
Was "Rosa Mundi" carved on a tomb.

And the tomb's sides white fair roses crept up Cunningly twined round a carven cup.

Prayed for with mass and with holy prayer,
Chant and hymn, the Clifford lay there.

Still and carven in fair white stone,
She lay in the quiet choir alone.

Till Lincoln's bishop, Hugh, pass'd that way,
And enter'd the holy choir to pray.

And seeing that tomb, more fair than all,
With its lights of wax and its silken pall,

And learning there Henry's light love lay,
Commanded straight she be borne away ;

Holding her pomp the Church's disgrace,
Spurning her sin from its resting-place.

Now Mary Mother more mercy show,
Than living, or dead, she knew below!

Now God from her soul assoil all sin,
And give her at last unto bliss to win!

For what better bait can the Devil fling
For a woman's soul, than the love of a King?

Heaven rest her soul, and shield us all,
And aid us to stand, and not to fall!

And Mary Mother give us to rest

At last in bliss with the Saints so blest!

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SKETCHES FROM A PAINTER'S STUDIO.

A TALE OF TO-DAY.

A BROAD stream, smooth with deep-grassed fields,
Through rushy turnings winding slow;
A dam where stirless waters sleep
Till shot on the mossed wheel below
A dusty mill, whose shadows fall
On the stayed waters, white o'er all.

A vine-climbed cottage, redly-tiled,
Deep-nooked within an orchard's green,
Past which a white road winds away,
That hedgerow elms from summer screen;
A busy wheel's near sound that tells,
Within, the thriving miller dwells.

A cottage parlour, neatly gay,
With little comforts brightened round,
Where simple ornaments, that speak
Of more than country taste, abound,
Where bookcase and piano well
Of more than village polish tell.

A bluff blunt miller, well to do,

Of broad loud laugh-not hard to please;
A kindly housewife, keen and sage—
And busy as her very bees;

A bright-eyed daughter-mirth and health,
Their pride their wealth above all wealth.

A tripping, fair, light-hearted girl,
Not yet the ripened woman quite,
Whose cheerful mirth and thoughtful love
Light up the cottage with delight,
And with a thousand gentle ways
With pleasure brim her parents' days.

A titled slip of lordly blood,
A few weeks' lounger at the Hall,