Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain whereby

His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;

And, looking from the casement, saw below

A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,

And withered hands held up to him, who cried

For alms as one who might not be denied.

She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave

His life for ours, my child from bondage save,

My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves

In the Moor's galley, where the sunsmit waves

Lap the white walls of Tunis !""What I can

I give," Tritemius said: "my prayers." "O man

Of God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold,

"Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.

Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice;

Even while I speak perchance my firstborn dies."

289

God is: and man in guilt and fear

The central fact of Nature owns ;Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones, And darkly dreams the ghastly smear Of blood appeases and atones.

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within
The human heart the secret lies
Of all the hideous deities;
And, painted on a ground of sin,

The fabled gods of torment rise!

And what is He?-The ripe grain nods, The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow:

But darker signs his presence show: The earthquake and the storm are God's, And good and evil interflow.

O hearts of love! O souls that turn
Like sunflowers to the pure and best!
Το you the truth is manifest:
For they the mind of Christ discern
Who lean like John upon his breast!

I him of whom the sibyl told,
For whom the prophet's harp was
toned,

Whose need the sage and magian
owned,

The loving heart of God behold,
The hope for which the ages groaned !

Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery

Wherewith mankind have deified Their hate, and selfishness, and pride! Let the scared dreamer wake to see The Christ of Nazareth at his side!

291

The emblems of the Lamb and Dove ! Man turns from God, not God from him; And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love!

The world sits at the feet of Christ,

Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It yet shall touch his garment's fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist

Transform its very dust to gold.

The theme befitting angel tongues

Beyond a mortal's scope has grown. O heart of mine! with reverence own The fulness which to it belongs,

And trust the unknown for the known.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE.

IN the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains,

Across the charmed bay Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains Perpetual holiday,

A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten, His gold-bought masses given; And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to sweeten

Her foulest gift to Heaven.

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving,

The court of England's queen For the dead monster so abhorred while living

In mourning garb is seen.

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning;

By lone Edgbaston's side Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining,

Bare-headed and wet-eyed!

Silent for once the restless hive of labor,
Save the low funeral tread,
Or voice of craftsman whispering to his
neighbor

The good deeds of the dead.

For him no minster's chant of the immortals

Rose from the lips of sin;

No mitred priest swung back the heavenly portals

To let the white soul in.

But Age and Sickness framed their tearful faces

In the low hovel's door, And prayers went up from all the dark by-places

And Ghettos of the poor.

The pallid toiler and the negro chattel,
The vagrant of the street,
The human dice wherewith in games
of battle

The lords of earth compete,

Touched with a grief that needs no outward draping,

All swelled the long lament, Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping

His viewless monument!