Singing: “Here came a mortal,

But faithless was she!

And alone dwell for ever

The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward

From heaths starr'd with broom,

And high rocks throw mildly

On the blanch'd sands a gloom;

Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side-
And then come back down.
Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
"But cruel is she!

'She left lonely for ever

"The kings of the sea."

Gev: H. Boken

COUNTESS LAURA.

It was a dreary day in Padua.

The Countess Laura, for a single year
Fernando's wife, upon her bridal bed,
Like an uprooted lily on the snow,
The withered outcast of a festival,

Lay dead. She died of some uncertain ill,
That struck her almost on her wedding-day,
And clung to her, and dragged her slowly down,
Thinning her cheeks and pinching her full lips,
Till, in her chance, it seemed that with a year
Full half a century was overpast.

In vain had Paracelsus taxed his art,
And feigned a knowledge of her malady;
In vain had all the doctors, far and near,
Gathered around the mystery of her bed,
Draining her veins, her husband's treasury,
And physic's jargon, in a fruitless quest
For causes equal to the dread result.

The Countess only smiled, when they were gone,
Hugged her fair body with her little hands,
And turned upon her pillows wearily,

As if she fain would sleep, no common sleep,
But the long, breathless slumber of the grave.

She hinted nothing. Feeble as she was,

The rack could not have wrung her secret out.

The Bishop, when he shrived her, coming forth,
Cried, in a voice of heavenly ecstasy,

"O blessed soul! with nothing to confess,

"Save virtues and good deeds, which she mistakes

So humble is she-for our human sins!"

Praying for death, she tossed upon her bed, Day after day, as might a shipwrecked bark That rocks upon one billow, and can make No onward motion towards her port of hope. At length, one morn, when those around her said, "Surely the Countess mends, so fresh a light 'Beams from her eyes and beautifies her face,"One morn in spring, when every flower of earth Was opening to the sun, and breathing up Its votive incense, her impatient soul Opened itself, and so exhaled to heaven.

When the Count heard it, he reeled back a pace; Then turned with anger on the messenger; Then craved his pardon, and wept out his heart Before the menial tears, ah, me! such tears As Love sheds only, and Love only once. Then he bethought him, "Shall this wonder die "And leave behind no shadow? not a trace

"Of all the glory that environed her,

"That mellow nimbus circling round my star?"

So, with his sorrow glooming in his face,

He paced along his gallery of Art,

And strode amongst the painters, where they stood, With Carlo, the Venetian, at their head,

Studying the Masters by the dawning light

Of his transcendent genius. Through the groups Of gayly vestured artists moved the Count,—

As some lone clouds of thick and leaden hue,

Packed with the secret of a coming storm,

Moves through the gold and crimson evening mists,
Deadening their splendor. In a moment, still
Was Carlo's voice, and still the prattling crowd;
And a great shadow overran them all,

As their white faces and their anxious eyes
Pursued Fernando in his moody walk.

He paused, as one who balances a doubt,

Weighing two courses, then burst out with this: "Ye all have seen the tidings in my face; "Or has the dial ceased to register

"The workings of my heart? Then hear the bell, "That almost cracks the frame in utterance:

"The Countess-she is dead!"--" Dead!" Carlo groaned.

And if a bolt from middle heaven had struck

His splendid features full upon the brow,

He could not have appeared more scathed and blanched. "Dead!-dead!" He staggered to his easel-frame, And clung around it, buffeting the air

With one wild arm, as though a drowning man Hung to a spar and fought against the waves.— The Count resumed: "I came not here to grieve, "Nor see my sorrow in another's eyes. "Who'll paint the Countess as she lies to-night 'In state within the chapel? Shall it be "That earth must lose her wholly? that no hint "Of her gold tresses, beaming eyes, and lips "That talked in silence, and the eager soul "That ever seemed outbreaking through her clay,

"And scattering glory round it,-shall all these

"Be dull corruption's heritage, and we,

"Poor beggars, have no legacy to show

"The love she bore us? That were shame to Love "And shame to you, my masters." Carlo stalked Forth from his easel, stiffly as a thing

Moved by mechanic impulse. His thin lips,

And sharpened nostrils, and wan, sunken cheeks,
And the cold glimmer in his dusky eyes,

Made him a ghastly sight. The throng drew back,

As if they let a spectre through. Then he,
Fronting the Count, and speaking in a voice
Sounding remote and hollow, made reply:
"Count, I shall paint the Countess. 'Tis my fate,—
Not pleasure,-no, nor duty." But the Count,
Astray in woe, but understood assent,

Not the strange words that bore it; and he flung
His arm round Carlo, drew him to his breast,
And kissed his forehead. At which Carlo shrank:
Perhaps 't was at the honor. Then the Count,
A little reddening at his public state,—
Unseemly to his near and recent loss,—
Withdrew in haste between the downcast eyes
That did him reverence as he rustled by.

Night fell on Padua. In the chapel lay

The Countess Laura at the altar's foot.

Her coronet glittered on her pallid brows;

A crimson pall, weighed down with golden work,

Sown thick with pearls, and heaped with early flowers, Draped her still body almost to the chin;

And over all a thousand candles flamed

Against the winking jewels or streamed down
The marble aisle, and flashed along the guard

Of men-at-arms that slowly wove their turns,
Backward and forward, through the distant gloom.
When Carlo entered, his unsteady feet

Scarce bore him to the altar, and his head

Drooped down so low that all his shining curls

Poured on his breast, and veiled his countenance.
Upon his easel a half-finished work,