And while the wedding-guests all hold their breath,
Opes the confessional, and the blind girl, see!
"Baptiste," she said, "since thou hast wished my death,
As holy water be my blood for thee!”
And calmly in the air a knife suspended!
Doubtless her guardian angel near attended,
For anguish did its work so well,
That, ere the fatal stroke descended,
Lifeless she fell!
At eve, instead of bridal verse,
The De Profundis filled the air;
Decked with flowers a single hearse
To the churchyard forth they bear;
Village girls in robes of snow
Follow, weeping as they go;
Nowhere was a smile that day,
No, ah no! for each one seemed to say :
"The roads shall mourn and be veiled in gloom,
So fair a corpse shall leave its home!
Should mourn and should weep, ah, well-away
So fair a corpse shall pass to-day!"
FROM THE FRENCH OF FÉLIX ARVERS.
My soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery,
A love eternal in a moment's space conceived;
Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history,
And she who was the cause nor knew it nor believed.
Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived,
For ever at her side and yet for ever lonely,
I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only
Daring to ask for nought, and having nought received.
For her, though God hath made her gentle and endearing,
She will go on her way distraught and without hearing
These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend,
Piously faithful still unto her austere duty,
Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty, "Who can this woman be? and will not comprehend.
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON.
For thee was a house built Ere thou wast born,
For thee was a mould meant
Ere thou of mother camest.
But it is not made ready,
Nor its depth measured,
Nor is it seen
How long it shall be.
Now I bring thee
Where thou shalt be;
Now I shall measure thee,
And the mould afterwards.
Thy house is not Highly timbered, It is unhigh and low; When thou art therein, The heel-ways are low, The side-ways unhigh. The roof is built Thy breast full nigh, So thou shalt in mould
Dwell full cold,
Dimly and dark.
Doorless is that house,
And dark it is within;
There thou art fast detained,
And death hath the key.
Loathsome is that earth-house,
And grim within to dwell.
There thou shalt dwell,
And worms shall divide thee.
Thus thou art laid, And leavest thy friends; Thou hast no friend
Who will come to thee,
Who will ever see
How that house pleaseth thee;
Who will ever open
The door for thee
And descend after thee,
For soon thou art loathsome
And hateful to see.
BEOWULF'S EXPEDITION TO HEORT.
THUS then, much care-worn, The son of Healfden
Sorrowed evermore,
Nor might the prudent hero
His woes avert.
The war was too hard,
Too loath and longsome,
That on the people came,
Dire wrath and grim,
Of night-woes the worst.
This from home heard
Higelac's Thane,
Good among the Goths,
Grendel's deeds.
He was of mankind
In might the strongest,
At that day Of this life,
Noble and stalwart.
He bade him a sea-ship,
A goodly one, prepare.
Quoth he, the war-king,
Over the swan's road,
Seek he would
The mighty monarch,
Since he wanted men.
For him that journey
His prudent fellows
Straight made ready,
Those that loved him.
They excited their souls
The omen they beheld.
Had the good-man
Of the Gothic people
Champions chosen,
Of those that keenest
He might find,
Some fifteen men.
The sea-wood sought he,
The warrior showed,
Sea-crafty man!
The landmarks,
And first went forth.
The ship was on the waves,
Boat under the cliffs.
The barons ready
To the prow mounted.
The streams they whirled
The sea against the sands.
The chieftains bore
On the naked breast
Bright ornaments,
War-gear, Goth-like.
The men shoved off,
Men on their willing way,
The bounden wood.
Then went over the sea-waves,
Hurried by the wind,
The ship with foamy neck
Most like a sea-fowl,
Till about one hour
Of the second day
The curved prow
Had passed onward
So that the sailors
The land saw,
The shore-cliffs shining,
Mountains steep,
And broad sea-noses.
Then was the sea-sailing
Of the earl at an end.
Then up speedily
The Weather people
On the land went,
The sea-bark moored,
Their mail-sarks shook,
Their war-weeds.
God thanked they,
That to them the sea-journey
Easy had been.
Then from the wall beheld
The warden of the Scyldings,
He who the sea-cliffs
Had in his keeping,
Bear o'er the balks
The bright shields,
The war-weapons speedily.
Him the doubt disturbed
In his mind's thought,
What these men might be.
Went then to the shore,
On his steed riding,
The Thane of Hrothgar.
Before the host he shook
His warden's staff in hand,
In measured words demanded:
"What men are ye
War-gear wearing,
Host in harness,
Who thus the brown keel
Over the water-street
Leading come
Hither over the sea?
I these boundaries
As shore-warden hold;
That in the Land of the Danes
Nothing loathsome
With a ship-crew
Scathe us might.
Ne'er saw I mightier
Earl upon earth
Than is your own,
Hero in harness.
Not seldom this warrior
Is in weapons distinguished;
Never his beauty belies him,
His peerless countenance !
Now would I fain
Your origin know,
Ere ye forth
THREE miles extended around the fields of the homestead; on three sides
Valleys, and mountains, and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean. Birch-woods crowned the summits, but over the down-sloping hill-sides Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field. Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains, Held for the forests up, in whose depths the high-antlered reindeer Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets.
But in the valleys, full widely around, there fed on the greensward Herds with sleek, shining sides, and udders that longed for the milk-pail. 'Mid these were scattered, now here and now there, a vast countless number
Of white-wooled sheep, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds, Flock-wise, spread o'er the heavenly vault, when it bloweth in spring.
Twice twelve swift-footed coursers, mettlesome, fast-fettered storm
Stamping stood in the line of stalls, all champing their fodder, Knotted with red their manes, and their hoofs all whitened with steel shoes.
The banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir.
Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred)
Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking at Yule-tide.
Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holm-oak,
Polished and white, as of steel; the columns twain of the high-seat
Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved out of an elm-tree;
Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the sun on his frontlet.
Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the skin it was coal-black,
Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws were shodden with silver).
Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
Oft, when the moon among the night-clouds flew, related the old man
Wonders from far-distant lands he had seen, and cruises of Vikings
Far on the Baltic and Sea of the West, and the North Sea.
Hush sat the listening bench, and their glances hung on the gray
Lips, as a bee on the rose; but the Skald was thinking of Bragé,
Where, with silver beard, and runes on his tongue, he is seated
Under the leafy beech, and tells a tradition by Mimer's
Ever-murmuring wave, himself a living tradition.
Mid-way the floor (with thatch was it strewn), burned for ever the
Glad on its stone-built hearth; and through the wide-mouthed smoke
Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, down into the great hall, But round the walls, upon nails of steel, were hanging in order Breastplate and helm with each other, and here and there in among
Downward lightened a sword, as in winter evening a star shoots.
More than helmets and swords, the shields in the banquet-hall glisten,
White as the orb of the sun, or white as the moon's disc of silver.
Ever and anon went a maid round the board and filled up the drink-
Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed; in the shield her reflection Blushed too, even as she;-this gladdened the hard-drinking champions.
SPRING is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles the sun,
And the loosened torrents downward singing to the ocean run;
Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds 'gin to ope,
And in human hearts awaken love of life, and joy, and hope.
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