IV.

ENIGMA.

A TEMPLAR kneeled at a Friar's knee ;
He was a comely youth to see,

With curling locks, and forehead high,

And flushing cheek, and flashing eye;
And the Monk was as jolly and large a man
As ever laid lip to a convent can

Or called for a contribution,

As ever read at midnight hour
Confessional in lady's bower,

Ordained for a peasant the penance whip,

Or spoke for a noble's venial slip

A venal absolution.

“O Father! in the dim twilight
I have sinned a grievous sin to-night;
And I feel hot pain e'en now begun
For the fearful murder I have done.

"I rent my victim's coat of green,
I pierced his neck with my dagger keen ;
The red stream mantled high:

I grasped him, Father, all the while,
With shaking hand, and feverish smile,
And said my jest, and sang my song,
And laughed my laughter, loud and long,
Until his glass was dry!

"Though he was rich, and very old,
I did not touch a grain of gold,

But the blood I drank from the bubbling vein
Hath left on my lip a purple stain !"

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My son my son! for this thou hast done,

Though the sands of thy life for aye should run,"

The merry Monk did say,

"Though thine eye be bright, and thine heart be light, Hot spirits shall haunt thee all the night,

Blue devils all the day!"

The thunders of the Church were ended;
Back on his way the Templar wended;
But the name of him the Templar slew
Was more than the Inquisition knew.

V.

My First in torrents bleak and black
Was rushing from the sky,

When with my Second at his back
Young Cupid wandered by ;

“Now take me in; the moon hath past ;

I

pray ye, take me in!

The lightnings flash, the hail falls fast,

All Hades rides the thunder-blast;
I'm dripping to the skin!"

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"I know thee well, thy songs and sighs;

A wicked god thou art,

And yet most welcome to the eyes,

Most witching to the heart!"
The Wanderer prayed another prayer,

And shook his drooping wing;

The Lover bade him enter there,

And wrung my First from out his hair,

And dried my Second's string.

And therefore (so the urchin swore, By Styx, the fearful river,

And by the shafts his quiver bore,

And by his shining quiver)

That Lover aye shall see my Whole

In Life's tempestuous Heaven ; And, when the lightnings cease to roll, Shall fix thereon his dreaming soul In the deep calm of even.

VI.

THE Indian lover burst

From his lone cot by night ;

When Love hath lit

my First

In hearts by Passion nurst,

Oh who shall quench the light?

The Indian left the shore;

He heard the night-wind sing,

And cursed the tardy oar,
And wished that he could soar
Upon my Second's wing.

The blast came cold and damp;
But all the voyage through

I lent my lingering lamp,
As o'er the marshy swamp

He paddled his canoe.