Not with more haste the members fly, When Hume has caught the Speaker's eye. At last the daylight came; and then Had happened to their lord and master, Within the sound of the castle clock That the grieving groom at noon that day Beside the rock there is an oak, Tall, blasted by the thunder-stroke ; That there Sir Rudolph's mantle lay, (1830.) THE RED FISHERMAN, OR THE DEVIL'S DECOY. "Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!" ROMEO AND JULIET. THE Abbot arose, and closed his book, And donned his sandal shoon, A starlight sky was o'er his head, And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed, And the waves a soothing sound : It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought He gazed on the river that gurgled by, But he thought not of the reeds; He clasped his gilded rosary, But he did not tell the beads; If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke The Spirit that dwelleth there; If he opened his lips, the words they spoke Had never the tone of prayer. A pious priest might the Abbot seem, He had swayed the crozier well; But what was the theme of the Abbot's dream, The Abbot were loth to tell. Companionless, for a mile or more, As a lover thinks of constancy, Or an advocate of truth. He did not mark how the skies in wrath He did not mark how the mossy path And nearer he came, and still more near, To a pool, in whose recess The water had slept for many a year, Unchanged and motionless; From the river stream it spread away The surface had the hue of clay And the scent of human blood; The trees and the herbs that round it grew And the birds that through the bushes flew Were the vulture and the owl; The water was as dark and rank As ever a Company pumped, And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank, Grew rotten while it jumped ; And bold was he who thither came At midnight, man or boy, For the place was cursed with an evil name, The Abbot was weary as abbot could be, Was it a song, or was it a moan ?— Above, below, Lightly and brightly they glide and go! In a monstrous fright, by the murky light, And what was the vision close before him, That flung such a sudden stupor o'er him? 'Twas a sight to make the hair uprise, And the life-blood colder run: The startled Priest struck both his thighs, All alone, by the side of the pool, Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago, |