Ere the last echo of the words

Died on the lip and on the chords,
The Baron's jester, who was clever
At blighting characters forever,

And whom all people thought delightful,
Because he was so very spiteful,

Stooped down to tie his sandal's string,
And found by chance a lady's ring;

So small and slight, it scarce had spanned
The finger of a fairy's hand,—

Or thine, sweet Rose, whose hand and wrist

Are much the least I ever kissed :

Upon the ruby it enclosed

A bleeding heart in peace reposed,

And round was graved in letters clear:
"Let by the month, or by the year.”
Young Pacolet, from ring and song,

Thought something might be somewhere wrong,
And round the room in transport flitted
To find whose hand the bawble fitted.

He was an ugly, dwarfish knave,
Most gravely wild, most wildly grave;
It seemed that Nature, in a whim,
Had mixed a dozen shapes in him;
One arm was longer than the other,
One leg was running from his brother,
And one dark eye, with fondest labor,
Coquetted with his fairer neighbor:
His color ever came and went,

Like clouds upon the firmament,

And yet his cheeks, in any weather,
Were never known to blush together:
To-day his voice was shrill and harsh,
Like homilies from Doctor Marsh;
To-morrow from his rosy lip

The sweetest of sweet sounds would trip;
Far sweeter than the song of birds,
Or the first lisp of Childhood's words,
Or Zephyrs soft, or waters clear,
Or Love's own vow to Love's own ear.
Such were the tones he murmured now,
As, wreathing lip and cheek and brow
Into a smile of wicked glee,

He begged upon his bended knee

That maid and matron, young and old,
Would try the glittering hoop of gold.

But then, as usual in such cases,
All sorts of pretty airs and graces

Were played by nymphs, whose hands and arms Had, or had not, a host of charms:

And there were frowns, as wrists were bared, And wonderings "how some people dared,"

And much reluctance and disdain,

Which some might feel, and all could feign;
And witty looks and whispered guesses,
And running into dark recesses,

And pointless gibes, and toothless chuckles,
And pinching disobedient knuckles,

And cunning thefts by watchful lovers,
Which filled the pockets of the glovers.
'Twas very vain; it seemed that all,
Except the mistress of the Hall,

Had done the utmost they could do,
And made their fingers black and blue,
And there they were, the gem and donor,
Without a mistress, or an owner.

But while the toy was vainly tried,
The ugly Baron's handsome bride
Had sate apart from that rude game
And listened to the sighs of flame,
Which followed her from night to morning,
In spite of frowning and of scorning.
Bred up from youth with naught before her
But humble slave and fond adorer,

Ill could that haughty Lady brook
A bantering phrase or brazen look;

Day passed, and Night came hurrying down
With her heaviest step, and her darkest frown;
Not witchingly mild, as when she hushes
The first warm thrill of woman's blushes;
Or mellows the eloquent murmur made
By some mad minstrel's serenade;
But robed in the clouds her anger flings
O'er the murderer's midnight wanderings,

The stealthy step, and the naked knife,

The sudden blow, and the parting life!—
On the snow that was sleeping its frozen sleep
Round cabin and castle, white and deep,
The love-stricken boy might have wandered far
Ere he found for his sonnet a single star;

And over the copse, and over the dell,
The mantle of mist so drearily fell,

That the fondest and bravest could hardly know
The smile of his queen from the sneer of his foe.
In the lonely cot on the lorn hill-side

The serf grew pale as he looked on his bride;
And oft, as the Baron's courtly throng
Were loud in the revel of wine and song,
The blast at the gate made such a din

As changed to horror the mirth within!

THE LEGEND OF THE HAUNTED TREE.

"DEEP is the bliss of the belted knight,

When he kisses at dawn the silken glove,
And goes, in his glittering armor dight,
To shiver a lance for his Lady-love!

"Lightly he couches the beaming spear;

His mistress sits with her maidens by, Watching the speed of his swift career,

With a whispered prayer and a murmured sigh

"Far from me is the gazing throng,

The blazoned shield, and the nodding plume; Nothing is mine but a worthless song,

A joyless life, and a nameless tomb."

"Nay, dearest Wilfrid, lay like this.

On such an eve is much amiss:
Our mirth beneath the new May moon
Should echoed be by a livelier tune.
What need to thee of mail and crest,
Of foot in stirrup, spear in rest?
Over far mountains and deep seas,
Earth hath no fairer fields than these;