She laughed so long, and laughed so loud,
That Dame Ulrica often vowed

A dirge is a merrier thing by half
Than such a senseless, soulless laugh.
Around the tower the elfin crew

Seemed shouting in mirthful concert too;
And echoed roof, and trembled rafter,
With that unsentimental laughter.
As soon as that droll tumult passed
The maiden's tongue, unchained at last,
Asserted all its female right,

And talked and talked with all its might.
Oh, how her low and liquid voice
Made the rapt hearer's soul rejoice!
'Twas full of those clear tones that start
From innocent childhood's happy heart,
Ere passion and sin disturb the well
In which their mirth and music dwell.
But man nor master could make out
What the eloquent maiden talked about;
The things she uttered like did seem

To the bubbling waves of a limpid stream;

For the words of her speech, if words they might be, Were the words of the speech of a far countrie; And when she had said them o'er and o'er,

Count Otto understood no more

Than you or I of the slang that falls

From the dukes and dupes at Tattersall's,
Of Hebrew from a bearded Jew,

Of metaphysics from a Blue.

Count Otto swore,-Count Otto's reading
Might well have taught his better breeding,-
That, whether the maiden should fume or fret,
The maiden should not leave him yet;

And so he took prodigious pains
To make her happy in her chains.
From Paris came a pair of cooks,
From Göttingen a load of books,
From Venice stores of gorgeous suits,
'From Florence minstrels and their lutes :
The youth himself had special pride
In breaking horses for his bride;
And his old tutor, Dr. Hermann,

Was brought from Bonn to teach her German.

And there in her beauty and her grace
The wayward maiden grew ;

And every day of her form and face
Some charm seemed fresh and new.
Over her cold and colourless cheek
The blush of the rose was shed,
And her quickened pulse began to speak
Of human hope and dread;

And soon she grasped the learned lore
The grey old pedant taught,

And turned from the volume to explore
The hidden mine of thought.

Alas! her bliss was not the same
As it was in other years,

For with new knowledge sorrow came,
And with new passion tears.

Oft, till the Count came up from wine,
She would sit by the lattice high,
And watch the windings of the Rhine
With a very wistful eye;

And oft on some rude cliff she stood,
Her light harp in her hand,

And still, as she looked on the gurgling flood,
She sang of her native land.

And when Count Otto pleaded well
For priest, and ring, and vow,
She heard the knight that fond tale tell,
With a pale and pensive brow:
"Henceforth my spirit may not sleep,
As ever till now it has slept;
Henceforth mine eyes have learned to weep,
As never till now they wept.

Twelve months, dear Otto, let me grieve
For my own, my childhood's home,
Where the sun at noon, or the frost at eve,

Did never dare to come;

And when the spring its smiles recalls,

Thy maiden will resign

The holy hush of her father's halls

For the stormy joys of thine."

But where that father's halls?—vain, vain;

She threw her sad eyes down;

And if you dared to ask again,
She answered with a frown.

Some people have a knack, we know
Of saying things mal à propos,
And making all the world reflect
On what it hates to recollect.
They talk to misers of their heir,
To women of the times that were,
To ruined gamblers of the box,
To thin defaulters of the stocks,
To cowards of their neighbours' duels ;
To Hayne of Lady H.'s jewels,
To poets of the wrong Review,
And to the French of Waterloo.

The Count was not of these; he never
Was half so clumsy, half so clever ;
And when he found the girl had rather

Say nothing more about her father,
He changed the subject-told a fable—
Believed that dinner was on table-
Or whispered, with an air of sorrow,
That it would surely rain to-morrow.

The winter storms went darkly by,
And, from a blue and cloudless sky,
Again the sun looked cheerfully

Upon the rolling Rhine;

And spring brought back to the budding flowers
Its genial light and freshening showers,
And music to the shady bowers,

And verdure to the vine.

And now it is the first of May;
For twenty miles round all is gay:
Cottage and Castle keep holiday;

For how should sorrow lower
On brow of rustic or of knight,
When heaven itself looks all so bright,
Where Otto's wedding feast is dight
In the hall of Belmont Tower?

Stately matron and warrior tall
Come to the joyous festival;
Good Count Otto welcomes all,

As through the gate they throng;
He fills to the brim the wassail cup:
In the bright wine pleasure sparkles up,
And draughts and tales grow long ;
But grizzly knights are still and mute,
And dames set down the untasted fruit,
When the bride takes up her golden lute,
And sings her solemn song.

"A voice ye hear not, in mine ear is crying :What does the sad voice say?

'Dost thou not heed thy weary father's sighing? Return, return to-day!

Twelve moons have faded now:

My daughter, where art thou?'

Peace in the silent evening we will meet thee, Grey ruler of the tide !

Must not the lover with the loved one greet thee, The bridegroom with his bride?

Deck the dim couch aright,

The Bridal couch, to-night."

The nurses to the children say
That, as the maiden sang that day,

The Rhine to the heights of the beetling tower
Sent up a cry of fiercer power,

And again the maiden's cheek was grown

As whité as ever was marble stone,

And the bridesmaid her hand could hardly hold, Its fingers were so icy cold.

Rose Count Otto from the feast,

As entered the hall the hoary Priest.

A stalwart warrior, well I ween,

That hoary Priest in his youth had been,
But the might of his manhood he had given
To peace and prayer, the Church and Heaven.
For he had travelled o'er land and wave;
He had kneeled on many a martyr's grave;
He had prayed in the meek St. Jerome's cell,
And had tasted St. Anthony's blessed well;
And reliques round his neck had he,
Each worth a haughty kingdom's fee;