Derrière eux un Bordelais,
Gascon, s'il en fut jamais,
Parfumé de poésie

Riait, chantait, plein de vie,
"Bons amis,

J'ai soupé chez Agassiz!"

Avec ce beau cadet roux,
Bras dessus et bras dessous,
Mine altière et couleur terne,
Vint le Sire de Sauterne;
"Bons amis,

J'ai couché chez Agassiz!"

Mais le dernier de ces preux,
Était un pauvre Chartreux,
Qui disait, d'un ton robuste,
"Bénédictions sur le Juste!
Bons amis,

Bénissons Père Agassiz!"

Ils arrivent trois à trois,
Montent l'escalier de bois
Clopin-clopant! quel gendarme
Peut permettre ce vacarme,
Bons amis,

À la porte d'Agassiz!

"Ouvrez donc, mon bon Seigneur, Ouvrez vite et n'ayez peur; Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes Gens de bien et gentilshommes, Bons amis

De la famille Agassiz!"

Chut, ganaches! taisez-vous !
C'en est trop de vos glouglous;
Épargnez aux Philosophes
Vos abominables strophes !
Bons amis,

Respectez mon Agassiz!

New England Tragedies.

I.

ENDICOTT.

PROLOGUE.

TO-NIGHT We strive to read, as we may best,
This city, like an ancient palimpsest;
And bring to light, upon the blotted page,
The mournful record of an earlier age,
That pale, and half-effaced, lies hidden away
Beneath the fresher writing of to-day.

Rise, then, O buried city that has been;
Rise up, rebuilded in the painted scene,
And let our curious eyes behold once more
The pointed gable and the pent-house door,
The Meeting-house with leaden-latticed panes,
The narrow thoroughfares, the crooked lanes

Rise, too, ye shapes and shadows of the Past,
Rise from your long-forgotten graves at last;
Let us behold your faces, let us hear

The words ye uttered in those days of fear!
Revisit your familiar haunts again,-
The scenes of triumph, and the scenes of pain,
And leave the footprints of your bleeding feet
Once more upon the pavement of the street!

Nor let the Historian blame the Poet here,
If he perchance misdate the day or year,
And group events together, by his art,
That in the Chronicles lie far apart;

For as the double-stars, though sundered far,
Seem to the naked eye a single star,

So facts of history, at a distance seen,

Into one common point of light convene.

66

Why touch upon such themes?" perhaps some friend

May ask, incredulous; "and to what good end?

Why drag again into the light of day

The errors of an age long passed away ?"

I answer: "For the lesson that they teach;
The tolerance of opinion and of speech.

Hope, Faith, and Charity remain, these three;
And greatest of them all is Charity."

Let us remember, if these words be true,
That unto all men Charity is due;

Give what we ask; and pity, while we blame,
Lest we become copartners in the shame,
Lest we condemn, and yet ourselves partake,
And persecute the dead for conscience' sake.
Therefore it is the author seeks and strives
To represent the dead as in their lives,
And lets at times his characters unfold

Their thoughts in their own language, strong and bold;
He only asks of you to do the like;

To hear him first, and, if you will, then strike.

SCENE I. Sunday afternoon. The interior of the Meeting-house. On the pulpit, an hour-glass; below, a box for contributions. JOHN NORTON in the pulpit. GOVERNOR ENDICOTT in a canopied seat, attended by four halberdiers. The congregation

singing.

The Lord descended from above,
And bowed the heavens high;
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.

On Cherubim and Seraphim

Right royally he rode,

And on the wings of mighty winds

Came flying all abroad.

Norton (rising and turning the hour-glass on the pulpit).

I heard a great voice from the temple saying

Unto the Seven Angels, Go your ways;
Pour out the vials of the wrath of God
Upon the earth. And the First Angel went

And poured his vial on the earth; and straight

There fell a noisome and a grievous sore

On them which had the birth-mark of the Beast,
And them which worshipped and adored his image.
On us hath fallen this grievous pestilence.

There is a sense of horror in the air;

And apparitions of

Are seen by many.

things horrible

From the sky above us

The stars fall; and beneath us the earth quakes!
The sound of drums at midnight in the air,

The sound of horsemen riding to and fro,

As if the gates of the invisible world

Were opened, and the dead came forth to warn us,—
All these are omens of some dire disaster
Impending over us, and soon to fall.

Moreover, in the language of the Prophet,
Death is again come up into our windows,
To cut off little children from without,
And young men from the streets.

And in the midst

Of all these supernatural threats and warnings,
Doth Heresy uplift its horrid head;

A vision of Sin more awful and appalling

Than any phantasm, ghost, or apparition,

As arguing and portending some enlargement

Of the mysterious Power of Darkness!

(EDITH, barefooted, and clad in sackcloth, with her hair hanging loose upon her shoulders, walks slowly up the aisle, followed by WHARTON and other Quakers. The congregation start up in confusion.)

Edith (raising her hand). Peace!

Norton. Anathema maranatha! The Lord cometh!
Edith. Yea, verily he cometh, and shall judge

The shepherds of Israel, who do feed themselves
And leave their flocks to eat what they have trodden
Beneath their feet.

Norton.

Be silent, babbling woman!.
St. Paul commands all women to keep silence
Within the churches.

Edith.

Yet the women prayed
And prophesied at Corinth in his day;
And, among those on whom the fiery tongues
Of Pentecost descended, some were women!

Norton. The Elders of the Churches, by our law
Alone have power to open the doors of speech
And silence in the Assembly. I command you!
Edith. The law of God is greater than your laws!
Ye build your church with blood, your town with crime;
The heads thereof give judgment for reward;
The priests thereof teach only for their hire;

Your laws condemn the innocent to death;
And against this I bear my testimony!
Norton. What testimony?

Edith.

That of the Holy Spirit,

Which, as your Calvin says, surpasseth reason.

Norton. The labourer is worthy of his hire.

Edith. Yet our great Master did not teach for hire,
And the Apostles without purse or scrip

Went forth to do his work. Behold this box
Beneath thy pulpit. Is it for the poor?
Thou canst not answer. It is for the Priest;

And against this I bear my testimony.

Norton. Away with all these Heretics and Quakers!
Quakers, forsooth! Because a quaking fell

On Daniel, at beholding of the Vision,

Must ye needs shake and quake? Because Isaiah
Went stripped and barefoot, must ye wail and howl?
Must ye go stripped and naked? must ye make
A wailing like the dragons, and a mourning

As of the owls ? Ye verify the adage

That Satan is God's ape! Away with them!

(Tumult. The Quakers are driven out with violence, EDITH following slowly. The congregation retire in confusion.)

Thus freely do the Reprobates commit
Such measure of iniquity as fits them
For the intended measure of God's wrath,
And even in violating God's commands
Are they fulfilling the divine decree!
The will of man is but an instrument
Disposed and predetermined to its action
According unto the decree of God,
Being as much subordinate thereto

As is the axe unto the hewer's hand!

(He descends from the pulpit, and joins GOVERNOR ENDICOTT, tho comes forward to meet him.)

The omens and the wonders of the time,
Famine, and fire, and shipwreck, and disease,
The blast of corn, the death of our young men,
Our sufferings in all precious, pleasant things,
Are manifestations of the wrath divine,
Signs of God's controversy with New England.
These emissaries of the Evil One,

These servants and ambassadors of Satan
Are but commissioned executioners

Of God's vindictive and deserved displeasure.
We must receive them as the Roman Bishop
Once received Attila, saying, I rejoice