To you, ye radiant visions of romance,
Written in books, but here surpassed by truth,
The Bachelor Hypolito returns,

And leaves the Gipsy with the Spanish Student.

SCENE VI. A Pass in the Guadarrama Mountains. Early morning. A Muleteer crosses the Stage, sitting sideways on his mule, and lighting a paper cigar with flint and steel.

SONG.

If thou art sleeping, maiden,
Awake and open thy door,

"Tis the break of day, and we must away,
O'er meadow, and mount, and moor.

Wait not to find thy slippers,

But come with thy naked feet;

We shall have to pass through the dewy grass,

And waters wide and fleet.

Disappears down the pass. Enter a Monk. A Shepherd appears on

the rocks above.

Monk. Ave Maria, gratia plena. Olá! good man!

Shep. Olá!

Monk. Is this the road to Segovia?

Shep. It is, your reverence.

Monk. How far is it?

Shep. I do not know.

Monk. What is that yonder in the valley?

Shep. San Ildefonso.

Monk. A long way to breakfast.

Shep. Ay, marry.

Monk. Are there robbers in these mountains?

Shep. Yes, and worse than that.

Monk. What?

Shep. Wolves.

Monk. Santa Maria! Come with me to San Ildefonso, and thou shalt be well rewarded.

Shep. What wilt thou give me?

Monk. An Agnus Dei and my benediction.

They disappear. A mounted Contrabandista passes, wrapped in his cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow. He goes down the pass singing.

SONG.

Worn with speed is my good steed,
And I march me hurried, worried;
Onward, caballito mio,

With the white star in thy forehead!
Onward, for here comes the Ronda,
And I hear their rifles crack!

Ay, jaléo! Ay, ay, jaléo!

Ay, jaléo! They cross our track.

Song dies away. Enter PRECIOSA, on horseback, attended by VICTO-
RIAN, HYPOLITO, DON CARLOS, and CHISPA, on foot, and armed.

Vict. This is the highest point. Here let us rest.
See, Preciosa, see how all about us,

Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty mountains
Receive the benediction of the sun!

Where yonder steeples flash like lifted halberds,
San Ildefonso, from its noisy belfries,

Sends up a salutation to the morn,

As if an army smote their brazen shields,
And shouted victory!

Prec.

Segovia!

And which way lies

Vict. At a great distance yonder.

Dost thou not see it?

Prec.

No. I do not see it.

Vict. The merest flaw that dents the horizon' edge.

There, yonder!

Нур.

'Tis a notable old town,

Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct,
And an Alcázar, builded by the Moors,
Wherein, you may remember, poor Gil Blas
Was fed on Pan del Rey. O, many a time
Out of its grated windows have I looked
Hundreds of feet plumb down to the Eresma,
That, like a serpent through the valley creeping,
Glides at its foot.

Prec.

O, yes! I see it now,

Yet rather with my heart than with mine eyes,
So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail thither,
Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged
Against all stress of accident, as, in

The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide,

Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains,

And there were wrecked and perished in the sea! (She weeps.)
Vict. O gentle spirit! Thou didst bear unmoved

Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate!

But the first ray of sunshine that falls on thee
Melts thee to tears! O, let thy weary heart
Lean upon mine! and it shall faint no more,
Nor thirst, nor hunger; but be comforted
And filled with my affection.

Prec.

Stay no longer!
My father waits. Methinks I see him there,

Now looking from the window, and now watching
Each sound of wheels or foot-fall in the street,
And saying, "Hark she comes!" O father! father!

They descend the pass. CHISPA remains behind. Chispa. I have a father, too, but he is a dead one. Alas and alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose. Thus I wag through the world, half the time on foot, and the other half walking; and always as merry as a thunder-storm in the night. And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may happen? Patience, and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald, that you can see my brains; and perhaps, after all, I shall some day go to Rome, and come back Saint Peter. Benedicite! [E.cit. A pause. Then enter BARTOLOME wildly as if in pursuit, with a carbin

in his hand.

Bart. They passed this way! I hear their horses' hoofs! Yonder I see them! Come sweet caramillo,

This serenade shall be the Gipsy's last!

Fires down the pass.

Ha! ha! Well whistled, my sweet caramillo!

Well whistled!-I have missed her!-O my God!

[The shot is returned. BARTOLOMÉ falls.

THE SONG OF HIAWATHA.

INTRODUCTION.

SHOULD you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odours of the forest,

With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?

I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,

From the mountains, moors, and fenlauds.

Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

Feeds among the reeds and rushes.

I repeat them as I heard them

From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer.

Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs, so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoof-prints of the bison,

In the eyry of the eagle!

"All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
In the moorlands and the fenlands,
In the melancholy marshes;
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
Mahng, the loon, the wild goose, Wawa,

The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"
If still further you should ask me,
Saying, "Who was Nawadaha?
Tell us of this Nawadaha,"
I should answer your inquiries
Straightway in such words as follow.
"In the Vale of Tawasentha,
In the green and silent valley,
By the pleasant water-courses,
Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
Round about the Indian village
Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,
And beyond them stood the forest,
Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,
Green in Summer, white in Winter,
Ever sighing, ever singing.

"And the pleasant water-courses,
You could trace them through the valley,
By the rushing in the Spring-time,
By the alders in the Summer,
By the white fog in the Autumn,
By the black line in the Winter;
And beside them dwelt the singer,
In the Vale of Tawasentha,
In the green and silent valley.

"There he sang of Hiawatha, Sang the song of Hiawatha,

Sang his wondrous birth and being,
How he prayed and how he fasted,
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
That the tribes of men might prosper,
That he might advance his people!"

Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,

And the rushing of great rivers

Through their palisades of pine-trees,

And the thunder in the mountains,

Whose innumerable echoes

Flap like eagles in their eyries ;-
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha?

Ye who love a nation's legends,
Love the ballads of a people,
That like voices from afar off
Call to us to pause and listen,