Pale the children both did look,
But the guest a beaker took;

"Golden wine will make you whole!" The children drank,

Gave many a courteous thank;
"Oh, that draught was very cool!"

Each the father's breast embraces,
Son and daughter; and their faces
Colourless grow utterly.

Whichever way

Looks the fear-struck father grey,
He beholds his children die.

"Woe! the blessed children both
Takest thou in the joy of youth;
Take me, too, the joyless father!"
Spake the grim Guest,

From his hollow, cavernous breast,
"Roses in the spring I gather!"

THE LUCK OF EDENHALL.

UHLAND.

OF Edenhall, the youthful lord

Bids sound the festal trumpet's call
He rises at the banquet board,

;

And cries, 'mid the drunken revellers all, "Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall!"

The butler hears the words with pain,
The house's oldest seneschal

Takes slow from its silken cloth again
The drinking glass of crystal tall;
They call it the Luck of Edenhall.

Then said the lord: "This glass to praise, Fill with red wine from Portugal!"

The greybeard with trembling hand obeys; A purple light shines over all,

It beams from the Luck of Edenhall.

"Then speaks the lord, and waves it light,
"This glass of flashing crystal tall
Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite;
She wrote in it; If this glass doth fall,
Farewell then, O Luck of Edenhall!

"Twas right a goblet the Fate should be Of the joyous race of Edenhall! Deep draughts drink we right willingly; And willingly ring, with merry call, Kling! klang! to the Luck of Edenhall!"

First rings it deep, and full, and mild,
Like to the sound of a nightingale;
Then like the roar of a torrent wild;
Then mutters at last like the thunder's fall,
The glorious Luck of Edenhall.

"For its keeper takes a race of might,
The fragile goblet of crystal tall;
It has lasted longer than is right;

Kling! klang! with a harder blow than all
Will I try the Luck of Edenhall!"

As the goblet ringing flies apart,
Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall;

And through the rift, the wild flames start;

The guests in dust are scattered all,

With the breaking Luck of Edenhall!

In storms the foe, with fire and sword;
He in the night had scaled the wall,
Slain by the sword lies the youthful lord,
But holds in his hand the crystal tall,
The shattered Luck of Edenhall.

On the morrow the butler gropes alone,
The greybeard in the desert-hall,
He seeks his lord's burnt skeleton,
He seeks in the dismal ruin's fall
The shards of the Luck of Edenhall.

"The stone wall," saith he, "doth fall aside,
Down must the stately columns fall;
Glass is this earth's Luck and Pride;
In atoms shall fall this earthly ball
One day like the Luck of Edenhall!"

SILENT LOVE.

WHO love would seek,
Let him love evermore

And seldom speak:

For in love's domain
Silence must reign;
Or it brings the heart
Smart

And pain.

CURFEW.

I.

SOLEMNLY, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell

Is beginning to toll.

Cover the embers,

And put out the light;

Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire,
Sound fades into silence,-
All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

II.

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grows its fancies,

Forgotten they lie;

Like coals in the ashes,

They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,

The windows are darkened,

The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall;

Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

THE TWO LOCKS OF HAIR.

PFIZER.

A YOUTH, light-hearted and content,
I wander through the world:
Here, Arab-like, is pitched my tent,
And straight again is furled.

Yet oft I dream, that once a wife
Close in my heart was locked,
And in the sweet repose of life
A blessed child I rocked.

I wake! Away that dream,-away!
Too long did it remain !

So long, that both by night and day
It ever comes again.

The end lies ever in my thought;
To a grave so cold and deep
'The mother beautiful was brought;
Then dropped the child asleep.

But now the dream is wholly o'er,
I bathe mine eyes and see;

And wander through the world once more,
A youth so light and free.

Two locks, and they are wondrous fair,Left me that vision mild;

The brown is from the mother's hair,

The blond is from the child.

And when I see that lock of gold,

Pale grows the evening-red; And when the dark lock I behold, I wish that I were dead.