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And o'er her while she slept, they spread

The shadow of their wings,

So when an Evil Dream drew nigh They barr'd him from access, Nor suffer'd him to reach her with A breath of sinfulness.

But with his instigations they A hallowing influence blent, And made his fiendish ministry Subserve to their intent.

Thus while in troubled sleep she lay,
Strange impulses were given,
Emotions earthly and of earth,
With heavenly ones of Heaven.

And now the nightingale hath ceased
Her strain, who all night long
Hath in the garden rosier trill'd
A rich and rapturous song.

The storks on roof and dome and tower
Forbear their clattering din,

As now the motions and the sounds Of daily life begin.

Then as from dreams that seem'd no dreams

The wondering Maid awoke,
A low sweet voice was in her ear;
Such as we might expect to hear
If some Good Angel spoke.

According with her dreams, it said,
"So, Cyra, must it be;
The duties of a wedded life
Hath Heaven ordain'd for thee."

Here we may observe how judiciously Mr Southey has improved upon the original legend, which says merely, "ille corruptor animarum Draco destinat dæmones fornicationi præpositos, et exardescere faciunt puellam ad amorem pueri, quæ projecit se in pavimentum, et cæpit clamare ad patrem: Miserere mei, miserere : quia atrociter torqueor propter talem puerum nostrum!" Mr Southey's version is as superior in sentiment as his clear, simple, elegant English to the Monkish Latin. The pious maiden is made a blessed instrument by an evil agencyeven the emissaries of hell are sanctified by her purity-and she obeys the supposed mandate of supreme wisdom without a stain upon her virgin modesty.

The father consents-the destined nun must become a mortal's bride,

and the marriage is solemnized with all the imposing splendour of the Greek church. The ceremonies are described with considerable minute-> ness and accurate learning. Twelve years pass over the heads of the married couple, in the blessings of mutual love and worldly felicity. Eleëmon makes a good and faithful husband, Cyra an obedient and faithful wife. All goes well with them outwardly: and Eleëmon had been most blessed, were all things as they seem;" but still the consciousness of his lost state oppresses him; and a small red mark remains indelibly impressed where the reed drew out his heart-blood.

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No occupation from his mind That constant sense can keep; It is present in his waking hours,. It is present in his sleep;

But still he felt it most, And with painfullest weight it prest, O miserable man! When he was happiest.

O miserable man,

Who hath all the world to friend, Yet dares not in prosperity Remember his latter end!

But happy man, whate'er His earthly lot may be, Who looks on Death as the Angel That shall set his spirit free.

Proterius, the father of Cyra, dies, full of days and good works, and his daughter receives comfort from his last blessing. But her miserable busband, louder and louder, hears the voice within him-" Eleëmon, Eleëmon, thou art sold to the demon," and, living, feels what is meant by everlasting death. The good old man is buried with holy rites and hymns. Bishop Basil is one who bears the bier, and by his side, as the nearest kinsman, Eleëmon paces, with a look of grief, which the beholders, in charitable ignorance, ascribe to his deep and grateful sorrow for the departed, little weening what thoughts the words of the funeral psalm are wakening"Gather my saints together," saith the Lord, "and they that have made a covenant with me.' He, too, has made a covenant, and cannot forget

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And, tho' the form revered was gone,
A clear, unearthly light
Remain'd, encompassing the bed,
When all around was night.

It narrow'd as she gazed;
And soon she saw it rest,
Concentred, like an eye of light,
Upon her husband's breast.

Not doubting now the presence Of some good presiding power, Collectedness as well as strength Was given her in this hour.

And rising half, the while in deep But troubled sleep he lay, She drew the covering from his breast With cautious hand away.

The small round blood-red mark she saw; Eleëmon felt her not;

But in his sleep he groan'd, and cried, "Out! out... accursed spot!"

The darkness of surrounding night
Closed then upon that eye of light.
She waited for the break
Of day, and lay the while in prayer
For that poor sinner's sake.

The blessed wife, by the strong torture of affectionate supplications, forces from her husband the dreadful secret at what price he had purchased her. She seizes his arm, and hurries him away to the bishop, to the saintly Basil, renowned for potency in prayer. It is among the mightiest spells of Catholicism, that while it denounces inevitable perdition on all without its boundaries, it proclaims not humble hope, but absolute assurance, to the most miserable sinners that acknowledge its authority. Not content with teaching salvation, the Church of the Seven Hills assumes the power of bestowing it, and ascribes to her mortal ministers an absolute command over the issues of eternity-a prerogative to dispense with the laws of Heaven, and to cancel the bonds of Hell. But remission was not quite so cheap in St Basil's time as at present. Eleëmon, the loved, the honoured, is doomed to public penance, and is cried by the town-crier of Cæsarea as the slave of the Demon, the slave who sold himself, for love, and was fain to become a mendicant for good Christians' prayers; and yet so desperate is his case, that Basil himself, rather in pity than in hope, forbade him to despair. But Faith, which can hope against hope,

and believes the more earnestly from the consciousness of unbelief, is with the sinner; and now Eleëmon must pass as it were through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He must await, in the holy relic-room, among skulls and ashes, crowns of thorns, and nails, swords, racks, all monuments of flesh deceased or tortured, the fierce assault of demons clamorous for their duea more than mortal fight with ghostly enemies. The affectionate Cyra would have stood the contest with him that gave up all for her; but it might not be. Though the desire was pious, it was forbidden. He must struggle alone and be saved, if by Heaven's good grace he be saved, as if by fire.

Alone was Eleëmon left
For mercy on Heaven to call;
Deep and unceasing were his prayers,
But not a tear would fall.

His lips were parch'd, his head was hot,
His eyeballs throbb'd with heat;
And in that utter silence
He could hear his temples beat.

But cold his feet, and cold his hands;
And at his heart there lay
An icy coldness unrelieved,
While he pray'd the livelong day :

A long, long day! It past away
In dreadful expectation;
Yet free throughout the day was he
From outward molestation.

Nor sight appear'd, nor voice was heard,
Tho' every moment both he fear'd.

The Spirits of the Air
Were busy the while in infusing
Suggestions of despair.

And he in strong endeavour still
Against them strove with earnest will;
Heart-piercing was his cry,
Heart-breathed his groaning; but it
seem'd

That the source of tears was dry.

And now had evening closed;

The dim lamp-light alone

On the stone cross, and the marble walls,
And the shrines of the Martyrs, shone

Before the Cross Eleemon lay; His knees were on the ground; Courage enough to touch the Cross Itself he had not found.

But on the steps of the pedestal
His lifted hands were laid;

And in that lowliest attitude
The suffering sinner pray'd.

A strong temptation of the Fiend,
Which bade him despair and die,
He with the aid of Scripture
Had faithfully put by;
And then, as with a dawning hope,
He raised this contrite cry:

"O that mine eyes were fountains!
If the good grace of Heaven
Would give me tears, methinks, I then
Might hope to be forgiven!"

To that meek prayer a short loud laugh
From fiendish lips replied:

Close at his ear he felt it,
And it sounded on every side.

From the four walls and the vaulted roof
A shout of mockery rung;
And the echoing ground repeated the
sound,

Which peal'd above, and below, and
around,

From many a fiendish tongue.

The lamps went out at that hideous shout;
But darkness had there no place,
For the room was fill'd with a lurid light
That came from a Demon's face.

It will easily be conjectured, that Eleëmon is finally victorious. Though the agony of that night turns his hair white, and leaves him as one whose heart has been cleft in twain, yet he has grace to throw away the worser half so that Basil, entering the ghastly apartment at morning, sees outward signs of a mighty change within. He crosses himself and returns thanks, and speaks to the penitent words of consolation. Still Eleëmon cannot weep-sad is the state of one that must pray for tears. Meanwhile Cyra has abode with the Abbess Emmelia, Basil's mother, continuing steadfastly in prayer, so that the holy virgins, and the widows indeed, are edified with her faith, and the labour of her love; and now she makes request through the Abbess to see the penitent, of whose deadly sin she has been the unweeting and unwilling occasion. The boon is granted-Basil bids the innocent come in. Sadly and slow she advances the toil and anguish of one night has done more than years of sickness to change her countenance. "Thou hast prayed in vain for tears," says she, "while I have poured a flood."

"Mine flow, and they will flow; they

must;

They cannot be represt!
And oh that they might wash away
The stigma from thy breast!"

Her tenderness communicates its healing infection, and he that could not weep for himself sheds copious showers of sympathy; and then the weight is taken off, and the accursed spot has vanished, and all with one accord fall down and give thanks.

But Satan will not be so ousted. He agreed to meet the Saint and the Penitent in the face of the congregation, and in the full church, as the words of absolution are pronouncing. He appears to make good his claim." "The writing is confess'd;.. No plea against it shown;.. The forfeiture is mine, And now I take my own!"

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Thus endeth the former tale. In the ease of its structure and versifica tion, and the straightforward simplicity of the narrative, it classes with the minstrel ballad. But there is no studious or obtrusive imitation-none of that affected archaism, which is so preposterously modern Gothic, and so justly to be compared to the smoky impositions of knavish picture-dealers. It is no easy matter, in these enlight ened days, to tell a story of marvels or miracles, as if you believed it yourself, or expected to be believed. Sneers at the presumption and scepticism of the present generation, are not likely means to conciliate even poetic credence. Metaphysical arguments in favour of supernatural agency, are still worse; and the circumstantial minuteness with which some authors attempt to delineate their apparitions and magical operations, generally be trays a conscious purpose of deception. On the first perusal, we were almost suspicious of a latent irony in Mr Southey's legend. In the high spirits of youth, he was rather prone to laugh at his Satanic Majesty, and never seems to have considered lovers' pains as matters of deep and tragic sympathy. But upon better thoughts, we are convinced that he is in earnest. He does not, perhaps, literally hold the strange tale devoutly true, but he intends it for a solemn representation of essential truths. He conceives and expresses the full and passionate faith with which it would have been received in those simpler ages, when faith was esteemed a duty of the heart -a meritorious sacrifice precious in proportion to its difficulty. The legal quirks and subtle special pleadings of

the Saint and the Devil may perhaps excite a smile,-but why may not a saint be a wit, and use the Devil's weapon to defeat the fiend himself?

We have been so large in our extracts from "All for Love," that we must be very brief in our notice of the "Pilgrim to Compostella." It is a mere good-natured joke-an honest laugh at Roman Catholic credulity, in which the conclave of Cardinals might join-a merry Christmas tale, suppo sed to be related by "old Gaffer Grey," to a rosy fire-side of "good little men and women." We are assured, however, in a note, (apropos of notes, we wish Mr Southey would translate his Spanish quotations,)"that it is an actual Legend, seriously put forth by Mother Church for the edi fication of her faithful children." We hate to "mar a curious tale in telling it;" and it would be next to impossible, either by a prose abridgment, or by partial selections, to give any idea of the naïveté, and nursery-song simpli city, in which Mr Southey has disguised his Protestant satire. He has really made "a right merry conceited history," out of an absurd and auda cious lie. The fable is just this: A family set forth from Aquitaine to visit the shrine of St James, at Compostella, whither, according to the Catho lic faith, the decapitated body of that saint was conveyed from l'alestine, (miraculously of course,) in a ship of marble. At a certain small town by the way, their son Pierre is tempted by the innkeeper's daughter. Like a second Joseph, he resists the immodest damsel; like Potiphar's wife, she converts her love to hate, and accuses the virtuous youth of a capital crime.

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