Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God!

My spirit beats her mortal. bars, As down dark tides the glory slides,

And star-like mingles with the stars.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,

The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,

The horse and rider reel :
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,

And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

That lightly rain from ladies' hands.

How sweet are looks that ladies bend

On whom their favours fall! For them I battle till the end,

To save from shame and thrall : But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love,

Vor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,

Me mightier transports move and thrill; So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer

A virgin heart in work and will.

When on my goodly charger borne

Thro' dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,

The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and

mail ;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,

And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;

No branchy thicket shelter yields ;
But blessed forms in whistling storms

Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

When down the stormy crescent goes,

A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,

I hear a noise of hymns :
Then by some secret shrine I ride ;

I hear a voice, but none are there ; The stalls are void, the doors are wide,

The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,

The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,

And solemn chaunts resound between.

A maiden knight-to me is given

Such hope, I know not fear;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven

That often meet me here.
I muse on joy that will not cease,

Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odours haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand,

This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes,

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres

I find a magic bark;
I leap on board : no helmsman steers :

I float till all is dark,
A gentle sound, an awful light !

Three angels bear the holy Grail : With folded feet, in stoles of white,

On sleeping wings they sail.

The clouds are broken in the sky,

And thro' the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony

Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod,

Wings flutter, voices hover clear :
O just and faithful knight of God !

Ride on ! the prize is near.'
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange ;

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm’d I ride, whate'er betide,

Until I find the holy Grail.

EDWARD GRAY.

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL

MONOLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town

Met me walking on yonder way, ‘And have you lost your heart?' she said ; “And are you married yet, Edward

Gray?'

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me :

Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

*Ellen Adair she loved me well,

Against her father's and mother's will : To-day I sat for an hour and wept,

By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. “Shy she was, and I thought her cold;

Thought her proud, and Aed over the sea; Filld I was with folly and spite,

When Ellen Adair was dying for me. “Cruel, cruel the words I said !

Cruelly came they back to-day : "You're too slight and fickle," I said,

“To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.” “There I put my face in the grass

Whisper'd, “Listen to my despair : I repent me of all I did :

Speak a little, Ellen Adair !” *Then I took a pencil, and wrote

On the mossy stone, as I lay, “ Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ;

And here the heart of Edward Gray !”

O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,

To which I most resort, How goes the time ? 'Tis five o'clock.

Go fetch a pint of port : But let it not be such as that

You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat

On Lusitanian summers.
No vain libation to the Muse,

But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use

Her influence on the mind,
To make me write my random rhymes,

Ere they be half-forgotten ; Nor add and alter, many times,

Till all be ripe and rotten.
I pledge her, and she comes and dips

Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,

These favour'd lips of mine ;
Until the charm have power to make

New lifeblood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces break ,

In full and kindly blossom.
I pledge her silent at the board ;

Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord

Of all I felt and feel.
Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,

And phantom hopes assemble;
And that child's heart within the man's

Begins to move and tremble.
Thro' many an hour of summer suns,

By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs

The current of my days :

'Love may come, and love may go,

And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree : But I will love no more, no more,

Till Ellen Ad air come back to me. * Bitterly wept I over the stone :

Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : There lies the body of Ellen Adair !

And there the heart of Edward Gray!'

For I am of a numerous house,

With many kinsmen gay,
Where long and largely we carouse

As who shall say me nay:
Each month, a birth-day coming on,

We drink defying trouble, Or sometimes two would meet in one,

And then we drank it double ;

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,

Tho' fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take

Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;

There must be stormy weather ;
But for some true result of good

All parties work together. Let there be thistles, there are grapes ;

If old things, there are new;
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,

Yet glimpses of the true.
Let raffs be rise in prose and rhyme,

We lack not rhymes and reasons,
As on this whirligig of Time

We circle with the seasons.

Whether the vintage, yet unkept,

Had relish fiery-new,
Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,

As old as Waterloo;
Or stow'd, when classic Canning died,

In musty bins and chambers, Had cast upon its crusty side

The gloom of ten Decembers. The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is !

She answer'd to my call,
She changes with that mood or this,

Is all-in-all to all :
She lit the spark within my throat,

To make my blood run quicker,
Used all her fiery will, and smote

Her life into the liquor.

This earth is rich in man and maid ;

With fair horizons bound : This whole wide earth of light and shade

Comes out, a perfect round. High over roaring Temple-bar,

And set in Heaven's third story, I look at all things as they are,

But thro' a kind of glory.

Head-waiter, honour'd by the guest

Half-mused, or reeling ripe, The pint, you brought me, was the best

That ever came from pipe.

And hence this halo lives about

The waiter's hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout,

His proper chop to each.