With warning gesture, and repellent hand
Laid fternly on the boat's uplifted prow,
The Vila hails in accents of command,

"Hold! speak! whence comeft thou ?”

And he, "From exile, where I've wandered long,
Waiting the hour when Servia should arise,
And caft the ruthless authors of her wrong
As low as now fhe lies.

"The hour has come. The cry of her despair
To other lands was paffionately made;
They heard and answered not: and she will dare
Be free without their aid.

"Her children gather in the cloister's gloom,
In foreft fhades where fwarthy lime-trees grow,
In lonely glen and cavern dark: I come
To lead them to the foe."

To him the Vila, "Back! She needs thee not.
Thou, the ungrateful! that didft from her flee
In forest need; though from her lowest hut
She stooped and lifted thee,

"And placed thee on her throne, and did entrust To thee her dear, her new-found liberty,

When from her breaft fierce Ofman's race was thrust, And she erect ftood, free.

"And when returned again that hated race,
And to the combat rushed her children all,
Didft thou in fight among them take thy place,
With them to ftand or fall?

"The land thou haft forfaken thee forfakes;
Hence and in exile linger out thy life!
For Servia now another chieftain takes
When arming for the strife."

And he, with blush upon his visage wan,

"I would but follow where her chieftain leads;

I would but bleed befide the meaneft man

For Servia that bleeds;

"I would for Servia but ftrike one blow-
One blow to cleanse my deep dishonoured brand;
I would but bring to duft one Ofman foe,
Then die beneath his hand.”

And fhe, with calm and measured utterance,
"The foot that fled thy country in her need,

Shall never in the honoured ranks advance
That go for her to bleed.

"No foe fhall fink thy recreant hand beneath;
No foeman's blade in battle fhall be croffed
With thine, that hung ignobly in its sheath
When liberty was loft.

"No battle-field shall see thee part with life—
The death that doth the foldier true befeem-
Above thy flumbering head the affaffin's knife,
In Servian hand, fhall gleam."

And he, in humbleness, “So let it be !

And thou, oh Servia, back unto thy breastThough in thy forrow I did from thee fleeWilt take this head to reft."

Then fhe, in tones that through his bofom went, "No; from thy country's breast it shall be torn, And to the foeman's capital be fent

A trophy and a fcorn!"

And he, in voice unchanged, "So let it be!

And more, if I by fuffering may atone For my great finning, Servia, to thee From me shall rife no moan."

Then fhe, in tones confoling, foft and low;

"Pass to thy country and refign thy breath; Pass, and lay down the burthen of thy woe; Pass, foldier, to thy death—

"As true as he who in the battle bleeds: Yea, thou art worthy of thy country yet! And she will cherish all thy noble deeds,

"And fhe fhall be a nation, happy, free

Though long the struggle ere the prize be wonAnd she shall give, for memory of thee,

Her crown unto thy son.

"Pafs, chofen of the people, patriot chief;
Pass to thy country and refign thy breath;
Pass, and lay down the burthen of thy grief;
Pass, foldier, to thy death."

La Dame Abonde.

"And Joan of Arc,

A light of ancient France."

La Dame Abonde was the Queen of Fées. Her chofen places of abode were the forests of Lorrainethose mighty forests that, themselves unchanged, had witneffed the mutations of centuries-the huntinggrounds of the grand old Carlovingian Kings.

The duties of the Fées were numerous and important; extending from the protection of the humbleft floweret to infpiring the thoughts and prompting the actions (through the medium of dreams) of thofe who worked out the deftinies of the nation. And never did Fée whisper word in the dreaming ear of mortal fo eventful in its refults, as when their Queen bade the young shepherdess of Domremy repair to the Fairy Fountain, beneath the Fairy Tree, on the outskirts of the forest of Lorraine, there to be shown how she