No More Learning

"Now we shall see for whom this ready grave,"
Said Sigismond, "you dog, whom naught can save! "
Aware was Eviradnus that if he
Turned for a blade unto the armory,
He would be instant pierced--what can he do?
The moment is for him supreme. But, lo!
He glances now at Ladislaus dead,
And with a smile triumphant and yet dread,
And air of lion caged to whom is shown
Some loophole of escape, he bends him down.

"Ha! ha! no other club than this I need! "
He cried, as seizing in his hands with speed
The dead King's heels, the body lifted high,
Then to the frightened Emperor he came nigh,
And made him shake with horror and with fear,
The weapon all so ghastly did appear.
The head became the stone to this strange sling,
Of which the body was the potent string;
And while 'twas brandished in a deadly way,
The dislocated arms made monstrous play
With hideous gestures, as now upside down
The bludgeon corpse a giant force had grown.
"'Tis well! " said Eviradnus, and he cried,
"Arrange between yourselves, you two allied;
If hell-fire were extinguished, surely it
By such a contest might be all relit;
From kindling spark struck out from dead King's brow,
Batt'ring to death a living Emperor now. "

And Sigismond, thus met and horrified,
Recoiled to near the unseen opening wide;
The human club was raised, and struck again * * *
And Eviradnus did alone remain
All empty-handed--but he heard the sound
Of spectres two falling to depths profound;
Then, stooping o'er the pit, he gazed below,
And, as half-dreaming now, he murmured low,
"Tiger and jackal meet their portion here,
'Tis well together they should disappear! "

XVIII.

DAYBREAK.
Then lifts he Mahaud to the ducal chair,
And shuts the trap with noiseless, gentle care;
And puts in order everything around,
So that, on waking, naught should her astound.

"No drop of blood the thing has cost," mused he,
"And that is best indeed. "

But suddenly
Some distant bells clang out. The mountains gray
Have scarlet tips, proclaiming dawning day;
The hamlets are astir, and crowds come out--
Bearing fresh branches of the broom--about
To seek their Lady, who herself awakes
Rosy as morn, just when the morning breaks;
Half-dreaming still, she ponders, can it be
Some mystic change has passed, for her to see
One old man in the place of two quite young!
Her wondering eyes search carefully and long.
It may be she regrets the change: meanwhile,
The valiant knight salutes her with a smile,
And then approaching her with friendly mien,
Says, "Madam, has your sleep all pleasant been? "

MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND.





THE SOUDAN, THE SPHINXES, THE CUP, THE LAMP.

_("Zim-Zizimi, Soudan d'Egypte. ")_

[Bk. XVI. i. ]


Zim Zizimi--(of the Soudan of burnt Egypt,
The Commander of Believers, a Bashaw
Whose very robes were from Asia's greatest stript,
More powerful than any lion with resistless paw)
A master weighed on by his immense splendor--
Once had a dream when he was at his evening feast,
When the broad table smoked like a perfumed censer,
And its grateful odors the appetite increased.
The banquet was outspread in a hall, high as vast,
With pillars painted, and with ceiling bright with gold,
Upreared by Zim's ancestors in the days long past,
And added to till now worth a sum untold.
Howe'er rich no rarity was absent, it seemed,
Fruit blushed upon the side-boards, groaning 'neath rich meats,
With all the dainties palate ever dreamed
In lavishness to waste--for dwellers in the streets
Of cities, whether Troy, or Tyre, or Ispahan,
Consume, in point of cost, food at a single meal
Much less than what is spread before this crowned man---
Who rules his couchant nation with a rod of steel,
And whose servitors' chiefest arts it was to squeeze
The world's full teats into his royal helpless mouth.