How beautiful a tale for her glad ear

He hath when he returns. Meantime the maids Weave garlands for his head, and raise the song.

Oh! happy thou, whom early from the world
The Gods require! not by the wasting worm
Of sorrow canker'd, nor condemn'd to feel
The pang
of sickness, nor the wound of war,
Nor the long miseries of protracted age;
But thus in childhood chosen of the God,
To share his joys. Soon shall thy rescued soul,
Child of the Stranger! in his blissful world,
Mix with the blessed spirits; for not thine,
Amid the central darkness of the earth,

To endure the eternal void; .. not thine to live,
Dead to all objects of eye, ear, or sense,

For thee the bowers

In the long horrors of one endless night,
With endless being curst.
Of Tlalocan have blossom'd with new sweets;
For thee have its immortal trees matured
The fruits of Heaven; thy comrades even now
Wait thee, impatient, in their fields of bliss;
The God will welcome thee, his chosen child,
And Aiauh love thee with a mother's love.
Child of the Stranger, dreary is thy way!
Darkness and Famine through the cave of Death
Must guide thee. Happy thou, when on that night
The morning of the eternal day shall dawn.

So as they sung young Hoel's song of death, With rapid strength the boatmen plied their oars, And through the water swift they glided on,

And now to shore they drew. The stately bank
Rose with the majesty of woods o'erhung,
And rocks, or peering through the forest shade,
Or rising from the lake, and with their bulk
Glassing its dark deep waters. Half way up,
A cavern pierced the rock; no human foot
Had trod its depths, nor ever sunbeam reach'd
Its long recesses and mysterious gloom;
To Tlaloc it was hallowed; and the stone,
Which closed its entrance, never was removed,
Save when the yearly festival return'd,
And in its womb a child was sepulchred,
The living victim. Up the winding path,
That to the entrance of the cavern led,
With many a painful step the train ascend:
But many a time, upon that long ascent,
Young Hoel would have paused, with weariness
Exhausted now. They urge him on,.. poor child!
They urge him on!.. Where is Cadwallon's aid?
Where is the sword of Ririd? where the arm
Of Madoc now?.. Oh! better had he lived,
Unknowing and unknown, on Arvon's plain,
And trod upon his noble father's grave,

With peasant feet, unconscious!.. They have reach'd
The cavern now, and from its mouth the Priests
Roll the huge portal. Thitherward they force

The son of Llaian. A cold air comes out ;..

It chills him, and his feet recoil; .. in vain
His feet recoil; in vain he turns to fly,

Affrighted at the sudden gloom that spreads
Around;.. the den is closed, and he is left
In solitude and darkness,.. left to die!

XIII.

COATEL.

THAT morn from Aztlan Coatel had gone,
In search of flowers, amid the woods and crags,
To deck the shrine of Coatlantona;

Such flowers as in the solitary wilds

Hiding their modest beauty, made their worth
More valued for its rareness. 'T was to her
A grateful task; not only for she fled
Those cruel rites, to which nor reverent use,
Nor frequent custom could familiarize
Her gentle heart, and teach it to put off
All womanly feeling;.. but that from all eyes
Escaped, and all obtrusive fellowship,
She in that solitude might send her soul
To where Lincoya with the Strangers dwelt.
She from the summit of the woodland heights
Gazed on the lake below. The sound of song
And instrument, in soften'd harmony,

Had reach'd her where she stray'd; and she beheld
The pomp, and listen'd to the floating sounds,
A moment, with delight: but then a fear
Came on her, for she knew with what design
The Tyger and Ocellopan had sought

The dwellings of the Cymry ... Now the boats
Drew nearer, and she knew the Stranger's child.
She watch'd them land below; she saw them wind

The ascent: . . and now from that abhorred cave
The stone is roll'd away,.. and now the child
From light and life is cavern'd. Coatel
Thought of his mother then, of all the ills

Her fear would augur, and how worse than all
Which even a mother's maddening fear could feign,
His actual fate. She thought of this, and bow'd
Her face upon her knees, and closed her eyes,
Shuddering. Suddenly in the brake beside,
A rustling startled her, and from the shrubs,
A Vulture rose.

She moved toward the spot,

Led by an idle impulse, as it seem'd,

To see from whence the carrion bird had fled.
The bushes overhung a narrow chasm

Which pierced the hill: upon its mossy sides
Shade-loving herbs and flowers luxuriant grew,
And jutting crags made easy the descent.
A little way descending, Coatel

Stoopt for the flowers, and heard, or thought she heard,
A feeble sound below. She raised her head,
And anxiously she listen'd for the sound,

Not without fear... Feebly again, and like
A distant cry, it came; and then she thought,
Perhaps it was the voice of that poor child,
By the slow pain of hunger doom'd to die.

She shudder'd at the thought, and breathed a groan
Of unavailing pity;.. but the sound

Came nearer, and her trembling heart conceived
A dangerous hope. The Vulture from that chasm
Had fled, perchance accustomed in the cave
To seek his banquet, and by living feet

Alarm'd:..there was an entrance then below;
And were it possible that she could save
The Stranger's child, .. Oh what a joy it were
To tell Lincoya that!

It was a thought

Which made her heart with terror and delight
Throb audibly. From crag to crag she past
Descending, and beheld a narrow cave
Enter the hill. A little way the light
Fell, . . but its feeble glimmering she herself
Obstructed half, as stooping in she went.

The arch grew loftier, and the increasing gloom
Fill'd her with more affright; and now she paused;
For at a sudden and abrupt descent

She stood, and fear'd its unseen depth; her heart
Fail'd, and she back had hasten'd; but the cry
Reach'd her again, the near and certain cry
Of that most pitiable innocent.

Again adown the dark descent she look❜d,

Straining her eyes; by this the strengthen'd sight Had grown adapted to the gloom around,

And her dilated pupils now received

Dim sense of objects near.

;

Something below,
White in the darkness lay, it mark'd the depth,
Still Coatel stood dubious; but she heard
The wailing of the child, and his loud sobs
Then, clinging to the rock with fearful hands,
Her feet explored below, and twice she felt
Firm footing, ere her fearful hold relax'd.
The sound she made, along the hollow rock
Ran echoing. Hoel heard it, and he came
Groping along the side. A dim, dim light