"This shall be yours when you bring back My husband safe and well."

The youth did ride, and soon did meet

John coming back amain;

Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein,

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went postboy at his heels,

The postboy's horse right glad to miss.
The lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With postboy scampering in the rear,

They raised the hue and cry:—

a highwayman!"

Not one of them was mute;

And all and each that passed that way

Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again

Flew open in short space;

The tollmen thinking, as before,

That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,
For he got first to town;

Nor stopped till where he had got up
He did again get down.

Now let us sing, "Long live the king,
And, Gilpin, long live he!

And when he next doth ride abroad,

May I be there to see!"

William Cowper.

Ely.

ELY ABBEY.

MTha Cnut ching reuther by;

ERIE sungen the muneches binnen Ely,

Roweth, cnihtes, noer the land,

And here we thes muneches sang.

CANUTE.

Anglo-Saxon Rhyme.

A

PLEASANT music floats along the mere,

From monks in Ely chanting service high, While-as Canute the king is rowing by.

"My oarsmen," quoth the mighty king, "draw near, That we the sweet song of the monks may hear!" He listens (all past conquests and all schemes

Of future vanishing like empty dreams)
Heart-touched, and haply not without a tear.
The royal minstrel, ere the choir is still,
While his free barge skims the smooth flood along,
Gives to that rapture an accordant rhyme.
O suffering Earth! be thankful; sternest clime
And rudest age are subject to the thrill

Of heaven-descended piety and song.

William Wordsworth.

THE CATHEDRAL TOMBS.

"Post tempestatem tranquillitas."

Epitaph in Ely Cathedral.

HEY lie, with upraised hands, and feet

THEY

Stretched like dead feet that walk no more,

And stony masks oft human sweet,

As if the olden look each wore,
Familiar curves of lip and eye,
Were wrought by some fond memory.

All waiting the new-coffined dead,
The handful of mere dust that lies
Sarcophagused in stone and lead

Under the weight of centuries:
Knight, cardinal, bishop, abbess mild,
With last week's buried year-old child.

After the tempest cometh peace,

After long travail sweet repose;

These folded palms, these feet that cease

From any motion, are but shows

Of - what? What rest? How rest they? Where? The generations naught declare.

Dark grave, unto whose brink we come,

Drawn nearer by all nights and days;
Each after each, thy solemn gloom
We pierce with momentary gaze,
Then go, unwilling or content,
The way that all our fathers went.

Is there no voice or guiding hand
Arising from the awful void,

To say, "Fear not the silent land;

Would He make aught to be destroyed?
Would He? or can He? What know we
Of Him who is Infinity?

Strong Love, which taught us human love,
Helped us to follow through all spheres
Some soul that did sweet dead lips move,
Lived in dear eyes in smiles and tears,
Love, once so near our flesh allied
That "Jesus wept " when Lazarus died; -

Eagle-eyed Faith that can see God

In worlds without and heart within; In sorrow by the smart o' the rod,

In guilt by the anguish of the sin; In everything pure, holy, fair,

God saying to man's soul, "I am there";

EMONT (EAMONT), THE RIVER.
These only, twin-archangels, stand

Above the abyss of common doom,
These only stretch the tender hand

To us descending to the tomb,
Thus making it a bed of rest
With spices and with odors drest.

So, like one weary and worn, who sinks
To sleep beneath long faithful eyes,
Who asks no word of love, but drinks
The silence which is paradise,

We only cry, "Keep angelward,

And give us good rest, O good Lord!"

233

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.

Emont (Eamont), the River.

MONASTIC RUINS.

THE varied banks

Of Emont, hitherto unnamed in song,
And that monastic castle, mid tall trees,
Low standing by the margin of the stream,
A mansion visited (as fame reports)

By Sidney, where, in sight of our Helvellyn,
Or stormy Cross-fell, snatches he might pen
Of his Arcadia, by fraternal love

Inspired, - that river and those mouldering towers Have seen us side by side, when, having clomb