Go to your secret chambers, and kneel down,
And ask of God. Urge your request like him
Who, on the slight raft, 'mid the ocean's foam,
Toileth for life. And when ye win a hope
That the world gives not, and a faith divine,
Ye will no longer marvel how the friend,
So beautiful, so lov'd, so lured by all
The pageantry of earth, could meekly find
A blessedness in death.

BERNARDINE DU BORN.

KING HENRY sat upon his throne,
And full of wrath and scorn,

His eye a recreant knight surveyed—
Sir Bernardine du Born.

And he that haughty glance returned,

Like lion in his lair,

And loftily his unchanged brow

Gleamed through his crisped hair.

"Thou art a traitor to the realm,

Lord of a lawless band,

The bold in speech, the fierce in broil,

The troubler of our land;

Thy castles, and thy rebel-towers,

Are forfeit to the crown,

And thou beneath the Norman axe

Shalt end thy base renown.

"Deignest thou no word to bar thy doom,

Thou with strange madness fired ?

Hath reason quite forsook thy breast?" Plantagenet inquired.

Sir Bernard turned him toward the king He blenched not in his pride;

"My reason failed, my gracious liege, The year Prince Henry died."

Quick at that name a cloud of woe
Pass'd o'er the monarch's brow,
Touched was that bleeding cord of love,
To which the mightiest bow.
Again swept back the tide of years,

Again his first-born moved,

The fair, the graceful, the sublime,
The erring, yet beloved.

And ever, cherished by his side,
One chosen friend was near,
To share in boyhood's ardent sport
Or youth's untamed career;
With him the merry chase he sought
Beneath the dewy morn,

With him in knightly tourney rode,

This Bernardine du Born.

Then in the mourning father's soul

Each trace of ire grew dim,

And what his buried idol loved

Seemed cleansed of guilt to him— And faintly through his tears he spake "God send his grace to thee,

And for the dear sake of the dead,

Go forth-unscathed and free."

THE KNELL.

A SILVER Sound was on the summer-air,
And yet it was not music. The sweet birds
Went warbling wildly forth, from grove and dell,
Their thrilling harmonies; yet this low tone
Chimed not with them. But in the secret soul
There was a deep response, troubling the fount
Where bitter tears are born. Too well I knew
The tomb's prelusive melody. I turned,

And sought the house of mourning.

Ah, pale friend!

Who speak'st not-look'st not-dost not give the hand— Hath love so perished in that pulseless breast,

Once its own throne ?

Thou silent, changeless one,

The seal is on thy virtues-now no more
Like ours to tremble in temptation's hour,
Perchance to fall. Fear hath no longer power
To chill thy life-stream, and frail hope doth fold
Her rainbow wing, and sink to rest with thee.
How good to be unclothed, and sleep in peace!