A curious volume, patch'd and torn, That all day long, from earliest morn, Had taken captive her two eyes, Among its golden broideries;

Perplex'd her with a thousand things,—
The stars of heaven, and angels' wings,
Martyrs in a fiery blaze,

Azure saints and silver rays,
Moses' breastplate, and the seven
Candlesticks John saw in heaven,
The winged Lion of Saint Mark,
And the Covenantal Ark,
With its many mysteries
Cherubim and golden mice.

Bertha was a maiden fair,
Dwelling in th' old minster-square;
From her fire-side she could see,
Sidelong, its rich antiquity,

Far as the Bishop's garden-wall;
Where sycamores and elm-trees tall,
Full-leaved, the forest had outstript,
By no sharp north-wind ever nipt,
So shelter'd by the mighty pile.
Bertha arose, and read awhile,
With forehead 'gainst the window-pane.
Again she tried, and then again,
Until the dusk eve left her dark
Upon the legend of St. Mark.
From plaited lawn-frill, fine and thin,
She lifted up her soft warm chin,
With aching neck and swimming eyes,
And dazed with saintly imagʼries.

All was gloom, and silent all,
Save now and then the still foot-fall
Of one returning homewards late,
Past the echoing minster-gate.

;

The clamorous daws, that all the day
Above tree-tops and towers play,
Pair by pair had gone to rest,
Each in its ancient belfry-nest,
Where asleep they fall betimes,
To music and the drowsy chimes.
All was silent, all was gloom,
Abroad and in the homely room :
Down she sat, poor cheated soul !
And struck a lamp from the dismal coal
Lean'd forward, with bright drooping hair
And slant book, full against the glare.
Her shadow, in uneasy guise,
Hover'd about, a giant size,
On ceiling-beam and old oak chair,
The parrot's cage, and panel square ;
And the warm angled winter-screen,
On which were many monsters seen,
Call'd doves of Siam, Lima mice,
And legless birds of Paradise,
Macaw, and tender Av'davat,
And silken-furr'd Angora cat.
Untired she read, her shadow still
Glower'd about, as it would fill

The room with wildest forms and shades,
As though some ghostly queen of spades
Had come to mock behind her back,
And dance, and ruffle her garments black.
Untired she read the legend page,

Of holy Mark, from youth to age,
On land, on sea, in pagan chains,
Rejoicing for his many pains.
Sometimes the learned eremite,
With golden star, or dagger bright,
Referr❜d to pious poesies

Written in smallest crow-quill size
Beneath the text; and thus the rhyme
Was parcell'd out from time to time :
"Als writith he of swevenis,

Men han beforne they wake in bliss, Whanne that hir friendes thinke him bound In crimped shroude farre under grounde; And how a litling child mote be

A saint er its nativitie,

Gif that the modre (God her blesse !)
Kepen in solitarinesse,

And kissen devoute the holy croce.
Of Goddes love, and Sathan's force,-
He writith; and thinges many mo
Of swiche thinges I may not shew.
Bot I must tellen verilie

Somdel of Saintè Cicilie,

And chieflie what he auctorethe
Of Sainte Markis life and dethe:

At length her constant eyelids come
Upon the fervent martyrdom;
Then lastly to his holy shrine,

Exalt amid the tapers' shine
At Venice,-

IN

PRAISE OF ENGLAND

BY A. G. GARDINER

AND when I say England, forgive me for once, O stern and wild Caledonian, if I mean Scotland too. For I cannot say "In praise of Great Britain." No pen with a holiday feeling coursing through its inky veins would consent to write in such cold formal phrase. The very nib would revolt against the outrage and splutter tears, blue-black tears, of honest protest upon the page. And besides, I mean Ireland as well, and I ask you, how can a man set out on a light-hearted literary excursion under the sign "In Praise of Great Britain and Ireland" or "In Praise of the United Kingdom"? I should find myself thinking of the British Constitution and Magna Charta and the Statute of Labourers and Ship Money and other solemn things. And instead I am thinking of the springing grass and the budding trees, the lambs that I know are gambolling in the chequered shade and the lark that is shouting the news of spring in the vault of the sky. I am thinking of the eternal delights of this wonderful world, and not of the mess that man has made of his own part in it. I am in that

mood in which I can find nothing in my head except one glorious, intoxicating refrain :

And oh, she danced in such a way,

No sun upon an Easter Day

Was half so fine a sight.

For the sun is high and the sky is blue, and the blossom is on the almond tree. I hear the whirr of cabs going by, and when I look up I see they are piled high with luggage, and, like the Tuscan gentlemen of old, I can "scarce forbear to cheer." For I am of the goodly company too, and when I have sung the praise of England I am going to take my reward. I, too, am going out to greet the spring in the woods and on the hillside. I am going to lean my ear in many a secret place and catch the ancient song of the earth that was sung before the cannon came and will endure when the cannon are dust. I know that nature, like man, is red in tooth and claw

Still do I that most fierce destruction see

The shark at savage prey,-the hawk at pounce-
The Gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce,
Ravening a worm.

But when the spring has come and the sun is dancing in the Easter sky it is the song of earth and not its dirge that we hear.

And where shall we hear that song more rapturously than in England? If this war has no other virtue, it will at least teach some of us to discover our own country, for we are compelled to stay here whether we like it or not. There are people who will take this as a trial, for they never think of a holiday except in terms of foreign places. I