Whose oars beat time to litanies at noon,
Or hymns at complin by the rising moon;
When, after chimes, each chapel echoes round,
Like one aërial instrument of sound,

Some vast harmonious fabric of the Lord's,

Whose vaults are shells, and pillars tuneful chords,
Echoes with song far circling hills and bays,

And heavenward wafting their consent and praise :)→
In either house a corody is mine:

Submit to Holy Church, her Scriptures sign,
And name in which retreat you choose to live,
And learn what blessings life has yet to give.

I offer life and heaven-or death and hell.
Ah, how perverse is sin! and how unwise!
Well, speak thy choice! The book before thee lies;
Subscribe it, and be bless'd for evermore!

Refuse, the feet of those are at the door,
Who bore thy father, and shall thence return,
And bear thee also to the stake, and burn;
With boughs in Holburn yet uncut from treen,
Whose sap is flowing, and whose leaves are green;
Burn, and ere evening break thy bones calcined
On Smithfield flags, and scatter to the wind.
Come, choose the path thou never may'st retrack.
Dost hear? Wilt answer?'

The Primate has a fine eye both for nature and art, and the picture he paints is so beautiful, that it might

well have softened a less hardened ginner. Yet there is something harsh and grating to the ear in what he says about Anne's father-and he ought not perhaps to have told her so abruptly that the old man had been burnt

alive. "Wilt answer?" "Yes, without the rack." But

I thirst-I faint for charity some wa

ter."

Drink, daughter-but remember that the damned ghosts howl in vain for one drop to cool their burning tongue. Repent therefore of thy crime!

"My crime! Whomever have I wrong'd on earth?
I, inoffensive maid, of humble birth,

Secluded life, scant means, and manners grave,
Child of an English leech and Syrian slave,-

Who for his love escaped the Haram's bound,

And here sought peace and freedom-here she found,
And in the grave secured them, blest indeed!

Ere you denounced or I denied her creed.

By father left to cherish it or change,

And bred his books and cottage to arrange,

His studies aid, and dress his favourite flowers,

Where willowy Ham the winding Thames embowers,
What have I dared could move the realm's alarm,
The Church's anger, or the secular arm?
What crime was mine ?-Unless ye call it such
To love some friends too little, some too much;

Unless a proud conceit of maiden prime,

And peevish tongue, be such,-what other crime?

Our books were naught ?—we lock'd them in the shelves.

Our creed accursed ?-we kept it to ourselves.

We never sow'd nor sought calumnious words

Of Holy Church's lucre, law, or lords;
We framed no sect, used no forbidden rite,
Preach'd no reform, desired no proselyte;
Nor ever jested where our neighbours knelt;
Nor dared betray contempt-whatever felt:

But held our thoughts aloof, and seldom spoke
E'en to ourselves, and never to the folk.
You, you bear witness, question'd I was dumb,
Till blood o'erflow'd the vice that crush'd my thumb.
That steel'd my heart; that stirr'd, beyond control,
My latent pride and bitterness of soul;
More rapt than pain'd, indignant more than weak,
I spoke the secrets of my troth, and speak.

But before you hearken to her declaring the "secrets of her troth," remember that Anne Ayliffe is the daughter of an English physician and a Syrian slave. You will hear from her own lips, by and by, of the strange wrongs endured by them all-enough now to know that her mother had died a Christian, but that she herself had early imbibed from her, ere she had

been wholly converted, the doctrines of another creed-and had come at last to disbelieve the Revelation of the New Testament. Her father, against whom no heresy had been proved, by wicked machinations had been cast into prison, as she for months had known, and as she now knew, had been put to death. With what power she speaks!

"The Eternal reigns in all through boundless space :
Unwise! who first design'd him form or face;
Profane! who shaped that image like our own;
Impious! who dared adore the stock or stone;
And thrice accursed! who yoked mankind and trode,
With prostrate necks while bow'd before his God:
But what was he, who studied racks and used,
To bend their necks and spirits that refused?
Studied the seat of anguish, and degrees,
Till pangs were found more cruel than disease,
And used them as a test for thought to search,
And called the hell-born science Holy Church!
Oh, Allah akbar! God is great, and right!
He crown'd man's brow with radiant orbs of light;
Light, which inspirits all, abstracts, and prints
On each twin lens all images and tints,
To contact brings the world beyond our span,
And makes the farthest star converse with man.
To read his works-God thus illumed the head,
But made man's breast no window-to be read.
Glory to God! Though given to King and Pope
To seal our eyes, our bosoms none can ope-
There still shall freedom one asylum find.

Go to make creeds, and laws, to scourge mankind!
Enthral them, hand and foot, and sight and speech!
Thought, only thought, is barr'd beyond your reach.
What racks can bend it? What research unveil ?
The soul, with flesh encompass'd as a mail
Of proof impervious save to God alone,
Defies your labours, and resumes her own.
Whether she break communion with the tongue,
And bid it mock you with the lie ye wrung,
Or scorning such degenerate use of breath,
Escape with truth, and leave you dust and death.

Father chose well. But I-Who whispers ? Hark!-
Am I a baby trembling in the dark?

Give me the volume!-Thank you. Let us read.

This is, you tell me, Holy Church's creed ;

Which teems with menace of God's wrath and curse,

But which I must subscribe, or suffer worse.

Already beasts are driven from the mart;

Where men, more brutish, flock from every part,

To make my last their holiday, and see

The pier of iron, girt with chains for me,

'Mid circling hearth-stones, and a leafy pyre-
Azreal! oh, spare me agonies of fire!
What hours are told in such a moment's pain!
More than I dare confront, or can sustain.
Oh, mercy, spare, forgive me kneeling here!
Am I not like your sisters, brethren dear?
Still like in substance, and was like in shape?
You call me daughter.-Is there no escape?
One Father formed us all of common mould-
Witness, oh witness here, the Book I hold,—
His breath inspired, his likeness graced, the clod;
Respect the work and image of your God!
Lord Primate, mercy! One, one mercy give!
I ask not much-I do not wish to live:
But let whate'er you do be briefly done.
Oh, mercy! Mercy?-Holy Church has none.
No. Allah kierim! Anne Ayliffe, rise!
Mercy dwells with our Prophet in the skies.
Kneel not to idols, nor implore their priests,
Who burn God's children in the mart for beasts.
Mercy, of all his attributes alone,

Whose hand made day so dark, or night so long,

Made heaven's bright arch as murky as
this den,

And changed the sea to blood-FOR
WERE THEY THEN?

No church usurps, no priests would make their own. How else were father's age and merits vain? Inhuman clerks! all reason who disdain, Brook no denial, no deserts respect, I will not add me to your bloody sect. Not for the heaven ye threaten to forefend; The stake, the hell-ye imitate and vend: Let fiends for ever tear and spurn me--look! As thus I rend, and trample on your book.!'" The conclave are smitten-as well they might be with horror and consternation, and exclaim, "Wretch, wretch, Paynim, atheist!" as, forgetful of the bloody bandage over her eyeless sockets, she tramples on the Book of Mercy, before the unmerciful, and laughs them all to scorn. Keep Anselm off-I know his hand," are words that give a horrid hint. And the Primate, who throughout is "pitiful, wondrous pitiful," gives permission to the Trappist, and to him alone, to stand near her side. "Oh! what fiends possessed thee! and art thou woman?" cries Thomas Arundel, Primate. And Anne Ayliffe, heretic, gives a dreadful answer. "THE THREE" she cried, "grim, terrible, and strong,

Yet hark! here's something human : something sobs,

As from a heart where still compassion throbs."

if any sob there were, it must be his. The Trappist, you sec, is at her side;

But who is he?

"Fitz-Hugh of Merton once, now Phillip of La Trappe."

She is ready to be carried out to her doom. But is there no tribunal before whom it may be revised? If such there be

"Thither I cite, Lord Legate, thee-to come,
And answer why you seized and haled from home
A leech so sage, beneficent, and mild,

His witless maid, and miserable child:

And lodged in dungeons, with a rush to shine,

Books meet for babes, and victual not for swine.
With God and me how dared you interpose?

Why ask my creed of what He only knows?

By what right dared ye ask, and by what work disel ose?
Reveal the secrets of yon blood-stained cell,
Arch'd under step-stones, half-way hence to hell;
What engines rack, and who o'erlooks the wheel,
To add his hand where others flincb,-reveal!

And oh what penance last was mine to bear,

To order-whose? when three came down the stair,
Anselm with coals, and Baptist with a rod,

And who the third bade bind me ?-Allah! God!
Whate'er thy name, thy number, one or three,
Or all in all,-if thou hast justice,- see!

By Christian saints though Heaven be half possest,
If there thine old assessor, Justice, rest,
With blindfold brow as idolists invent,

Rend, rend her bandage down!-as mine is rent.
What! Freeze ye now with horror and remorse,
As brigands shudder at their victim's corse?
Yet when, with torture rapt, I burst the bands,
Leap'd to those knees, and kiss'd his bloody hands,
Kneeling, and praying, after half was done,-
Oh, spare the other! Father, leave me one!
You answer'd,-you, Lord Hangman Arundel,—
What for thy soul is echoing since in hell,-
For miscreant lore,-you answer'd with an oath,-
E'en one was one too many-out with both!
Now, with these lids deep withering in their pit,
I see dismay has seized thee as a fit,

Pales that thin cheek, dilates those ghastly cyne,
And smites thy knees, 'mid shadows dark as mine:
And by thy labouring breast, thy tottering throne,
Thy jaws that gibber, but can scarce intone;
And, by the stillness of these slaves, I see,
All recognise a voice from Heaven for thee.
Thy days to-morrow shall have fill'd their sum!
And now I cite and summon thee to come,
And answer all this victim shall assign,
Against thee, then, before her God and thine!'"'

There is something very lofty and terrible in that summons; but her spirit, unable to sustain itself at such a pitch, almost faints within her, and she cries for water, and deliriously maunders of the horrors in which she is sunk, and surrounded on every side. "Delusions," she mutters," have abused my tongue;" and then she cries, "Off, ruffian!" and beseeches them to spare her father, for that he will recant.

All-all is false

"

Flattering and false as hope and early love!"

No account is taken of her in heaven

"I seem about to perish like the beasts, Whose mart awaits this holocaust for priests."

Again her spirit is released from its utter despair-and she says,

"Braid-for my chaplet, braid again the band:
Your eyes abhor those traces of your hand.
There!-all is hid below that linen wreath-
Heaven has no eyes can penetrate beneath.
One prophet must be false,-and may be both.
This, for abandoning dear mother's troth;
All this, for grasping thoughts beyond my span.
I stand abandon'd now of God and man.
My lane of life is darkening tow'rd the close.
Some paces on, the boundary pillar shows-
The landmark of existence; whither brought,
I shall shrink up and wither into nought;
Dissolv'd to elements of fire and clay,
Extinct-dispersed-forgotten. Let us pray.

"Too long forsaken, and too ill obey'd,
Thou! by whom I and every thing were made;
Oh, never blamed, though oft misunderstood,
Attest!I loved, I labour'd, to be good;

Content when poor, submissive when opprest,
With grief for faults, with gratitude when blest,
And when in pain not daring to repine,—
It was thy pleasure, and I made that mine.
And since 'tis now thy pleasure-wise and just,
To change this form, and recompose its dust,
God! I once more beg pardon for the past,
And once more offer thee my thanks, my last—
My boundless thanks, for life so long allow'd,
So plenteously sustain'd, so well endow'd,
To contemplate thy works, divine their ends,
Enjoy thought, passion, and discourse with friends.
Thanks! too for death, the term of every grief;
Thanks! even that agonies have this relief-
The long are moderate, and the acute are brief.
Yet, if it suit thy wisdom, give, oh give
That, which within me thinks, again to live!
If this oppose thy providence or power,
Or ill consist with Nature's general dower,
Use these materials for whate'er their worth!
I cast them at thy footstool,-earth to earth!'

So saying, with hands upraised she kneels in prayer, and then, falling on her face, lies mute and motionless, as if dead. The Primate is a controversialist, armed at all points-in every sense a formidable polemic and though Anne in her present posture can hardly be expected to hear distinctly all he says, he rates her sensibly and eloquently, and on some points, perhaps, has the better of the argu

ment. At the close of his harangue, he more than hints that after one other spiritual effort, he will leave the servants of the crown to deal with the wretched girl with arguments of their own. She again grows delirious, and "has strange powers of speech"-but in the midst of her ravings we hear speaking a being endowed with "discourse of reason."

"Anne Ayliffe! What! Anne Ayliffe!'

"Hark! They call!

Lead me before Saint Thomas, or Saint Paul!
Though all the rest disown me, and condemn,-
Saint Paul!-Saint Thomas !-I appeal to them.
For if they needed, to convince mistrust,
This, to put fingers where the spear was thrust,
That, to be call'd from mid-day skies aloud,
And reft of sight, with sight be re-endow'd;
Though both coeval might with men converse,
Who, palsied left their couch, or dead their herse:
Either should pardon one so far removed,
Whose doubt nor sense nor miracle disproved.
They would,-but-thronging monsters, grim and gaunt
'Tis Hyde!-Maud !-Father! Father, too?- Avaunt!
Who grasps? who holds me? whom am I among ?—
Some drink, some drink!-to cool my burning tongue.

"Thanks, thanks! I dream'd it. What's the time of night?
Lead me one moment to the old man's sight!

In dust, in dust, beneath his feet, to crawl,
Own all my faults, and make him pardon all:
The times I shunn'd obedience, seem'd ingrate,
Provoked his anger, merited his hate,
Would not repeat what faintly reach'd his ear,
Left him alone, or present fail'd to cheer.
Yet who expected hell for such complaints?
Or him to urge it on those captious saints?
What! thought he I with hypocrites could cower,-
For all the devil o'erlooks from Esher's tower!