With a fell and rattling sound;
And laid him on the ground,
Grommelling!

The king raised his finger; then
Leaped two leopards from the den
With a bound;

And boldly bounded they
Where the crouching tiger lay

Terrible!

And he griped the beasts in his deadly hold;
In the grim embrace they grappled and rolled;
Rose the lion with a roar!

And stood the strife before;
And the wild-cats on the spot,

From the blood-thirst, wroth and hot,
Halted still!

Now from the balcony above

A snowy hand let fall a glove:

Midway between the beasts of prey,

Lion and tiger; there it lay,

The winsome lady's glove!

Fair Cunigonde said, with a lip of scorn,

To the knight Delorges, "If the love you have sworn Were as gallant and leal as you boast it to be,

I might ask you to bring back that glove to me!"

The knight left the place where the lady sate;
The knight he has passed through the fearful gate;
The lion and tiger he stooped above,

And his fingers have closed on the lady's glove!

All shuddering and stunned, they beheld him thereThe noble knights and the ladies fair;

But loud was the joy and the praise the while
He bore back the glove with his tranquil smile.

With a tender look in her softening eyes,
That promised reward to his warmest sighs,
Fair Cunigonde rose her knight to grace,
He tossed the glove in the lady's face!

"Nay, spare me the guerdon, at least," quoth he;
And he left forever that fair ladye!

SCHILLER, transl. by BULWER.

THE KNIGHT'S LEAP.

A LEGEND OF ALTENAHR.

So the foemen have fired the gate, men of mine;
And the water is spent and gone?
Then bring me a cup of the red Ahr-wine:
I never shall drink but this one.

And reach me my harness, and saddle my horse,
And lead him me round by the door:
He must take such a leap to-night, perforce,
As horse never took before.

I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;

From Trier to Cöln there was never a knight
Led a merrier life than mine.

I have lived by the saddle for years two score,
And if I must die on a tree,

Then the old saddle-tree which has borne me of yore
Is the properest timber for me.

So now to show bishop and burgher and priest
How the Altenahr hawk can die:

If they smoke the old falcon out of his nest,
He must take to his wings and fly.

He harnessed himself by the clear moonshine,
And he mounted his horse at the door;
And he drained such a cup of the red Ahr wine
As man never drained before.

He spurred the old horse, and he held him tight,
And he leapt him out over the wall;

Out over the cliff, out into the night,
Three hundred feet of fall.

They found him next morning below in the glen,
With never a bone in him whole-

A mass or a prayer, now, good gentlemen,
For such a bold rider's soul.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

MILLAIS'S "HUGUENOTS."

TO II., PLAYING ONE OF MENDELSSOHN'S "SONGS WITH-
OUT WORDS."

Your favorite picture rises up before me
Whene'er you play that tune;

I see two figures standing in a garden,
In the still August noon.

One is a girl's, with pleading face turned upwards,
Wild with a great alarm;

Trembling, with haste she binds her broidered kerchief About the other's arm,

Whose gaze is bent on her in tender pity,
Whose eyes look into hers

With a deep meaning, though she cannot read it,
Hers are so dim with tears.

What are they saying in the sunny garden

With summer flowers ablow?

What gives the woman's voice its passionate pleading? What makes the man's so low?

"See, love," she murmurs; "you shall wear my kerchief

It is the badge I know;

And it will bear you safely through the conflict,
If-if, indeed, you go!

"You will not wear it! Will not wear my kerchief?

Nay, do not tell me why;

I will not listen! If you go without it,
You will go hence to die.

"Hush! do not answer! It is death, I tell you!
Indeed, I speak the truth;

You standing there so warm with life and vigor,
So bright with health and youth.

"You would go hence, out of the glowing sunshine, Out of the garden's bloom,

Out of the living, thinking, feeling present,

Into the unknown gloom!"

Then he makes answer, "Hush! oh, hush, my darling!

Life is so sweet to me,

So full of hope, you need not bid me guard it,

If such a thing might be !

"If such a thing might be !-but not through false

hood,

I could not come to you;

I dare not stand here in your pure, sweet presence, Knowing myself untrue."

"It is no sin!" the wild voice interrupts him, "This is no open strife.

Have you not often dreamt a nobler warfare

In which to spend your life?

"Oh, for my sake-though but for my sake-wear it! Think what my life would be

If you, who gave it first true worth and meaning,
Were taken now from me.

"Think of the long, long days so slowly passing!
Think of the endless years!

I am so young! Must I live out my lifetime
With neither hopes nor fears?"

He speaks again, in mournful tones and tender,
But with unswerving faith:

"Should not love make us braver, ay, and stronger, Either for life or death?

"And life is hardest! O my love! my treasure!
If I could bear your part

Of this great sorrow, I would go to meet it
With an unshrinking heart.

"Child! child! I little dreamt in that bright summer, When first your love I sought,

Of all the future store of woe and anguish

Which I, unknowing, wrought.