your ease. She’s here.  Miss Mercome, you will help him win The race, and will not count my wager sin.”  And he was gone; the pair were face to face.  “I’ll take the oars,” he gasped; “we’ll win this race.”  He never felt his heart so in his breast.  “I hope you will forgive my cousin’s jest?” A haughty murmur was her sole reply.  No rowers followed.  Never did swallows fly So swift, or dip the lake like Gilbert’s oars.  He was watchful, careless she.  “There soars A heron, quite a feature of your state:  Are gems and peacocks, tell me, still in date?  How deep the woods upon the water steal, One to the other making soft appeal!” “Not being human, wood and water meet In their own speech, and soulless things are sweet Together.  So they are to me.  I like To watch the herons by the sedgy dike; They keep me tranquil; and I love to feed The pike in yon old pool; they help to lead—­ Why, here is Martin’s Bridge, and yet no boats!  Shall we return?” Said Clara then, “There floats A lily bed beyond; let’s shoot beneath The bridge, and lilies pull; I want a wreath.”  He knew the channel narrow; it was dark; But his heart leaped at this relenting mark.  He drew his oars up, pointed in the helm, And shot in the cool gloom.  He thought no realm On which the sun had shone was half so bright.  And somehow Clara thought it nice as light.  The waters swirled so swift that in the noise Clara grew dizzy; Gilbert lost his poise, And lost an oar; with a confusing shock The boat was grinding—­stopped against a rock.  “Gilbert, my dear, are we not going down?” “Dearest, my love, we were not born to drown.  Oh, kiss me; we are safe; and grant me now Yourself.  I’ll gather lilies for your brow; And Hugh will know that I have won the race, And Clara, my dear wife, her rightful place.”

THE WOLF-TAMER.

  Through the gorge of snow we go,
  Tracking, tramping soft and slow,
  With our paws and sheathed claws,
  So we swing along the snow,
  Crowding, crouching to your pipes—­
  Shining serpents!  Well you know,
  When your lips shall cease to blow
  Airs that lure us through the snow,
  We shall fall upon your race
  Who do wear a different face. 
  Who were spared in yonder vale? 
  Not a man to tell the tale! 
  Blow, blow, serpent pipes,
  Slow we follow:—­all our troop—­
  Every wolf of wooded France,
  Down from all the Pyrenees—­
  Shall they follow, follow you,
  In your dreadful music-trance? 
  Mark it by our tramping paws,
  Hidden fangs, and sheathed claws? 
  You have seen the robber bands
  Tear men’s tongues and cut their hands,
  For ransom—­we ask none—­begone,
  For the tramping of our paws,
  Marking all your music’s laws,
  Numbs the lust of ear and eye;
  Or—­let us go beneath the snow,
  And silent die—­as wolves should die!

THE ABBOT OF UNREASON.