At length finds rest.

THE ANGEL.

It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air has been

taken!

It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour-glass is no

shaken !

It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and the flow

It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow!

Who says that I am ill?

I am not ill! I am not weak!

The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er!

I feel the chill of death no more!

At length,

I stand renewed in all my strength!
Beneath me I can feel

The great earth stagger and reel,

As if the feet of a descending God

Upon its surface trod,

And like a pebble it rolled beneath its heel!

This, O brave physician! this

Is thy great Palingenesis!

Drinks again.

THE ANGEL.

Touch the goblet no more!

It will make thy heart sore
To its very core !

Its perfume is the breath

Of the Angel of Death,

And the light that within it lies,
Is the flash of his evil eyes.

Beware! O, beware!

For sickness, sorrow, and care!
All are there!

PRINCE HENRY, sinking back.

O thou voice within my breast!

Why entreat me, why upbraid me,
When the steadfast tongues of truth
And the fluttering hopes of youth
Have all deceived me and betrayed me?
Give me, give me rest, O, rest!
Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!
I am like a happy lover

Who illumines life with dreaming!
Brave physician! Rare physician!
Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission!
His head falls on his book.

Alas! alas!

THE ANGELS, receding.

Like a vapour the golden vision

Shall fade and pass,

And thou wilt find in thy heart again

Only the blight of pain,

And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!

COURT-YARD OF THE CASTLE.

HUBERT standing by the gateway.

HUBERT.

How sad the grand old castle looks!
O'erhead, the unmolested rooks

Upon the turret's windy top

Sit, talking of the farmer's crop ;

Here, in the court-yard springs the grass,
So few are now the feet that pass;
The stately peacocks, bolder grown,
Come hopping down the steps of stone,
As if the castle were their own;
And I, the poor old seneschal,
Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.
Alas! the merry guests no more
Crowd through the hospitable door;

No eyes with youth and passion shine,

No cheeks grow redder than the wine;
No song, no laugh, no jovial din
Of drinking wassail to the pin ;
But all is silent, sad, and drear,
And now the only sounds I hear
Are the house rooks upon the walls,
And horses stamping in their stalls!
A horn sounds.

What ho! that merry, sudden blast
Reminds me of the days long past!
And, as of old resounding, grate
The heavy hinges of the gate,
And, clattering loud, with iron clank,
Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,
As if it were in haste to greet

The pressure of a traveller's feet!

Enter WALTER, the Minnesinger.

WALTER.

How now, my friend! This looks quite lonely! No banner flying from the walls,

No pages and no seneschals,

No warders, and one porter only
Is it you, Hubert?

HUBERT.

Ah! Master Walter !

WALTER.

Alas! how forms and faces alter!

I did not know you. You look older!
Your hair has grown much grayer and thinner,
And you stoop a little in the shoulder!

HUBERT.

Alack! I am a poor old sinner,

And, like these towers, begin to moulder;
And you have been absent many a year!

How is the Prince?

WALTER.

HUBERT.

He is not here:

He has been ill and now has fled.

WALTER.

Speak it out frankly say he's dead!

Is it not so?

HUBERT.

No, if you please;

A strange mysterious disease
Fell on him with a sudden blight.
Whole hours together he would stand
Upon the terrace in a dream,
Resting his head upon his hand,

Best pleased when he was most alone,
Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone,
Looking down into a stream.

In the Round Tower, night after night,
He sat, and bleared his eyes with books;
Until one morning we found him there
Stretched on the floor, as if in a swoon
He had fallen from his chair.

We hardly recognised his sweet looks!

WALTER.

Poor Prince!

HUBERT.

I think he might have mended;

And he did mend: but very soon
The Priests came flocking in, like rooks,
With all their croziers and their crooks,
And so at last the matter ended.

How did it end?

WALTER.

HUBERT.

Why, in Saint Rochus

They made him stand, and wait his doom;
And, as if he were condemned to the tomb,
Began to mutter their hocus-pocus.

First, the Mass for the Dead they chanted,
Then three times laid upon his head
A shovelful of churchyard clay,

Saying to him, as he stood undaunted,

"This is a sign that thou art dead,

So in thy heart be penitent!"

And forth from the chapel door he went
Into disgrace and banishment,

Clothed in a cloak of hodden gray,

And bearing a wallet, and a bell,

Whose sound should be a perpetual knell
To keep all travellers away.

WALTER.

O, horrible fate! Outcast, rejected,
As one with pestilence infected!

HUBERT.

Then was the family tomb unsealed,
And broken helmet, sword and shield,
Buried together, in common wreck,
As is the custom, when the last
Of any princely house has passed,
And thrice, as with a trumpet-blast,
A herald shouted down the stair
The words of warning and despair,—
"O Hoheneck! O Hoheneck!"

WALTER.

Still in my soul that cry goes on,-
For ever gone! for ever gone!

Ah, what a cruel sense of loss,

Like a black shadow, would fall across

The hearts of all, if he should die!
His gracious presence upon earth

Was as a fire upon a hearth;

As pleasant songs, at morning sung,

The words that dropped from his sweet tongue Strengthened our hearts; or, heard at night, Made all our slumbers soft and light.

Where is he?

HUBERT.

In the Odenwald.

Some of his tenants, unappalled

By fear of death, or priestly word,

A holy family, that make

Each meal a Supper of the Lord,—
Have him beneath their watch and ward,

For love of him, and Jesus' sake!