Howbeit, Canute forward went no more,
But turn'd on that side where the sword-arm hangs.
A drop of blood, as if athwart a dream,
Fell on the shroud, and redden'd his right hand.
A second time he changed his course, and went
To the dim left—there fell a drop of blood.
Canute drew back, trembling to be alone,
And wish'd he had not left his burial couch.
But when a blood-drop fell again, he stopp'd,
Stoop'd his proud head and tried to make a prayer.
Then fell a drop, and the
prayer died away
In savage terror. Darkly he moved on,
A hideous spectre, hesitating, white;
For ever as he went a drop of blood
Inexplicably from the darkness broke away
And stain'd that awful whiteness.
He beheld,
Shaking as doth a poplar in the wind,
Those stains grow darker and more numerous;
Another, and another, and another,
They seem'd to light up that funereal gloom,
And, mingling in the folds of the white sheet,
Made it a cloud of blood. He went, and went,
And still from that unfathomable vault
The red blood rain'd upon him drop by drop,
Always, for ever—without noise—as though
From the black feet of some night-gibbeted corpse.
Alas! who wept those formidable tears?
The Infinite. Toward Heaven, of the good
Attainable, through the wild sea of night
That hath nor ebb nor flow, Canute went on,
And, ever walking, came to a closed door
That from beneath show'd a mysterious light;
Then he look'd down upon his winding-sheet,
For that was the great place, the sacred place,
That was a portion of the light of God;
And from behind that door hosannas rang.
The winding-sheet was red, and Canute stopp'd.
This is why Canute from the light of day
Draws ever back, and hath not dared appear
Before the Judge whose face is as the sun,-
This is why still remaineth the dark king
Out in the night, and, never having power
To bring his robe back to its first pure state,
But feeling at each step a blood-drop fall,
Wanders eternally 'neath the vast black heaven.
WILLIAM DERRY.
CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER.
And let thine enemies be scattered,
And let them that hate Thee flee before Thee! As the dispersion of smoke-drift,
Thou wilt disperse them abroad;
As the wax in its weakness melts off
From before the face of the fire;
So our foes--the unrighteous-shall perish
From before the Face of our God,
But the just shall exult and be glad.
Chant ye to God!
Sing psalms of praise to His name!
The awful Rider extol ye,
Who rides on the raven-black clouds,
By His changeless immutable Name
Of JAH-and exult ye before Him.
-A father of orphans bereavèd;
A Judge that gives sentence of good
To the silent life of the widow,
Is God in His holy abode.
-God maketh the lonely ones
To sit in a home of their own;
He bringeth the fetter'd ones forth,
To places happy and free:
Only the rebels must dwell
In a land blanched white by the sun.
God! when Thou wentest forth before Thy people,
Proceeding on Thy stately march
Across the desert steppes,
Trembled the earth and quaked:
Yea-the heavens dropped before the Face of God,
-This Sinai's self before the Face of God,
The God of Israel.
The free aspersion of a rain of gifts
Priestlike Thou wavedst to and fro, O God!
Thy heritage, forlorn and sick at heart
Thou didst establish. So in that lone land
The armies of Thy chosen dwelt long years.
Thou with Thy goodness for the needy ones
Didst so establish, God!
Suddenly His signal gives the Lord.
Those who tell, in every coast, Tidings of great joy, and high
Annunciation of good things
Multiply, a countless host
Of women, full of glorious boast;
Kings of armies fly-they fly
Like the birds with fluttered wings.
She who kept the house that day
For her lord, at war away,
Shares the spoils of victory.
-Ha! ye warriors, once so bold,
Ye lie down by the cattle-fold ;
And ye see in your homes beside ye a sheen,
Like the wings of a dove in the sunshine glint,
That are covered o'er with a silver tint;
Her feathers all lit with a manifold
Vibration and shooting of yellow gold,
That passes, the woof of the plumes between,
To a colour of strange and paling green.
-When, from many a field of war,
Kings the Almighty scatters far,
Through our dark estate of woe
-As o'er Salmon's forest line,
Night-black where the shadows are,
Shows that silver gleam divine-
Comes a sudden intense glow,
Like the gleam of new-fallen snow.
Mountain of God! mountain of Bashan ! Mountain of summits! mountain of Bashan ! Why watch ye, with a scowl upon your foreheads, Ye mountains, with your summits arching grand? Here the mountain which our God hath chosen, For a habitation in the land,
Yea-to dwell there while the ages stand!
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