MAHMOUD.

ADELGITHA.

This short poem, by CAMPBELL, is perhaps the most remarkable instance of compression in English poetry. A long and eventful story is told in four short verses-A high-born lady is slandered; an unknown knight enters the lists to clear her good name; he conquers. Then follows a conversation between the lady and the knight, in which the lady makes a remarkable discovery.

THE ordeal's' fatal trumpet sounded,*
And sad pale Adelgitha came,b

When forth a valiant champion bounded,
And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept,

delivered from her danger;
But when he knelt to claim her glove-
"Seek not," she cried, "O gallant stranger,
For hapless Adelgitha's3 love.

"For he is in a foreign far land

Whose arms should now have set me free;
And I must wear the willow garland1o
For him that's dead or false to me.”

“Nay!

say not that his faith is tainted!"
He raised his visor" -at the sight
She fell into his arms and fainted;
It was indeed her own true knight!

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CAUTIONS: a. The whole poem must be read with the greatest clearness and distinctness, as every line, and almost every word, contains a new development of some incident of the story. Thus, there are four events in the first four lines. b. Sad belongs to came; and pale to Adelgitha. The prose would be: "And pale Adelgitha came sadly to the lists." c. There is a mournful and weary emphasis on the I.

MEANINGS: 1. Ordeal, trial by arms. 2. Fatal, announcing death to one of the combatants. 3. Hapless, unfortunate. 4. The willow garland was worn by those who had been forsaken. 5. Visor, the front part of his helmet, through which he sees (viser).

MAHMOUD.

This is an Eastern story, told in LEIGH HUNT's best manner. A wicked officer of the sultan enters by force the house of a poor person, and acts there in a cruel and tyrannical way to all of the inmates. The poor man makes his complaint in Eastern fashion, direct to the sultan; and the sultan, also in Eastern fashion, avenges his wrong by slaying the guilty officer on the very scene of his crime. The sultan was afraid that the criminal might have been one of his own sons; but, on finding that he is not, kneels and reverently thanks God, the just Arbiter of all.

THERE came a man, making his hasty moan

Before the Sultan Mahmoud
And crying out—“ My sorrow
And I will see the sultan, and to-night."

on his throne,
is my right,

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"Sorrow," said Mahmoud, " is a reverend1 thing:
I recognise its right, as king with king;
Speak on. "A fiend has got into my house,"
Exclaimed the staring man, "and tortures us:
One of thine officers. He comes the abhorred,
And takes possession of my house, my board,
My bed;-I have two daughters and a wife,

And the wild villain comes and makes me mad with life."

a

"Is he there now ?" said Mahmoud. "No; he left
The house when I did, of my wits bereft ; 2

And laughed me down the street, because I vowed
I'd bring the prince himself to lay him in his shroud.
I'm mad with want-I'm mad with misery,

And oh, thou Sultan Mahmoud, God cries out for thee!"

The sultan comforted the man, and said,

"Go home, and I will send thee wine and bread

(For he was poor), and other comforts. Go; And should the wretch return, let Sultan Mahmoud know."

In two days' time, with haggard eyes and beard,
And shaken voice, the suitor reappeared,

And said, "He's come."-Mahmoud said not a word,
But rose
and took four slaves, each with a sword,
And went with the vexed man." They reach the place,
And hear a voice, and see a female face
That to the window fluttered in affright:

"Go in," said Mahmoud, "and put out the light;
But tell the women first to leave the room;
And when the drunkard follows them, we come."

The man went in. There was a cry, and hark! A table falls, the window is struck dark: Forth rush the breathless women; and behind With curses comes the fiend in desperate mind.3 In vain the sabres : soon cut short the strife, And chop the shrieking wretch, and drink his bloody life.

"Now light the light," the sultan cried aloud. 'Twas done; he took it in his hand and bowed Over the corpse, and looked upon the face; Then turned and knelt beside it in the place, And said a prayer, and from his lips there crept Some gentle words of pleasure, and he wept.

In reverent silence the spectators wait,
Then bring him at his call both wine and meat;
And, when he had refreshed his noble heart,
He bade his host be blest, and rose up to depart.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

The man amazed, all mildness now and tears,
Fell at the sultan's feet with many prayers,
And begged him to vouchsafe to tell his slave
The reason
first of that command he gave
About the light; then, when he saw the face,
Why he knelt down; and lastly, how it was
That fare so poor as his detained him in the place.

The sultan said, with much humanity,*
"Since first I saw thee come, and heard thy cry,
I could not rid me of a dread, that one
By whom such daring villanies were done
Must be some lord of mine,—perhaps a lawless son.
Whoe'er he was, I knew my part, but feared
A father's heart, in case the worst appeared.

For this I had the light put out. But when
I saw the face, and found a stranger slain,
I knelt and thanked the sovereign Arbiter,
Whose work I had performed through pain and fear;
And then I rose and was refreshed with food

The first time since thou cam'st and marr'd'st my solitude."7

CAUTIONS: a. This line to be said slowly and quietly. b. This set of circumstances to be narrated deliberately and slowly. c. Care must be taken not to let the accent fall on to, and for this purpose a pause should come after rose up.

MEANINGS: 1. Reverend, worthy of respect. 2. Bereft, deprived. 3. In desperate mind, with desperate intention. 4. Humanity, kindness. 5. Part, duty. 6. Arbiter, judge. 7. Marr'd'st my solitude, took away my peace of mind when alone.

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THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

These verses are from a longer poem, founded on the statement in Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6. "So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." The feeling of the poem is that of intense loneliness, the loneliness and the solitude of God.

MRS. ALEXANder.

CAUTIONS: a. The first verse must be read in the slow level tone of ordinary narrative. The subject proper is not reached until we come to the second verse. b. Noiselessly belongs to and modifies go forth. The funeral train went forth as noiselessly as the daylight comes to us.

MEANINGS: 1. Curious is here used in the old sense of inquisitive, trying to know too much. 2. Mysteries, secrets. Mysteries of grace, secrets and unintelligible dealings, which yet are acts of the truest kindness and grace. 3. Sleep. Compare the text: "He giveth His beloved sleep."

A DIRGE.

This poem, by THOMAS CHATTERTON, who died in 1770, at the early age of eighteen, is a dirge or elegiac poem on the death of a young man. Its usual title is, "The Minstrel's Song in Ella."

O SING unto my roundelay1;*

O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holiday;
Like a running river be;
My love is dead,

Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree."

Black his hair as the winter night,
White his neck

as summer snow,

Ruddy his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below.

My love is dead,

Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.

CAUTIONS: a. Take care not to mark the verse-accent on unto, but slur over the word, and make a slight pause after sing. b. This refrain should be read in a very slow and low tone.

MEANINGS: 1. Roundelay, a song or lay which goes round the companya part-song. 2. Briny, salt. 3. Tabor, a musical instrument. 4. Dell, a narrow dale.

ST. PHILIP NERI AND THE YOUTH.
ST. PHILIP NERI,' as old writers say,
Met a young stranger in Rome's streets
And, being ever courteously inclined
To give young folks a sober2 turn of mind,
He fell into discourse with him; and thus
The dialogue1 they held comes down to us:-

one day :

St. P. N. Tell me what brings you, gentle youth, to Rome?
To make myself a scholar, sir, I come.

Youth.

St. P. N. And, when you ared one, what do you intend ?
Youth. To be a priest, I hope, sir, in the end.

e

Suppose it so5-what have you next in view?

too.

St. P. N.
Youth. That' I may get to be a canon
St. P. N. Well; and how then?

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