But, wrestling in death's agonies,

Alone I breathed my parting sighs.
Yonder was an unguarded well,*
Down which, by fatal chance, I fell;
And where I was no mortal knew,
For no man thence the water drew;
And through the town the rumour spread
That from my cloister I had fled.
Thus for my soul no mass was said,

Nor was my body buried.

And, as the well was used no more,
As time passed, it was covered o'er.
But nightly for two hundred years
Here have I cried aloud with tears,
And none have heard my wail till now,
Or answered to my prayer, but thou.
Priest Hildebrand! God's blessing light
Upon thee for thy deed this night.
I would repay, but power have none-
Save this, that ere thy sands are run,
I will appear again.'

* Several foreign cathedrals have wells within the building. That in Strasbourg has been only lately closed.

I

And as he spake, a pallid ray,

The harbinger of coming day,

Smote through the eastern pane.

Then first, enabled by God's grace,

The priest looked on the dead man's face,

That turned towards the Crucified
As in a rapture, glorified.

And with great reverence, Hildebrand,
Extending o'er the monk his hand,
Traced upon the ashy brow

And the uplifted head

The sacred sign which angels know
And devils fear. So, saying 'Peace!'
The monk responded, 'With release,'
And vanished.

THE LUCK FLOWER.

[Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Series II. p. 137, 1868.]

A MEADOW tremulous with dew,

A lifted firmament all blue,

And bushes shedding many a tear-
But all of joy-in the morning clear;
Bending bladed grasses fret

In the light wind, dripping wet;
Buttercups adorn the floor

With their goblets brimming o'er;
Purple orchis lines the hedge;

Marigold gleams in the sedge;

Robin shakes his jaunty tatters,

And the dewdrops from them scatters, Breaking through the gossamer threads. Dandelions' globous heads

Seem the gentle breeze to pray, my feathered seeds away!'

'Puff

Chafers to the leaves that cling
Strive to dry the draggled wing;
Admirals on bark of oak

Tarry till a sunny stroke

O'er their scarlet stripes and rings
Drinks the water from their wings.
Ladybirds with spots of black
On the rounded russet back,
Dash about, or linger sipping
Bells with fragrant honey dripping.

Now the redstart on a spray
Pipes, the shrike in jet and grey
Answers, and from throbbing throat
Bursts the throstle's bubbling note.

Forth strode Walter staff in hand,
Singing, straying through the land,
With a spirit light and gay
As each forest bird that day.

With the flower-heads he played,

As he through the meadows strayed;

Then he turned towards a hill,

Following a tinkling rill.

Where the little pathway wended
Walter there the slope ascended,

Towards the mountain grey that towers
O'er that vale of meads and flowers ;
Thinking, 'Now with sturdy strain
I the mountain-top may gain.'

With a cry of joy he stopped
Sudden, on his knee he dropped,
Peering underneath a braid

Of red roses, in whose shade,
Where through mosses ever weeping
Are the whispering waters creeping.
Thence the youth exulting drew
A flowret of the turquoise hue;
On his breast the plant he set,
With a feeling of regret
That, to glad another eye,
Friend or parent was not by.

Little then young Walter knew
The virtue of that blossom blue :
He the Flower of Luck had got—
The Wishing Wort, Forget-me-not,