But Jane regards not auguries of ill,

Nor even that sovereign vision draws her eyes,
Which, bent in contemplation, smooth and still,
Drink dews that make the heart devoutly wise.

*

Not long she knew this quiet. Loud the shout
Of tumult, thickening on in heady strain,
And murmured, roared, and echoed all about,
Breaks forth the dizzy cry, "Long live Queen Jane.”

Back falls the chamber door, and, lo! a crowd
Of judge and counsellor, prelate, knight, and peer,
Swords, plumes, and jewels, fronts with victory proud,
And snow-white heads are bent her will to hear.

Some tears she sheds, she trembles, turns away,
Then yields her presence at her sire's command;
The volume falls abandoned where it lay
A moment past in her attentive hand.

The Queen, in robes of state and royal halls,
Glides trembling back with memory's swift career;
With inward voice upon the past she calls,

And wondering, feels that she must learn to fear.

Low drooped her brow when, trembling through the air,

A sweet-voiced hymn was gently borne along;

Perhaps an angel's music warbled there,

Or human echoes of angelic song.

So soft, so full, so thrilling deep it spake,

It won the soul in seraph bliss to die,

And seemed at once her inward thirst to slake
With joys of Heaven and tears of Calvary.

She felt her life, a trembling, earthly spark,
Was mounting up to shine a star above,

And lucid thoughts came rippling through the dark
In one mild flow of faith and hope and love.

Quick changed the darkening hour; the reign was
done,

The princely crowds were shrunk away or dead;
The prison closed in gloom and hid the sun,
And sank in dust the fair, the youthful head.

J. STERLING.

Much of this beautiful poem has been omitted as scarcely comprehensible to our readers, showing how Lady Jane found no comfort in Plato's philosophy, though it was full of as much truth and beauty as a Greek without revelation could work out for himself, but how the Christian faith upheld her through all.

LAST DAYS OF MARY I.

1558.

Richmond Palace-Queen's Chamber.

Queen asleep on a couch, with Lady Margaret Douglas (her cousin) near her. Enter Cardinal Reginald Pole leaning on the Earl of Oxford.

CARDINAL.

I fear I task your friendly aid, my lord;
This fever eats into my bones; I move
Feebly and painfully.

Is not so stricken as our mistress yonder :
I do begin to fear her end is nigh.

CARDINAL.

Our birth is the beginning of our dying;
It matters little when the end shall be.

OXFORD.

Much to our woful country. Heaven avert it!

1 The title given to Cardinals.

CARDINAL.

To suit one creature, universal laws

Are not revoked. Swift be thy homeward voyage,

O Mary, to the haven of thy rest!

The providential current, followed out,

Will lead thee onward to the pleasant sea,
From cataract and rock devolving smoothly
To the great symbol of eternity,

Which, seeming to disport, links all together.

OXFORD.

Think you, my lord, King Philip will come back?

Thus thrall'd, thus mask'd, in premature decay, Sprung from unworthy slight, care, grief, remorse.

He may be jealous.

OXFORD.

CARDINAL.

No, he does not love,

R

OXFORD.

His natural condition is distrust;

His ear but needs some venomous tongue to sting it,
And he shall be as dangerous as the abyss
Whose smoke makes dark the sun.

CARDINAL.

Alas! alas !

Behold the end! Here lies a great heart blasted. [He kneels at the couch and kisses the Queen's hand.

QUEEN.

The Cardinal! Ojoy! How sweet to waken Toward a loved face with a smile! Whence come

Ah me! when I look back on what I have been,

The strange vicissitudes that marked my way,