At the end of the refectory was a dais with a table at which Homer took his seat, while another long table stretched down the middle of the hall; but Astulf saw with surprise that three places were laid on the upper board, though the King was apparently to sit there alone. But Virgil explained the reason, and said: "You must understand, Sir Duke, that it is our custom to lay a place for every poet who will ever ascend to this Earthly Paradise; and as yet there is none here worthy to sit beside our Father Homer. But after some five hundred and fifty years the seat at his left hand will be taken by the Florentine Dante, who will find here the rest and happiness denied to him in his lifetime. The place on the right of the King, however, will remain vacant three hundred years more; but then it will be filled by a countryman of your own, and Shakespeare will receive the honor due to him as the third great poet of the world." With these words Virgil took his seat at the head of the lower table, and motioned Astulf to an empty place at his right hand, saying: "This seat also will remain a long while vacant, being kept for another of your countrymen, who will come hither after more than a thousand years. He will be reviled and slandered in his lifetime; but after his death the very fools who abused him will pretend to admire and understand him, while here among his brethren he will be welcomed with joy and high honor." So Astulf sat in the seat of this poet to be honored in the future, and made a hearty dinner off nectar and ambrosia, "which are mighty fine viands," as he afterward told his friends at home; "but a hungry man, on the whole, would prefer good roast beef and a slice of plum pudding for a steady diet." Dinner being over, the pilgrim was led by the obliging poet to a pathway past the silent and lonesome River of Oblivion, where most mortal names and fames are forever lost, only a few being rescued from its waves and set on golden scrolls in the temple of Immortality.
Now when they had looked on for a while at this notable sight they left the River Oblivion and proceeded to the Valley of Lost Lumber. It was a long though narrow valley shut in between two lofty mountain ridges, and in it were stored away all the things which men lose or waste on earth. Here they found an infinite number of lovers' sighs, beyond which lay the useless moments lost in folly and crime, and the long wasted leisure of ignorant and idle men. Next came the vain desires and foolish wishes that can never take effect, and these were heaped together in such quantities that they blocked up the greater part of the valley. Here, too, were mountains of gold and silver which foolish politicians throw away in bribing voters to return them to Congress; a little farther on was an enormous pile of garlands with steel gins concealed among their flowers, which Virgil explained to be flatteries; while a heap of grasshoppers which had burst themselves in keeping up their shrill, monotonous chirp, represented, he said, the dedications and addresses which servile authors used to write in praise of unworthy patrons. In the middle of the valley lay a great pool of spilt broth, and this signified the alms which rich men are too selfish to give away in their lifetime but bequeath to charities in their wills, to be paid out of money they can no longer use. Next Astulf came upon numbers of beautiful dolls from Paris, which little girls throw aside because they prefer their dear old bundles of rags with beads for eyes; and one of the biggest hillocks in all the place was formed of a pile of knives lost out of careless schoolboys' pockets.
Now, when Astulf grew old and had boys and girls of his own, they used to clamber on his knee in the twilight and ask for a story, and oh! how they wished for the Hippogrif. Sometimes the old knight said that the Hippogrif was dead, but I have known people to shut their eyes and climb on his back, and cling to his mane, and go flying over the ocean and the hills clear through to the other end of the world. For Hippogrif is only a name for Fancy, and the Valley of Lost Lumber and the River of Oblivion and the Temple of Immortality exist for every one of us.
Freedom's Silent Host.
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
There are many silent sleepers
In our country here and there,
Heeding not our restless clamor,
Bugle's peal nor trumpet's blare.
Soft they slumber,
Past forever earthly care.
O'er their beds the grasses creeping
Weave a robe of royal fold,
And the daisies add their homage,
Flinging down a cloth of gold.
Soft they slumber,
Once the gallant and the bold.
Oft as Spring, with dewy fingers,
Brings a waft of violet,
Sweet arbutus, dainty primrose,
On their lowly graves we set.
Soft they slumber,
We their lives do not forget.