From Once a Week.
THE KING AND THE BISHOP.
Before Roskilde's sacred fane,
(The first the land has known.)
Attended by his courtier train,
And decked, as on his throne,
In costly raiment, glittering gay
Beneath the noon-day sun;
All fresh and fair, as though the day
Had seen no slaughter done--
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As though the all-beholding eye
Of that Omniscient Deity,
Whom, turning from the downward way
His heathen fathers trod,
He guided by a purer ray,
Hath chosen for his God--
Had seen no darker, dreader sight,
Twixt yester morn and yester night,
Beheld by his approving eye,
Who, now, would draw his altar nigh;
Ay, fresh and fair as to his soul
No taint of blood did cling,
As though in heart and conscience whole,
Stands Swend, the warrior-king.
On his, as on a maiden's cheek,
(Though bearded and a knight,)
The royal hues of Denmark speak [Footnote 97]--
The crimson and the white;
But mark ye how the angry hue
Keeps deepening, as he stands,
And mark ye, too, the courtly crew,
With lifted eyes and hands!
[Footnote 97: The Danish king, Swend, soon after his entrance into the Christian church, slew some of his "jaris" without a trial, and, on presenting himself, after the commission of this crime, at the portal of the newly-built cathedral of Roskilde, in Zealand, found it barred by the pastoral staff of the English missionary and bishop who had converted him. After receiving the rebuke given in the poem, and forbidding his attendants to molest the bishop, he returned whence he came, and shortly after, made his reappearance in the garb of a penitent, when he was received by the prelate, and, after a certain time of penance, absolved; after which they became fast friends.]
Across the portal, low and wide,
A slender bar from side to side.
The bishop's staff is seen;
And holding it, with reverent hands
And head erect, the prelate stands,
A man of stately mien.
"Go back!" he cries, and fronts the king.
Whilst clear and bold his accents ring
Throughout the sacred fane--
And Echo seems their sound to bring
Triumphant back again--
"Go back, nor dare, with impious tread,
Into the presence pure and dread.
Thy guilty soul to bring,
Impenitent--O thou, who art
A murderer, though a king!"
A murmur, deepening to a roar,
'Mid those who were clust'ring round the door:
A few disjointed but eager words--
A sudden glimmer of naked swords;
And the bishop raised his longing eyes,
In speechless praise, to the distant skies;
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For he thought his labor would soon be o'er.
And his bark at rest, on the peaceful shore;
And he pictured the crown, the martyrs wear,
Floating slowly down, on the voiceless air;
Till he almost fancied he felt its weight
On his brows--as he stood, and blessed his fate.
With a calm, sweet smile on his face, he bowed
His reverend head to the raging crowd--
(Oh! the sight was fair to see!)
And "Strike!" he cried, whilst they held their breath.
To hear his words; "For I fear not death
For him who has died for me!"
King Swend looked up, with an angry glare,
At the dauntless prelate, who braved him there,
Though he deemed his hour near;
And he saw, with one glance of his eagle eye.
That that beaming smile and that bearing high
Were never the mask of fear!
Right against might had won the day;--
And he bade them sheathe their swords; then turned,
Whilst an angry spot on his cheek still burned,
From the house of God away.
Ere the hour had winged its flight, once more,
Behold! there stood, at the temple door,
A suppliant form, with its head bowed down.
And ashes were there, for the kingly crown;
And the costly robes, which had made erewhile
So gallant a show in the sunbeams' smile.
Had been cast aside, ere its glow was spent,
For the sackcloth worn by the penitent!
The bishop came down the crowded nave;
His smile was bright, though his face was grave,
He paused at the portal, and raised his eyes.
Yet another time to those sapphire skies,
But he thought not now, that the look he cast
To that radiant heaven would be his last;
And he thanked his Master again--but not
For the martyrdom that should bless his lot;
For the close to the day of life, whose sun
Was to set in blood, on his rest was won:
Far other than this was his theme of praise,
As he murmured: "O thou, in thy works and ways
As wonderful now as when Israel went
Through the sea, which is Pharaoh's monument:
Though I pictured death in the flashing steel,
And I looked for the glory it should reveal,
Yet oh! if it be, as it seems to be,
Thy will, that I stay to glorify thee,
To add to thy jewels, one by one;
Then, Father in heaven, that will be done!"
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Then on the monarch's humbled brow
The kiss of peace he pressed.
And led him, as a brother, now,
A little from the rest--
"Here, as is meet, thy penance do,
And as thy penitence is true,
So God will make it light!
Then mayst thou work with me, that thus
The light that he hath given us
May rise on Denmark's night!"
M. T. F.
Translated from Le Correspondant
THE YOUTH OF SAINT PAUL.
By L'ABBE LOUIS BAUNARD.
At the time when Jesus Christ came into this world, the Jews were scattered over the whole surface of the earth. From the narrow valley in which their religious law had confined them for the designs of God, these people of little territory had overflowed into all the provinces of the Roman empire. Captivity had been the beginning of their dispersion. Numerous Israelitish colonists, who had formerly settled in the land of their exile, were still existing in Babylon, in Media, even in Persia; others had pushed their way further on to the extreme east, even as far as China. Finally, under the reign of Augustus, they are found everywhere. [Footnote 98]
[Footnote 98: V. Remond "Histoire de la Propagation du Judaisme," Leipzig, 1789 Grost, "De Migrationibus Hebr. extra patriam," 1817. Jost, "Histoire des Israélites depuis les Machabées," etc.]
It was the solemn hour in which, according to the parable of the gospel, the Father had gone forth to sow the seed. The field, "that is the world," was filled with it already, and the time was not far distant when the Lord, "seeing the countries ripe for the harvest," would send out his journeymen to reap, and gather the wheat into his barns.
One of these families "of the dispersion," as they were styled, inhabited the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Of this once famous city nothing now remains but a few ruins, and the modern Tarsous falls vastly short of that high rank which the ancient Tarsus held among the cities of the East. Even at present, however, it is called the capital city of Caramania. Situated on a small eminence covered over with laurels and myrtles, at a distance of about ten miles from the Mediterranean sea, it is washed by the rapid and cold waters of the Kara-sou, and its population during winter amounts to more than thirty thousand souls. In summer it is almost a desert. Chased away by the burning heats which prevail at this season from the sea-coast, men, women and children abandon their homes and emigrate to the surrounding heights, where they fix their camp under lofty cedars, which afford them shelter, shade, and coolness. [Footnote 99]