empire, for the purpose of stealthily consulting
the world-famous necromancer
Cornelius Agrippa. Nay, has not their interview
been solemnly commemorated in the Lay of
the Last Minstrel ?

"Dark was the vaulted room of gramarye,
To which the wizard led the gallant knight,
Save that before a mirror, huge and high,
A hallowed taper shed a glimmering light."

A ghostly mirror soon shadowing forth to
the ravished eyes of Surrey— as he stood
there spell-bound in a magic litter—the
exquisite form of his Geraldine, clothed in
her virginal night robe, extended languidly
upon her couch, conning with looks of love
the characters pencilled on one of his own
treasured manuscripts. An incident
appropriately recounted in harmonious
numbers:

"Where rung thy harp, unrivalled long,
Fitztraver of the silver-song;"

thanks to whom, happily, we have it now
recorded in kindred verse:

"The gentle Surrey loved his lyre—
   Who has not heard of Surrey's fame?
His was the hero's soul of fire,
    And his the bard's immortal name,
    And his the soul exalted high
    By all the glow of chivalry."

Insomuch, that upon his arrival ultimately
in the capital of Tuscany, after issuing a
haughty challenge there to the knights of the
whole known world—Christian, Jew, Turk,
Saracen, or Cannibal (fancy a knightly
Cannibal fighting with an eye to the tenderest
pickings afterwards!)—the Earl of Surrey
carried off the prize invariably from all
competitors; that prize the glory of his lady-
love's supremacy in beauty and in excellence.
Prior to these superb contests in her honour,
Surrey received from the princely hand
of Paschal de Medici the bossy shield yet
hanging in the armoury at Arundel Castle,
dinted with heroic blows repelled, and repaid
with interest by their recipient, in homage
to the manifold graces of the Lady Geraldine.
The same indubitable shield, from under the
sheltering shadow of which we look back
believingly through the dim perspective of
the past to that far-off legendary love-tale,
which is yet, in another sense, very near to
us indeed, being in simple truth among the
most tenderly cherished of all our historico-
literary remembrances.

The latest glimpse of Geraldine — fair in
complexion, her eyes of a light colour, her
tresses golden and luxuriant—is unexpectedly
afforded, long after Surrey's demise, as Lady
Brown, in white satin, at Queen Mary's
coronation. Geraldine having in the meantime
espoused one Sir Anthony Brown—degenerating
positively into plain Betsy Brown—
the skirts of her white satin petticoat flitting
past us through an incidental memorandum
in the twenty-eighth appendix to the Cotton
Manuscripts.

TWO DARK DAYS.

I.

IF the dread day that calls thee hence,
Through a red mist of fear should loom,
(Closing in deadliest night and gloom,
Long hours of aching dumb suspense)
And leave me to my lonely doom.

I think, beloved, I could see
In thy dear eyes the loving light
Glaze into vacancy and night,
And still say, " God is good to me,
And all that he decrees is right."

That watching thy slow struggling breath,
And answering each perplexed sign,
I still could pray thy prayer and mine,
And tell thee, dear, though this was death,
That God was love, and love divine.

Could hold thee in my arms, and lay
Upon my heart thy weary head,
And meet thy last smile ere it fled;
Then hear, as in a dream, one say,
" Now all is over,— she is dead."

Could smooth thy garments with fond care,
And cross thy hands upon thy breast,
And kiss thine eyelids down to rest,
And yet say no word of despair,
But, through my sobbing, It is best.

Could stifle down the gnawing pain,
And say, " We still divide our life,
She has the rest, and I the strife,
And mine the loss, and hers the gain :
My ill with bliss for her is rife."

Then turn,-and the old duties take,—
Alone now,— yet with earnest will
Gathering sweet sacred traces still
To help me on, and, for thy sake,
My heart and life and soul to fill.

I think I could check vain weak tears,
And toil,— although the world's great space
Held nothing but one vacant place,
And see the dark and weary years
Lit only by a vanished grace.

And sometimes, when the day was o'er,
Call up the tender past again :
Its painful joy, its happy pain,
And live it over yet once more,
And say, " but few more years remain."

And then, when I had striven my best,
And all around would softly say,
"See how Time makes all grief decay,"
To lie down thankfully to rest,
And seek thee in eternal day.

II.

But if the day should ever rise—
It could not and it cannot be—
Yet, if the sun should ever see,
Looking upon us from his skies,
A day that took thy heart from me ;