of the cruel knight.

One year from that day old Stibor held
His drunken wassail long,
And spent the hours till the cock crew morn
In jest and wine and song.

Then he sought his garden on the cliff,
And lay down under a vine
To sleep away the lethargy
Of a wassail-bowl of wine.

While sleeping soundly under the shade,
And dreaming of revelries,
An adder crawled upon his breast,
And bit him in both his eyes.

Blinded and mad with pain he ran
Toward the precipice,
Unheeding till he headlong fell
Adown the dread abyss.

Just where old Betzko's blood had dyed
With red the old rocks gray,
Quivering and bleeding and dumb and dead
Old Stibor's body lay.

WESSELENYI

A HUNGARIAN TALE

When madly raged religious war
O'er all the Magyar land
And royal archer and hussar
Met foemen hand to hand,
A princess fair in castle strong
The royal troops defied
And bravely held her fortress long
Though help was all denied.

Princess Maria was her name--
Brave daughter nobly sired;
She caught her father's trusty sword
When bleeding he expired,
And bravely rallied warders all
To meet the storming foe,
And hurled them from the rampart-wall
Upon the crags below.

Prince Casimir--her father--built
Murana high and wide;
It sat among the mountain cliffs--
The Magyars' boast and pride.
Bold Wesselenyi--stalwart knight,
Young, famed and wondrous fair,
With a thousand men besieged the height,
And led the bravest there.

And long he tried the arts of war
To take that castle-hold,
Till many a proud and plumed hussar
Was lying stiff and cold;
And still the frowning castle stood
A grim, unbroken wall,
Like some lone rock in stormy seas
That braves the billows all.

Bold Wesselenyi's cheeks grew thin;
A solemn oath he sware
That if he failed the prize to win
His bones should molder there.
Two toilsome months had worn away,
Two hundred men were slain,
His bold assaults were baffled still,
And all his arts were vain.

But love is mightier than the sword,
He clad him in disguise--
In the dress of an inferior lord--
To win the noble prize.
He bade his armed men to wait,
To cease the battle-blare
And sought alone the castle-gate
To hold a parley there.

Aloft a flag of truce he bore:
Her warders bade him pass;
Within he met the princess fair
All clad in steel and brass.
Her bright, black eyes and queenly art,
Sweet lips and rave