e morning stars
Were chorussing in the sky.
But when she hearken'd the deed was known,
And her coming hour of strife,
And how they had found the royal bones
From which she had taken the life,
She got King David's psalter book,
And turn'd to the psalm they sung,
And began to read it contrariwise,
Though it blister'd on her tongue.
And she mock'd the monkish melody,
With a heart like boiling pitch,
And the clouds went shudd'ring as they heard
Like a broom beneath a witch.
When she had gotten to verse the twelfth,
'Twas the twelfth verse from the end,
Her breast upheav'd a horrible groan,
And she gave the psalm a rend.
The lofty turret quiver'd with fear,
The floor of the chapel shook,
Her eyeballs fell from her burning brow,
And blooded the psalter book.
And thrice she groan'd and thrice she sigh'd,
And thrice she bowed her head.
And a heavy fall and a light'ning flash
Was the knell of a sinner dead.
And forth from her eyeless sockets flew
A furious flame around,
And blood stream'd out of her spirting mouth,
Like water upon the ground.
The magpie chatter'd above the corpse,
The owl sang funeral lay,
The twisting worm pass'd over her face,
And it writhed and turn'd away.
The jackdaws caw'd at the body dead,
Expos'd on the churchyard stones,
They wagg'd their tails in scorn of her flesh,
And turn'd up their bills at her bones.
The convent mastiff trotting along,
Sniff'd hard at the mortal leaven,
Then bristled his hair at her brimstone smell,
And howl'd out his fears to heaven.
Then the jackdaw screech'd his joy,
That he spurn'd the royal feast,
And keen'd all night to the grievous owl,
And the howling mastiff beast.
Loud on that night was the thunder crash,
Sad was the voice of the wind,
Swift was the glare of the lightning flash,
And the whizz it left behind.
At morn when the pious brothers came
To give the body to ground,
The skull, the feet, and palms of her hands
Were all that they ever found.
Then the holy monks with ominous shake
Of the head, looked wond'rous sly,
While the breeze that waved their whiten'd locks,
Bore a pray'r for her soul on high.

P.S.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

[There is a touching interest in the following narrative of the surrende