the wild geese cackling when the night is spent.

"Shureef Khan lies headless! gone is Soorj Dehu!
And the wandering Nautch-girl, who has seen her, who?"

This but know the sentries, at the "breath of morn"
Forth there fared two horsemen, by the first was borne.

The urn of clay, the vessel that Rajpoots use to bring
The ashes of dead kinsmen to Gungas' holy spring.

_KING SALADIN_.

Long years ago--so tells Boccaccio
In such Italian gentleness of speech
As finds no echo in this northern air
To counterpart its music--long ago,
When Saladin was Soldan of the East,
The kings let cry a general crusade;
And to the trysting-plains of Lombardy
The idle lances of the North and West
Rode all that spring, as all the spring runs down
Into a lake, from all its hanging hills,
The clash and glitter of a hundred streams.
Whereof the rumour reached to Saladin;
And that swart king--as royal in his heart
As any crowned champion of the Cross--
That he might fully, of his knowledge, learn
The purpose of the lords of Christendom,
And when their war and what their armament,
Took thought to cross the seas to Lombardy.
Wherefore, with wise and trustful Amirs twain,
All habited in garbs that merchants use,
With trader's band and gipsire on the breasts
That best loved mail and dagger, Saladin
Set forth upon his journey perilous.
In that day, lordly land was Lombardy!
A sea of country-plenty, islanded
With cities rich; nor richer one than thee,
Marble Milano! from whose gate at dawn--
With ear that little recked the matin-bell,
But a keen eye to measure wall and foss--
The Soldan rode; and all day long he rode
For Pavia; passing basilic, and shrine,
And gaze of vineyard-workers, wotting not
Yon trader was the Lord of Heathenesse.
All day he rode; yet at the wane of day
No gleam of gate, or ramp, or rising spire,
Nor Tessin's sparkle underneath the stars
Promised him Pavia; but he was 'ware
Of a gay company upon the way,
Ladies and lords, with horses, hawks, and hounds:
Cap-plumes and tresses fluttered by the wind
Of merry race for home. "Go!" said the king
To one that rode upon his better hand,
"And pray these gentles of their courtesy
How many leagues to Pavia, and the gates
What hour they close them?" Then the S