The words of the King with ill omen fell

On the ear of the revelling crew;

They bore to the Queen the mad message of hell. "Be the King's word obeyed," she said.

As he bids, that will I do."

"Tis well,

But in secret her outraged Queenly pride
Broods over the King's strange mood.
th! was not my heart's truth sufficiently tried
When my father's life-blood my nuptials dyed,
And alone at the altar I stood?

"Alas! for that love I have sorely sinned,
My father had lived but for me;

And me he dares now of that crime to remind,
To me he dares even that relic to send,

That my soul ever sickens to see.

""Tis more than the spirit of woman can bear!'
Then comes o'er her spirit a change;

Love yieldeth to hate, and in very despair,
Discarding of honor and shame the care,
She studieth only revenge.

With Helmichis, henchman of Alboin King,
She treason in secret schemes;

Asleep while the King lies, a helpless thing,
To his chamber the henchman she offers to bring,
To slay him 'mid drunken dreams.

"Not so," saith the henchman, no one man dare
Encounter this King in sleep;

Ever watchful, if strange sound but ruffle the air,
Or foot-fall unlooked for be heard on the stair,

From his couch he will forthwith leap,

VOL. VIII.-NO. X.

2 z

And wrestle for life, with that strength of limb

'Twere ruin to hazard the chance.

One other there is, nearly equal to him,
Sir Peredeus named, with a giant's frame,
And skilful with sword and lance.

Associate him in this enterprise,

Success we might then assure;

But he is right loyal, and may nowise
Be turned from the path wherein honor lies,
Or of treason the thought endure."

Loveth he not a damsel?" replies the Queen,
"Of those who on me now wait.

Trust, trust then to me, this accompilce to win,
So nothing untoward shall contravene

My purpose of deadly hate.”

The damsel invites to her lonely bed

That loyal and stalwart knight;

Through the dark palace chambers the lover is ledWhen Rosamond keepeth the tryst instead

He passeth with her the night.

Thou hast forfeited honor and life," saith the Queen,

Both, both hast thou sold to me:

Know I am the wife of thy King, Alboin,
Whose nature it is not to pardon sin,

Or listen to reason's plea.

"But I give thee life and high hope beside,
If thou wilt my purpose aid.
Degraded, insulted, my Queenly pride
With the wrongdoer's life must be satisfied;
He must die by thy dagger's blade.

"This instant decide, or I call the guard

To seize thee in this dark room."

"God help me," saith he, "the alternative's hard, This treason to do, like a false Lombard,

Or die by a traitor's doom.

"And yet thou hast suffered a grievous wrong, And a wronged woman's cause is just.

"Twas the vow of my knighthood, against the strong The cause of the weak to maintain, as long

As I wielded a weapon of trust.

"I hold to that vow.

Thou, much-injured Queen,

My service to death shalt have.

The compact a liegeman and lord between,
Each forfeits by conduct unworthy and mean,
And liegeman I am, not slave."

Their plans are well laid: on one luckless eve,
Overpowered by wine and sleep,

The King bids his courtiers all take leave;
The guards, from Queen Rosamond orders receive
At a distance their watch to keep.

In the dead of the night, to his chamber she sends The two knights with weapons bare.

The King starts from slumber; his hand he extends To seize his good sword; it is nailed at both ends To the wall, by Queen Rosamond's care.

He seizes a stool to encounter the knights;
His struggle for life is fierce;

The stool on the head of Sir Helmichis lights;
But vainly the brave King with that weapon fights,
Their daggers his stout heart pierce.

The body they bury beneath the stair:

For a season the death is concealed,

That Rosamond's arts may the people prepare,

To accept for the throne her young daughter as heir, So she may the sceptre wield.

But the spirit of every Lombard knight
Revolts 'gainst the regicides:

The guilty Queen, driven to hasty flight,
Speeds away, till Ravenna's walls rise in sight,
Where the Exarch of Rome resides.

Longinus receives her, as foe of his foe;
He pities, he loves the Queen:

His suit the fair Rosamond listeneth to;
She hath tasted of power, and deems it woe
To be less than she had been.

Sir Helmichis' presence is now a restraint;
She mixeth a poisoned bowl,

And hands him the chalice when thirsty and faint;
He drinks, but his palate discovers the taint
Before he hath swallowed the whole.

His dagger he draws, and to Rosamond saith:
"Drink, drink thou this goblet dry.
Nay, hesitate not! for I doubt thy faith;
And that I may have thee companion in death,
Thou shalt by this dagger die."

She drinks, and the plentiful poison burns :
Both perish in torments of hell.

They are buried together: two marble urns
Tell how on the guilty, God's judgment returns;
Unerring, on all how it fell.

For Peredeus, blinded and led into hall,

To be shown at a Roman feast.

Fast bound to a pillar that propp'd the wall,

With his wonderful strength dragged it down over all,
And, Sampson-like, so found rest.

P.

OLIVER CROMWELL.

(Continued from page 283.)

On his return to his own country he found affairs in a sad state; everything showing the want that was felt of his masterinfluence. The crozier of Laud, though it had escaped from the hand of that overbearing prelate, was not broken; and the gloomy arrogance of Presbyterianism was no less intolerable to the people than the splendid bigotry of Rome. Resolutely bent on the furtherance of their own views, and the extension of their own influence, the several factions were completely neglectful of the great ends of government; and Presbyterians and Independents, Anabaptists and Fifth-monarchy men, were doing their utmost to plunge the country into confusion. The Scotch Covenanters, too, evinced a disposition to be troublesome; till the rough lesson of Dunbar, and the terms dictated by Cromwell in Edinburgh itself, brought them to their senses, and convinced them of the impolicy of meddling with matters beyond their sphere. But this state of things could not last; the want of a controlling hand was everywhere felt, and the eyes of all men were turned to Cromwell as the only one able to save the nation from the state of anarchy into which it was rapidly drifting. He dissolved the Long Parliament; and after a short interval, during which their successors only gave repeated proofs of their incapacity for selfgovernment, he formally assumed, with the title of Protector, the supreme power, which had virtually been his, in a greater or less degree, since the death of the King. This usurpation-for such