elling princess, come from distant climes, either to flatter your pride or wonder at your glory.

Duke. A defiance! by Jupiter!

Zarah. You mistake the signal. I came not here without taking sufficient precautions for my retreat.

Duke. You mouth it bravely; but never fortress so boasted its resources but the garrison had some thoughts of surrender. Come, my fair Sorceress. (Moves towards her; she, with a rippling laugh of defi ance, darts through an open window, and disappears behind a neighboring thicket of shrubs.)

Duke. By all the powers of Hades, I will yet have vengeance on that impudent little jilt. (Exit in great passion.)-Sir Walter Scott.

A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.

(Recitation, with Pantomime and Musical Accompaniment.)

Methought that I had wandered far

In an old wood; fresh-washed in coolest dew;
The maiden splendors of the morning star
Shook in the steadfast blue.

There was no motion in the dumb, dead air,
Not any song of bird or sound of rill;
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre

(Enter HELEN of TROY in Grecian costume.
Air" Annie Laurie.")

Is not so deadly still

As that wide forest.

At length I saw a lady within call,

Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,

And most divinely fair.

Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech: she, turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,

Spoke slowly in her place.

"I had great beauty: ask thou not my name; No one can be more wise than destiny.

Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came I brought calamity."

"No marvel, sovereign lady; in fair field Myself for such a face had boldy died."

(Enter IPHIGENIA in Grecian costume.
Air-" Pleyel's Hymn.")

I answered free, and turning I appealed
To one that stood beside.

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse,

To her full height her stately stature draws:

66

My youth," she said, "was blasted with a curse; This woman was the cause.

I was cut off from hope in that sad place,

Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears:
My father held his hand upon his face;

I, blinded with my tears,

Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry

The stern, black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,
Waiting to see me die.

The high masts flickered as they lay afloat;

The crowds, the temples, wavered, and the shore;
The bright death quivered at the victim's throat,
Touched, and I knew no more."

Whereto the other with a downward brow;
"I would the white, cold, heavy-plunging foam,
Whirled by the wind, had rolled me deep below,
Then when I left my home."

[Exit IPHIGENIA and HELEN OF TROY.

(Enter CLEOPATRA in Oriental costume).
Air-" My Country 'Tis of Thee.

66

Sudden I heard a voice that cried, "Come here,
That I may look on thee."

Turning, I saw a stately form in costly robes and

corcnet,

eyes.

A queen with swarthy cheeks and bold, black
She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:
"I governed men by change, and so I swayed
All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man.
Once, like the moon, I made

The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humor ebb and flow.
I have no men to govern in this wood:
That makes my only woe.

Nay-yet it chafes me that I could not bend
One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye
That dull, cold-blooded Cæsar. Prythee, friend,
Where is Mark Antony?

O my life in Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife,

And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms
My Hercules, my Roman Antony,

My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms,

Contented there to die!

I died a queen. The Roman soldier found.
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name forever!-lying robed and crowned
Worthy a Roman spouse." [Exit CLEOPATRA.
Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard
A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn,
And singing clearer than the crested bird,
That claps his wings at dawn.

As one who hearing an anthem sung, is charmed and tied

To where he stands-so stood I, when that flow

Enter JEPHTHAH's daughter veiled in Jewish costume.
Air" Back to My Mountain Home.”)

Of music left the lips of her that died
To save her father's vow;

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,

A maiden pure; as when she went along

From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light,

With timbrel and with song,

My words leapt forth. "Heaven heads the count of

crimes

With that wild oath." She rendered answer high. "Not so, nor once alone: a thousand times

I would be born and die.

Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root
Creeps to the garden water pipes beneath,
Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit
Changed, I was ripe for death.

My God, my land, my father-these did move
Me from the bliss of life, that nature gave,
Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.

How beautiful a thing it was to die

For God and for my sire!

It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,

Sweetens the spirit still."

She locked her lips; she left me where I stood; "Glory to God," she sang and passed afar.

[Exit JEPHTHAH's daughter.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,

As one from a casement leans his head,

When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
And the old year is dead.

(Enter ROSAMOND.

Air-Last Rose of Summer.")

"Alas! alas!" a low voice full of care, Murmur'd beside me: "Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,

If what I was I be.

Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor! O me, that I should ever see the light!

Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor

Do hunt me, day and night."

[Exit ROSAMUND.

Morn broadened on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
(Enter JOAN OF ARC in Military costume of black
and tinsel, bearing a white banner on which ap-
pears, in golden letters, the word "France."
Air Marsellaise Hymn.")

Her murdered father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France.

"Maid of Orleans!" I cried;

"Martyr and saviour of thy ungrateful race." Transfixed I gazed!

Whilst round her, trooped

The other images of my dream so rare.

(Re-enter Representative Figures.

Air-"Hom: Sweet Home.")

Breathless I stood. Did ever human eye such beauty see!

The fair group lingered a moment more-and was

gone

I had awakened from a dream of fair women.

Adapted from Tennyson's "Dream of Fair Women."

THE END.