Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.

She stooped her by the runnel's' side,
But in abhorrence backward drew;
For, oozing from the mountain side,
Where raged the war, a dark red tide
Was curdling in the streamlet blue.
Where shall she turn!-behold her mark
A little fountain-cell,

Where water, clear as diamond-spark,
In a stone basin fell.

Above, some half-worn letters say,

She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied

A monk supporting Marmion's head;
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrives the dying, bless the dead.

Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave,
And as she stooped his brow to lave-
"Is it the hand of Clare," he said,

9

head ? "

"Or injured Constance, bathes my
Then, as remembrance rose-
"Speak not to me of shrift or prayer!
I must redress her woes.

Short space, few words, are mine to spare:
Forgive and listen, gentle Clare!"

"Alas!" she said, "the while

O think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Constance is your zeal;
She died at Holy Isle!"

Lord Marmion started from the ground,
As light as if he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide,
In torrents from his wounded side.
"Then it was truth!"-he said-"I knew
That the dark presage must be true.
I would the fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would spare me but a day!

For wasting fire, and dying groan,
And priests slain on the altar stone,
Might bribe him for delay.

It may not be !-this dizzy trance-
Curse on yon base marauder's lance;
And doubly cursed my failing brand!
A sinful heart makes feeble hand."
Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk,
Supported by the trembling monk.

With fruitless labour Clara bound,
And strove to staunch, the gushing wound;
The monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the church's prayers;

Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,

And that the priest he could not hear,

For that she ever sung,

"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying

Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!"10

So the notes rung;

"Avoid thee, fiend!-with cruel hand,

Shake not the dying sinner's sand!

O look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer's grace divine;
O think on faith and bliss!
By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,
But never aught like this."

The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering, swelled the gale,
And-" Stanley!" was the cry;
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye :

With dying hand above his head

He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.

SPELL AND GIVE THE MEANING

ICELAND AND THE GEYSERS.

1. JUST outside the cold arctic circle there is an island but little known to the rest of the world. It is larger than Ireland, but does not contain more than about 70,000 inhabitants. It is called Iceland, but its original name was Snowland. This name was given to it by Naddodr, a famous pirate, who was driven there in a storm in the year 860. He describes it as a country without inhabitants, and entirely covered with snow. It

was visited soon after by Gardar Sverison, a Swede, who sailed round it, and, on returning to Sweden, called it after his own name, Gardar's Isle. The name was changed to Iceland by another pirate, who spent a winter in the bay, but when spring came was blocked in by mountains of ice, supposed to have drifted from Greenland.

2. Iceland was first peopled in 870 by a colony of Norwegians, headed by two noblemen, Ingolf, and his brother-in-law. They found no inhabitants, but some crosses and other symbols of the Christian religion were discovered in the south of the island, though no one can tell how they came there. Some unfortunate fishermen, blown thither, in some storm, from Ireland or England, may have raised them. The laws and religion of the Icelanders were the same as among the Norwegians, until the introduction of Christianity, which took place in 982. The chief deity was Thor, who was worshipped with sacrifices, generally of beasts, but sometimes of men.

3. At the Reformation one of the two bishops of the island took the side of Luther. The whole of the inhabitants since that time have followed the religion of the Lutheran Church. The government was at first a republic, but, owing to the contentions of the chief men, the people agreed to recognise the King of Norway as their ruler.

In the fourteenth century Iceland and Norway were united to the crown of Denmark.

4. There is but little in the history of Iceland beyond a record of calamities. In the thirteenth century there were six volcanic eruptions, which destroyed most of the cattle, as well as the dwellings of the people, and rendered a great part of the land unfit for pasture. In the four

teenth century two-thirds of the population were swept away in one year by the "black death."* The third that survived had to endure the miseries of famine, for the disease that had destroyed the people destroyed nearly all the cattle. "The last century, however," says the Hon. Arthur Dillon, writing in 1840, "seems to have concentrated the horrors of all the preceding ones, and has, perhaps, been, altogether, the most terrible that has passed over Iceland. In 1707 the small-pox found its way into the island, and out of a population of 47,000 swept 16,000 into the grave in one year. In 1759, after a succession of inclement years, the almost entire loss of their cattle brought on a famine, and another gap was made in the numbers of the people, who had barely recovered from their last scourge. Starvation succeeded disease, and 10,000 fell victims to this second visitation. The third and greatest calamity was the unparalleled eruption of several volcanoes in 1783. The waters of the river Skaptaa were suddenly dried up, and a torrent of liquid fire rolled in their stead. This was followed soon after by other streams of lava, which came down with such rapidity as to drive the inhabitants from their houses; frequent earthquakes were felt, and a phenomenon not before witnessed in such cases, appeared, in the form of a dense cloud that covered the whole island, and involved it in total darkness. The consequences were terrible; the air became infected; the ground, covered with volcanic ashes, produced grass that poisoned the cattle that fed on it. The inhabitants of the country near Skaptaa Jokul were attacked with an epidemic of a

*The "black death " was a dreadful pestilence which desolated Europe between 1348 and 1351. It came, like all plagues, from the East, and destroyed 25,000,000 of human beings in the various European kingdoms.