of the marriage she fled the side
Of the baron, the bridegroom too she fled,
With a mischievous laugh, "_I'll hide! I'll hide!_
Seek! and be sure to seek well!" and led
A wild chase after her, but defied
All search for--a score and ten more years,
And the laughter of Yule was changed to tears.
But they searched and the snow was bleared with the glare
Of torches that hurried thro' chamber and stair;
And tower and court re-echoed her name,
But she laughed no answer and never came.

So over the channel to France with his King
And the Black Prince, sailed to the wars--to deaden
The ache of the mystery--Hugh that Spring,
And fell at Poitiers: for his loss lay leaden
On hope, and his life was a weary sadness,
So he flung it away with a very gladness.
And the baron died--and the bridegroom, well,--
Unlucky that bridegroom, sooth!--to tell
Of him there is nothing. The baron died;
The last of the Strongbows he, gramercy!
And the Clare estate with its wealth and its pride
Devolved to the Bloets, Walter or Percy.

Ten years and a score thereafter. And they
Ransacked the old castle and mark!--one day
In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest
From Flanders, of sinister ebon, carved
Sardonic with masks 'round an olden crest,
Gargoyle faces distorted and starved:
Fast fixed with a spring which they forced and lo!
When they opened it--ha, Hortense!--or, no!--
Fantastic a skeleton jeweled and wreathed
With flowers of dust, and a minever
About it hugged, which quaint richness sheathed
Of a bridal raiment and lace with fur.
--I'd have given such years of my life--yes, well!--
As were left me then so her lover, Hugh,
For such time breathed as it took one to tell
How she forever, deemed false, was true!
He'd have known how it was, "For, you see, in groping
For the puny spring of that panel--hoping
And fearing as nearer and nearer grew
The boisterous scramble--why, out she blew
Her windy taper and quick--in this chest
Wary would lie for--a minute, mayhap,
Till the hurry all passed; but the death-lock pressed
--Ere her heart was aware--with a hungry snap."

ON THE JELLICO-SPUR.

TO MY FRIEND, JOHN FOX, JR.

You remember, the deep mist,--
Climbing to the Devil's Den--
Blue beneath us in the glen
And above us amethyst,
Throbbed and circled and away
Thro' the wild-woods opposite,
Torn and shattered, morni