For being thro' his cowardice allow'd
Her station, taken everywhere for pure,
She like a new disease, unknown to men,
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse.
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young.
Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!
Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,
The mockery of my people, and their bane."

He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch
Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet.
Far off a solitary trumpet blew.

Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neigh'd
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again:

"Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,
I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,
I, whose vast pity almost makes me die
To see thee, laying there thy golden head,
My pride in happier summers, at my feet.

The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law, The doom of treason and the flaming death,

(When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past.

The pang-which while I weigh'd thy heart with one
Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
Made my tears burn-is also past in part.
And all is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I,
Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God

Forgives do thou for thine own soul the rest.
But how to take last leave of all I loved ?
O golden hair, with which I used to play
Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee.
I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,
But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.

I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh,

And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and mine own flesh,
Here looking down on thine polluted, cries
'I loathe thee:' yet not less, O Guinevere,
For I was ever virgin save for thee,
My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.

life

Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know
I am thine husband - not a smaller soul,

Nor Lancelot, nor another.

I charge thee, my last hope.

Leave me that,

Now must I hence.
Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:
They summon me their King to lead mine hosts
Far down to that great battle in the west,

Where I must strike against the man they call
My sister's son no kin of mine, who leagues

With lords of the White Horse, heathen, and knights,
Traitors and strike him dead, and meet myself
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event;
But hither shall I never come again,

Never lie by thy side; see thee no more
Farewell!"

And while she grovell'd at his feet,

She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck,
And in the darkness o'er her fallen head,
Perceived the waving of his hands that blest.

CROSSING THE BAR.

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE, a celebrated English novelist, critic and satirist; born in Calcutta, July 18, 1811; died at London, December 24, 1863. He was educated at the Charterhouse School at London, whence, at about eighteen, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, however, he did not remain long enough to take his degree. He became a somewhat frequent contributor to "Fraser's Magazine," and in 1841 to "Punch," which had just been established. He wrote anonymously or under assumed signatures, such as "Michael Angelo Titmarsh," "George Fitz-Boodle," "Charles James Fitzroy Yellowplush." For ten years and more he wrote tales, burlesques, satires, descriptive sketches, critical essays and verses, some of which were clever hits at the follies and foibles of the time; but few of them gave promise that the author would ever take a permanent place as a writer of fiction, unless "The Great Hoggarty Diamond" may be reckoned an exception. "Vanity Fair," the first of his five great novels, was begun early in 1847. It was published in monthly parts, and long before its completion, in the summer of 1848, Thackeray's place as a novelist had come to be an assured one. He soon afterward began " Pendennis," also published serially, and running through the years 1849 and 1850. In 1851 Thackeray appeared as a lecturer, with his "English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." In 1852 appeared his novel "Henry Esmond," the only one of his important works which was not published serially. He himself regarded this as his best work. In 1854 he broke off his long connection with "Punch." In 1853-55 appeared "The Newcomes." The next year he made a second tour in the United States, where he delivered his lectures on "The Four Georges," afterward delivered and then published in Great Britain. In 1857-59 appeared his novel "The Virginians.” In 1860 he became editor of the new "Cornhill Magazine," which he conducted for two years. For each number he furnished one of the "Roundabout Papers," touching upon a great variety of topics. In this magazine also appeared his novels, "Lovel the Widower," and "The Adventures of Philip on His Way Through the World," a kind of continuation of the "Shabby-Genteel Story," of which a few chapters had been written as early as 1840. After his retire