the Monarch with passionate tone:

“Come away then, dear charmer, my angel, my joy,

Nay struggle not now, ’tis in vain to be coy,

 And remember that we are alone”.

“Blessed Mary, protect me!" the Archbishop cried;

 "What madness has come to the King!”

In vain to escape from the Monarch he tried,

When luckily he on his finger espied

 The glitter of Agatha’s ring.

Overjoy’d, the good prelate remember’d the spell,

 And far in the lake flung the ring;

The waters closed round it, and wondrous to tell,

Released from the cursed enchantment of hell,

 His reason return’d to the King.

But he built him a palace there close by the bay,

 And there did he love to remain;

And the traveller who will, may behold at this day

A monument still in the ruins at Aix

 Of the spell that possess’d Charlemain.

The Battle of Blenheim

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar’s work was done,

And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun,

And by him sported on the green

His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round,

Which he beside the rivulet

In playing there had found;

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,

And, with a natural sigh,

“’Tis some poor fellow’s skull”, said he,

“Who fell in the great victory.

“I find them in the garden,

For there’s many here about;

And often when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out!

For many thousand men”, said he,

"Were slain in that great victory”.

“Now tell us what ’twas all about”,

Young Peterkin, he cries;

And little Wilhelmine looks up

With wonder-waiting eyes;

“Now tell us all about the war,

And what they fought each other for”.

“It was the English”, Kaspar cried,

“Who put the French to rout;

But what they fought each other for,

I could not well make out;

But everybody said”, quoth he,

"That ’twas a famous victory.

“My father lived at Blenheim then,

Yon little stream hard by;

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,

And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

“With fire and sword the country round

Was wasted far and wide,

And many a childing mother then,

And new-born baby died;

But things like that, you know, must be

At every famous victory.

“They say it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be

After a famous victory.

“Great praise the Duke of Marlbro’ won,

And our good Prince Eugene”.

“Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!”

Said little Wilhelmine.

“Nay… nay… my little girl”, quoth he,

"It was a famous victory.

“And everybody praised the Duke

Who this great fight did win”.

“But what good came of it at last?”

Quoth little Peterkin.

“Why that I cannot tell”, said he,

“But ‘twas a famous victory”.

The Surgeon’s Warning

The Doctor whisper’d to the Nurse,

And the Surgeon knew what he said;

And he grew pale at the Doctor’s tale,

And trembled in his sick bed.

“Now fetch me my brethren, and fetch them with speed”,

The Surgeon affrighted said;

“The Parson and the Undertaker,

Let them hasten, or I shall be dead”.

The Parson and the Undertaker

They hastily came complying,

And the Surgeon’s Prentices ran up stairs

When they heard that their Master was dying.

The Prentices all they enter’d the room,

By one, by two, by three;

With a sly grin came Joseph in,

First of the company.

The Surgeon swore, as they enter’d his door,—

’Twas fearful his oaths to hear,—

“Now send these scoundrels out of my sight,

I beseech ye, my brethren dear!”

He foam’d at the mouth with the rage he felt,

And he wrinkled his black eyebrow:

“That rascal Joe would be at me, I know,

But, zounds, let him spare me now!”

Then out they sent the Prentices;

The fit it left him weak;

He look’d at his brothers with ghastly eyes,

And faintly struggled to speak.

“All kinds of carcasses I have cut up,

And now my turn will be;

But, brothers, I took care of you;

So pray take care of me.

“I have made candles of dead men’s fat;

The Sextons have been my slaves;

I have bottled babes unborn, and dried

Hearts and livers from rifled graves.

“And my Prentices now will surely come

And carve me bone from bone;

And I, who have rifled the dead man’s