In torment with the enemies of God."

"I swear," said Agatha, and kissed the rood;
Then, taking each a hand, the attendant sisters
Upraised her from her knees and one of them
Drawing the gold hoop from her finger dropped it
Ínto th' offertory held by the other;

Néxt from her head they undid the long white veil,
And loosed and lét upon her shoulders fall

Her gólden lócks, then in their arms both raised her
And laid her stretched at fúll length in the coffin,
And the pall over her and the coffin spread,
Leaving the head bare, and beyond the edge
Of the coffin the dishevelled gold locks hanging;
Then one of them the lócks held while the bishop
Clean sheared them from the head, saying same time:
"As these locks never to the head return,

So thoú returnest never to the world.”

Out of the coffin then the two attendants

Raised her together, and the long black veil

Threw over her, head, neck and shoulders covering
Dówn to her waist behind; the bishop then
Námed her Euphemia, and upon her finger
Pútting the núptial ring and on her head

The nuptial crown, pronounced her Christ's affianced,
The Lord's own spouse now and for ever more,
And, having given into her hand the attested.

Áct of Profession and the Rules of the Order,

Rósary and prayerbook, raised both hands and blessed her And både her go in peace; then the abbess kissed her

And all the sisters kissed her one by one;

And having sung a hymn, all left the chapel :
The novices before, the prior following,

And then the bishop, next the lady abbess
Heading the black veils, with the last of whom

And youngest, tottering walked the new-professed,
The white veils last, the great bell again tolling.
The cloister court they round and up the stair
Tó the refectory and collation frugal:

Sausage and cheese and bread, and each one glass
Of Rüdesheimer four years in the cellar.
The prior and bishop some short quarter hour
Converse of things indifferent with the abbess;
Take leave; the wicket again opens, closes;
The patter of the mules' hoofs dies away;
Each to her séparate cell the nuns retire,

And once more still as death 's Saint Ursula's cloister.
Next day a messenger conveys the parents

Áll of their daughter that they now might claim:
The golden ringlets sheared off by the bishop;
And in one narrow cell from that day forth,
Strictest and hóliest of Saint Ursula's nuns,

In pénitence and prayer lived Agatha,
Except when morning, noon, or evening bell
Called her to chapel, or her daily walk

She took the coúrt round or the high-walled garden,

Ór at long intervals in a sister's presence

Spoke sóme short moments through the parlour grating
With some once dear friend of her former world.

So fórty years she lived and so she died,

And other Agathas walking where she walked

Her name read on a flag beneath their feet

As from the court they turn into the chapel.

Begun while walking from RIED to SANCT ANTON on the ADLERBERG (German TYROL), Sept. 4 - 5, 1854; finished at TEUFEN in Canton APPENZELL. Sept. 12, 1854.

I LIKE the Belgian cleanliness and comfort,
The Bélgian liberty of thought and action,
The ancient Belgian cities, full of churches
With pointed windows and long Gothic aisles
And vócal steeples that pour every hour
Dówn from the clouds their lárklike melody;
I love too the soft Belgian languages,
Walloon and Flemish, and the Belgian song,
And Bélgium's pictures chiefly thine, Van Eyck!
Unéqualled colorist, and first who dipped

In oil the pencil. But I like not all,
Múch though I like in Belgium; I like not
Its hill-less, smoóth, unvariegated landscape,
Where even the very rivers seem to languish;
Still less I like its parallel, straight-cut roads
Where seldom but to telescope-armed eye
Discernible the further end or turning;
And least of all I like him whóm Cologne,
Proúd of a little, fain would call her own,

Though foreign-born, him of the broad, slouched hat,
The painter who shades red and with red streaks
And bloody blotches daubs the sprawling limbs
Óf his fat Venuses and Medicis,

Susánnas, Ariadnes and Madonnas,

Álways except his sweetheart with the straw hat,

For whose sake I 'd forgive his sins though doubled But other lands invite me, farewell Belgium!

Thrice wélcome, Holland! refuge, in old times,
Of persecuted virtue, wisdom, learning;
Mighty Rhine-delta, I admire thy ports
Fúll of tall másts, wayfarers of both oceans;
Thy cabinets replenished with the riches.
Of either Ind; thy dikes, canals, and sluices,
And térritory from the deep sea won

Bý thy hard toil and skill and perseverance;
Bút I like not thy smug, smooth-sháven faces,
Sleék, methodistic hair, and white cravats,
And swallowtailed black coats, and trowsers black;
Still less I like the odour of thy streets

Ére by kind winter frózen, and the far more
Than Jewish eagerness with which thou graspest
At évery pound or penny fairly earned,

Or it may bé unfairly so I turn

--

Southward my pilgrim step, and say - "Farewell!"

Two Gérmanies there are, antipodistic

Each of the other, a Northern and a Southern:
Stúrdy the one, and stiffnecked and reserved,

Cautious, suspicious, economical, prudent,

Indústrious, indefatigable, patient,

Stúdious and méditative and with art's

And literature's most noble spoils enriched,
That raised, three hundred years ago, revolt's
Audácious standard against mother church
And from that day has lived and florished fair
Without the help of Pope, Bull, or Indulgence,
Ánd in its naked, shrineless temples worshipped
Its unsubstantial notion of a God.

South Germany, less thoughtful, and preferring
Eáse and known ways to toilsome innovation,
Clings to its fóresires' creed, and only closer
And clóser clings the more it 's shown to be
Nónsense downright, hypocrisy and imposture.
Bóth Germanies my diligent, plodding feet

From North to South from East to West have travelled,
From filthy, rich, commercial, sensual Hamburg
To the far Draúthal and the Ortelerspitz,

Ánd from where in the Moldau's wave reflected
The minarets of Prague, to where broad Rhine,
Frésh from Helvétia's Alps and glaciers, washes
Básel's white walls and weak Erasmus' tomb,
And I have found the German, in the main,
A plain fair-dealer without second purpose
And to his word true; seldom over-courteous,
And always quite inquisitive enough

About your name, your country, your religion,
Whence, whither, what and why and where and when;
And take fair warning, reader! shouldst thou ever,
Smit with the love of that coy spinster, Knowledge,

Vénture upon a German tour pedestrian,

Outside the limits of still courteous Schwarzwald,
The watchdog all day long his iron chain
Clánks on each boór's inhospitable threshold,
And éven the inn door in the country opens
Slówly and súllenly or not at all

To the beláted, tired and houseless stranger.

From Germany I turn into Tyról;

A kíndlier, friendlier land; where tired pedestrian
Though he arrive late has no growl to fear
Of súrly watchdog or more surly landlord,
But greeted with "Willkommen!" and the smile