STAFF AND SCRIP.

D. G. ROSSETTI.

"Who rules these lands?" the Pilgrim said. "Stranger, Queen Blanchelys."

"And who has harried them thus?” he said. "It was Duke Luke did this: God's ban be his!"

The Queen sat idle by her loom :
She heard the arras stir,

And looked up sadly: through the room
The sweetness wearied her

Of musk and myrrh.

Her women, standing two and two,
In silence combed the fleece.
The Pilgrim said, "Peace be with you,
Lady," and bent his knees.

She answered, "Peace."

"Lady," he said, "your lands lie burned
And waste to meet your foe

All fear: this I have seen and learned.
Say that it shall be so,

And I will go."

She gazed at him. "Your cause is just,

For I have heard the same,

He said. "God's strength shall be my trust.

Fall it to good or grame,

'Tis in His name."

"Sir, you are thanked. My cause is dead.
Why should you toil to break
A grave, and fall therein?" she said.
He did not pause, but spake:
"For my vow's sake.'

"Can such vows be, sir-to God's ear,
Not to God's will?" "My vow
Remains: God heard me there as here,"
He said with reverent brow,
"Both then and now."

They gazed together, he and she,
The minute while he spoke;
And when he ceased, she suddenly
Looked round upon her folk,
As though she woke.

"Fight, sir," she said. "My prayers in pain Shall be your fellowship.'

He whispered one among her train :
"To-morrow bid her keep
This staff and scrip."

Next day till dark the women prayed:
Nor any might know there

How the fight went: The Queen has bade
That there do come to her

No messenger.

"Oh! what is the light that shines so red? Long since the sun has set,

Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid;
"Twas dim but now, and yet
The light is great."

Quoth the other: "Tis our sight is dazed
That we see flame in the air."

But the Queen held her brows and gazed,
And said: "It is the glare

Of torches there."

"Oh! what are the sounds that rise and spread? All day it was so still,"

Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid; "Unto the farthest hill

The air they fill."

Quoth the other: "Tis our sense is blurred
With all the chants gone by."

But the Queen held her breath and heard,
And said: "It is the cry
Of victory."

The first of all the rout was sound,
The next were dust and flame,
And then the horses shook the ground:
And in the thick of them

A still band came.

"Oh, what do ye bring out of the fight,
Thus hid beneath these boughs?"
"Thy conquering guest returns to-night,
And yet shall not carouse,
Queen, in thy house."

"Uncover ye his face," she said.
"O changed in little space!"
She cried, "O pale that was so red!"
O God, O God of grace!
Cover his face.”

Then stepped a damsel to her side
And spoke, and needs must weep:

"For his sake, lady, if he died,
He prayed of thee to keep

This staff and scrip."

A FAREWELL.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray:
Yet ere we part, one lesson I can leave you

For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble deeds, not dream them, all day long; And so make life, death, and that vast forever

One grand, sweet song.

ROAST PIG.

CHARLES LAMB.

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his "Mundane Mutations," where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cook's Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following :

The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished.

China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement,