But to Mr Lowell. The first piece in his collection of poems is entitled "A Legend of Brittany." The subject is as grotesque as legendary lore could have supplied him with. A knight-templar, a soldier-priest who has taken the vow of chastity at a time and place when that vow was expected to be kept, has fallen in love with a beautiful girl. He seduces her; then to hide his own disgrace he murders her; and he buries the body, with the unborn infant, under the altar of the church! One day at high mass, when the guilty templar is there himself standing, with others, round the altar, a voice is heard, a vision is seen--it is the spirit of the murdered girl and mother. She appears--not to denounce the assassin--she regrets to expose his guilt--there is so much woman in the angel that she loves him still--she appears to claim the rite of baptism for her unborn infant, who, till that rite is performed, wanders in darkness and in pain. The legend must have received this turn during some _Gorham controversy_ now happily forgotten. Notwithstanding the very strange nature of the whole story, there is a pleasing tenderness in this address of the spirit to the wicked templar. After glancing more in sadness than in anger at his falsehood, it continues:-- "And thou hadst never heard such words as these, Save that in heaven I must ever be Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this Our unbaptisèd babe shut out from bliss. This little spirit, with imploring eyes, Wanders alone the dreary wild of space; The shadow of his pain forever lies Upon my soul in this new dwelling-place; His loneliness makes me in paradise More lonely; and unless I see his face, Even here for grief could I lie down and die, Save for my curse of immortality. I am a mother, spirits do not shake This much of earth from them, and I must pine, Till I can feel his little hands, and take His weary head upon this heart of mine. And might it be, full gladly for his sake Would I this solitude of bliss resign, And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him For ever in that silence drear and dim. I strove to hush my soul, and would not speak At first for thy dear sake. A woman's love Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, And by its weakness overcomes; I strove To smother better thoughts with patience meek, But still in the abyss my soul would rove, Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim The rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name. I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing: I can but long and pine the while they praise, And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I fling My voice to where I deem my infant stays, Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring Her nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace; But still he answers not, and I but know That heaven and earth are but alike in woe."