There is, perhaps, a higher aspect to this passion of revenge, this fierce, imperative, triumphant sense of moral justice and supernatural retribution, than the somewhat partial and personal form which it assumes in mediæval poetry. Beneath the crude worship of arbitrary rule, behind the primitive conception of a Power that for ever vindicates the brave and puts the coward to confusion, lies the germ of that larger sense of divine vengeance which inspires and dominates all great tragedy. Something of this higher strain of feeling, this perception of the futility of merely human punishments and personal judgments, yet mingled with an instinctive acceptance of the human measures as the instruments of the divine, finds expression in the ballad of “Sister Helen.” The theme is based upon an ancient superstition to the effect that the death of a wrong-doer could be supernaturally procured by the injured person, by making a waxen image in his semblance and melting it for three days and nights before a fire. Sister Helen’s lover has been unfaithful to her, and in her anger against him she melts his image and keeps her dreadful watch relentlessly through the appointed hours, till the spell is completed, and her vengeance achieves its purpose in the death of her enemy. The poem is cast in the form of a dialogue between Sister Helen and her little brother, whose childish wonder at the mysterious process distracts him from his play; and he looks by turns at the fatal fire and at the wintry landscape without. “‘Why did you melt your waxen man, Sister Helen? To-day is the third since you began.’ ‘The time was long, yet the time ran, Little brother.’ (O Mother, Mary Mother, Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)” She bids the child watch from the balcony while she, within, proceeds with her incantation. Presently messengers ride hastily up the road, calling upon Helen, and pleading with her for mercy upon the dying man: “‘But he calls for ever on your name, Sister Helen, And says that he melts before a flame.’ ‘My heart for his pleasure fared the same, Little brother.’ (O Mother, Mary Mother, Fire at the heart, between Hell and Heaven!)” The contrast between the boy’s innocent, eager reports and observations, and Helen’s bitter, mocking answers, carries with it all the solemn terror of the Greek, and all the mystic naïveté of the mediæval world. At last the unfaithful lover’s aged father, and finally his three days’ bride, arrive to add their entreaties for his life, and the lady falls fainting at Helen’s inhospitable door.