A tear steals from his eye. Now he hath turned him to his knights; His words are sad and low: “God wot I am an old man now; He layeth sorrow on my brow, He willeth I should go. My nephew hath his course to run, And mine is near its close. I straight will render up my lands, My gold shall pass from out mine hands— I’ll yield me to my foe! But as God lives he prospereth not King Stephen’s arms again; His latest triumph he hath won. Henceforth his is a setting sun; His efforts shall be vain! God prospereth not King Stephen now— The Empress Maud hath fled; Fitz‐Empress Henry snatcheth now The golden circlet from the brow, The glory from his head. God prospereth not King Stephen’s arms— Anjou is in the field, And Winchester and Gloucester band To wrest the sceptre from his hand, And vanquished he must yield. God prospereth not King Stephen’s cause— Henry is named his heir; Still may he sit upon the throne Weakness forbids him call his own, In sorrow and despair. God prospereth not his family— Eustace, his only son, Pines from that moment, droops his head, And, withering like a flower, is dead, And his last prop is gone. God prospereth not King Stephen’s health— His heart is stricken sore; Sleep shunneth now his eyes by night; His days are stricken with a blight; He smileth now no more. And still ’tis said God prospereth not The holder of those lands, And Sarum’s heirs ne’er live to claim The heritage of land and name— It slippeth from their hands; For one, ’tis said, hath fallen by chance; Another falls in strife; A father’s hand unwitting smote Another scion through the throat; Law claims another’s life. God prospereth not that family— Two hundred years have sped, And still the bishop’s curse clings fast, As fell and fatal to the last As when those words were said. Then the Third Edward rendered back Unto the church its own, And the broad lands to Robert gave (Thou’lt see it figured on his grave); And now the curse is gone! The Poem Of Izdubar. M. FRANÇOIS LENORMANT, in continuing the publication of his _Essay on the Propagation of the Phœnician Alphabet in the Ancient World_, and in editing a _Selection of Cuneiform Texts_, has just issued two volumes of important and interesting studies on _Primitive Civilizations_.(34) The steps of this learned writer in the almost unknown regions which he explores so fearlessly, and usually with so much success, are not always perfectly sure; but, with a good faith so natural to him that it does not seem to cost him even an effort, he knows how to retrace his path and correct whatever may require rectification.