When the days are accomplish’d, then Christ will descend, And burst hell’s gloomy portals; And though he may sit in judgment strict, He still will acquit many mortals. And yet there are hells from out of whose clutch There’s no escape to heaven; No prayers there avail, and powerless too Is the Saviour’s pardon even. Is Dante’s hell to thee unknown, With its terrible trinary verses? The man whom the poet there has shut up Will never escape from his curses. He ne’er will be freed from those musical flames By any god or Saviour; So for fear we condemn thee to such a sad hell, Thou hadst better mind thy behaviour! ROMANCERO. _BOOK I.--HISTORIES._ When vex’d by slander’s treacherous breath, Let thy faith soar the higher; And when thy soul is sad unto death, Then strike thou the lyre. A flaming and glowing heroical song The chords breathe discreetly! All anger flies, and thy spirit ere long Will bleed to death sweetly. RHAMPSENITUS.[64] When the King Rhampsenitus Enter’d in the halls resplendent Of his daughter, she was laughing, As was also each attendant. E’en the blackamoors, the eunuchs, Follow’d in loud chorus after; E’en the mummies, e’en the sphynxes Seem’d about to burst with laughter. Then the princess said: “I fancied That I held the thief securely, But it was a dead arm only That my hand had seized so surely. “I can see now how the robber To thy storehouse penetrated, And despite all bars and fast’nings All thy treasure confiscated. “He a magic key possesses, “Which the door of house or stable “Straightway opens; to resist it “Are the strongest doors unable. “Now I’m really not a strong door, “Nor could I resist his pleasure; “So this night, while treasure-watching, “Have I lost my little treasure!” Round the chamber danced the princess, Laughing at this notion clever, And the maidens and the eunuchs Laugh’d again as loud as ever. On that day all Memphis laugh’d too, E’en the crocodiles so bloody Laughingly their heads protruded From the yellow Nile-stream muddy, When they heard the drum’s loud beating, And the foll’wing proclamation Shouted by the public crier On the bank, to all the nation:-- “We, Rhampsenitus, by God’s grace “King of Egypt, to our loyal “Well-belovèd friends and subjects “Hereby send our greeting royal. “In the night between the third and “Fourth of June, the fourteen hundred “Four and twentieth year before Christ, “Came a certain thief, who plunder’d “Many jewels from the storehouse “Where we kept them, and more lately “Further thefts has perpetrated, “So that we have suffer’d greatly.