And then his smile! a thrust-like thing that curled His lips with heresy and incredible lore When Christ's or th' Virgin's holy name was said, Exclaimed in reverence or admonishment: And once he sneered,--"What is this God you mouth, Employ whose name to bless yourselves or damn? A curse or blessing?--It hath passed my skill T' interpret what He is. And then your faith-- What is this faith that helps you unto Him? Distinguishment unseen, design unlawed. Why, earth, air, fire, and water, heat and cold, Hint not at Him: and man alone it is Who needs must worship something. And for me-- No God like that whom man hath kinged and crowned! Rather your Satan cramped in Hell--the Fiend! God-countenanced as he is, and tricked with horns. No God for me, bearded as Charlemagne, Throned on a tinsel throne of gold and jade, Earth's pygmy monarchs imitate in mien And mind and tyranny and majesty, Aping a God in a sonorous Heaven. Give me the Devil in all mercy then, Bad as he is! for I will none of such!" And laughed an oily laugh of easy jest To bow out God and let the Devil in. [Illustration: And grasped of both wild hands, swung trenchant. Page 285 _Accolon of Gaul_ ] Then, as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn With some six of his jerkined foresters From the Thuringian forest; wet with dew, And fresh as morn with early travel; bound For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed. Chief huntsman he then to our lord the Duke, And father of the loveliest maiden here In Ammendorf, the sunny Ilsabe: Her mother dead, the gray-haired father prized His daughter more than all that men hold dear; His only happiness, who was beloved Of all as Lora of Thuringia was, For gentle ways that spoke a noble soul, Winning all hearts to love her and to praise, As might a great and beautiful thought that holds Us by the simplest words.--Blue were her eyes As the high glory of a summer day. Her hair,--serene and braided over brows White as a Harz dove's wing,--an auburn brown, And deep as mists the sun has drenched with gold: And her young presence, like embodied song, Filled every heart she smiled on with sweet calm, Like some Tyrolean melody of love, Heard on an Alpine path at close of day When homing shepherds pipe to tinkling flocks: Being with you a while, so, when she left,-- How shall I say it?--'twas as when one hath Beheld an Undine on the moonlit Rhine, Who, ere the mind adjusts a thought, is gone, And to the soul it seems it was a dream.