* * * * *

     “I have a thousand sisters; none so fair. 
     He whom I wed receives my sceptre rare. 
     Wisdom occult my mother will impart. 
     Granting his slightest wish, I’ll cheer his heart.”

* * * * *

     “Heaven and earth to win you I abjure! 
     Child of the ocean, is your promise sure?”
     “Heaven and earth abjuring, great’s your gain,
     Throned with the ancient gods, a king to reign!”

     Lo, as she speaks, a thousand starlights gleam,
     Lighted for Heaven’s Christmas day they seem. 
     Sighing, he swears the oath,—­the die is cast;
     Into the mermaid’s arms he sinks at last.

* * * * *

     High on the shore the rushing waves roll in. 
     “Why does the color vary on your skin? 
     What!  From your waist a fish’s tail depends!”
     “Worn for the dances of my sea-maid friends.”

     High overhead, the stars, like torches, burn: 
     “Haste! to my golden castle I return. 
     Save me, ye runes!”—­“Yes, try them now; they fail. 
     Pupil of heathen men, my spells prevail!”

     Proudly she turns; her sceptre strikes the wave,
     Roaring, it parts; the ocean yawns, a grave. 
     Mermaid and youth go down; the gulf is deep. 
     Over their heads the surging waters sweep.

     Often, on moonlight nights, when bluebells ring,
     When for their sports the elves are gathering,
     Out of the waves the youth appears, and plays
     Tunes that are merry, mournful, like his days.

AUCASSIN AND NICOLLETE

(Twelfth Century)

BY FREDERICK MORRIS WARREN

This charming tale of medieval France has reached modern times in but one manuscript, which is now in the National Library at Paris.  It gives us no hint as to the time and place of the author, but its linguistic forms would indicate for locality the borderland of Champagne and Picardy, while the fact that the verse of the story is in assonance would point to the later twelfth century as the date of the original draft.  It would thus be contemporaneous with the last poems of Chretien de Troyes (1170-80).  The author was probably a minstrel by profession, but one of more than ordinary taste and talent.  For, evidently skilled in both song and recitation, he so divided his narrative between poetry and prose that he gave himself ample opportunity to display his powers, while at the same time he retained more easily, by this variety, the attention of his audience.  He calls his invention—­if his invention it be—­a “song-story.”  The subject he drew probably from reminiscences of the widely known story of Floire and Blanchefleur; reversing the parts, so that here it is the hero who