The Ring That Said 'Strike Here'

In Medizval Rome, 1 know not where, There stood an image with its arm in air, And on its lifted fingev, shining clear, A golden ring with the device, “Strike here!” Greatly Pi people wondered, though none gnesse The meaning that these words but half expressed, Until a learned clerk, who at noonday With downcast eyes was passing on bis way, Pav aud observed the spot, and marked it we Whereon the shadow of the finger fell ; And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found A secret stairway leading under ground, Down this he passed into a spacious hall, Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall; And opposite a brazen statue stood With bow and shaft in threatening attitude, Upon its forehead, like a coronet, Were these mysterious words of menace set: “That which lam,I am; my fatel aim None can escape, not even yon luminous flame?”

Midway the hall was a fair table placed With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased me rubies, and the plates and knives were golad— And gold the bread and viands manifold. Around it, sile1t, motionless and sad, Were seated gallant knights in armor clad, And ladies beautiful with plume and zone, But they were stone, their hearts within were stone: And the vast hall was filled in every part With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed, The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed} Then from the table, by his greed made bold, He seized a goblet and a knife of gold, And suddenly from their seats the guests up sprang, The vauited ceiling with loud clamors rarg. The archer sped his arrow, at their call, Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall, And a)l was dark around and overhead :— Stark on the floor the luckless clerk lay dead f The writer of this legend then records Its ghostly application in these words: The image is the Adversary old, Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold, Our lusts and passions are the downward stair That leads the soul from a diviner air; The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life; Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife; The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bona By avarice have been hardened into atone ; The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf Least of , Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.

The scholar and the world ! The endless strife, The discord in the harmonies of life! The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet screnity of books: The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose uim is vanity, and whose end is pain! i. W.

Longfellow.