dA ROSE FROM THE GRAVE OF HOMER. 245

identical cap afterwards felt all that at once, though it was half
a century afterwards; and that man was the burgomaster him-
self, who, with his wife and eleven children, was well and firmly
established, and had amassed a very tolerable amount of wealth.
He was immediately seized with dreams of unfortunate love, of
bankruptcy, and of heavy times.

“ Hallo! how the nightcap burns!” he cried, and tore it from
his head,

And a pearl rolled out, and another, and another, and they
sounded and glittered.

“This must be gout,” said the burgomaster. “ Something
dazzles my eyes!”

They were tears, shed half a century before by old Anthony
from Eisenach.

Every one who afterwards put that nightcap upon his head
had visions and dreams which excited him not a little. His own
history was changed into that of Anthony, and became a story;
in fact, many stories. But some one else may tell them. We
have told the first. And our last word is—don’t wish for “the
Old Bachelor’s Nightcap.”

A ROSE FROM THE GRAVE OF HOMER.

LL the songs of the East tell of the love of the nightingale
to the rose; in the silent starlit nights the winged
; songster serenades his fragrant flower.

Not far from Smyrna, under the lofty plantains, where the
merchant drives his loaded camels, that proudly lift their long
necks and tramp over the holy ground, I saw a hedge of roses.
Wild pigeons flew among the branches of the high trees, and
their wings glistened, while a sunbeam glided over them, as if
they were of mother-o’-pearl.

The rose hedge bore a flower which was the most beautiful
arnong all, and the nightingale sang to her of his woes; but the
Rose was silent—not a dew-drop lay, like a tear of sympathy,
upon her leaves: she bent down over a few great stones.

“Here rests the greatest singer of the world!” said the Rose:
“over his tomb will I pour out my fragrance, and on it I will let
fall my leaves when the storm tears them off. He who sang of
Troy became earth, and from that earth I have sprung. I,a
rose from the grave of Homer, am too loftv to hlaom for a poor
nightingale '”