Show THE TALISMAN BY XATBAX n CKXLR In a quaint old casket of cedar wood I have kept It thle assay a year A n Kluce old of beads of RoW V I isIierea j of the amber clear A Mil is IB aid from a Moslems slave Tu u brave old Christian knight Who bore her away oer the desert cray From the thick of a hopeless fight Ere she swooned to death by a drlednp well Which they pained as Uie night set in The beautiful slave this keepsake cave As charm opalnst wrath and sin And he rode away when her sad eyes closed Leaving the ands to heap With wave on wave bar nameless grave In the hhnooins corchlnK sweep a I hardy could tell how it came to me Through heritage long and prim I Or whether the charm ever kept from harm lie owner when hope grew dim lint often I know when my days wax dark And woeand distress seem near The casket I ope with a strange vague hope That Is partly akin to fear I count the bends like a rosary Fin a gold I then an amber bead And wish It were mine each mystic sign Oa the precious spheres to read Far all arc craven with ciphers strange from a longforgotten lore Which if brought to lit the old spell might Control stern fate as of yore Then ni sadly and slowly the talisman 1 o its scented case I return > I cannot but deem its charm a scheme Whose meaning n e all may learn For does not the heart In Its ininoit cell The truest amulet keep To guard us from ill if we only will Search hard for lu motives deep However I hoard with A jealous care This relic ot Conquest aim When Cre cent and Cross for gan or lee Were locked in a fight of fire And bauble or boon It can still recall The mfcblof the Cliriftlno bran And the nobler faith hAt by helpful dcstli Wa restored to the Moslem s slave |