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"Came I not forth upon thy pledge, My father's hand to kiss?—

Be still, and gaze thou on,

false king!

And tell me, what is this?

The voice, the glance, the heart I sought-
Give answer, where are they?

If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul,
Send life through this cold clay!

"Into these glassy eyes put light-
Be still keep down thine ire,—
Bid these white lips a blessing speak,
This earth is not my sire!

Give me back him for whom I strove,
For whom my blood was shed,-
Thou canst not-and a king? His dust
Be mountains on thy head!"

He loosed the steed; his slack hand fell;
Upon the silent face

He cast one long deep troubled look-
Then turned from that sad place.
His hope was crushed, his after-fate
Untold in martial strain,—

His banner led the spears no more
Amidst the hills of Spain.

F. HEMANS.

LXXXV

CORONACH.

He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,

When our need was the sorest.
The fount reappearing

From the raindrops shall borrow,

But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary:
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing

Waft the leaves that are serest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber, Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber! Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river,

Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!

SIR W. SCOTT.

66

LXXXVI

THE BOY OF EGREMOND.

Say, what remains when Hope is fled?" She answered, "Endless weeping!” For in the herdsman's eye she read Who in his shroud lay sleeping.

At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Barden-fell ;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying ;
When near the cabin in the wood,

In tartan clad and forest green,
With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The Boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song, a song of yore ;
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,

His voice was heard no more!

'Twas but a step! the gulf he passed;
But that step-it was his last!

As through the mist he winged his way,
(A cloud that hovers night and day,)
The hound hung back, and back he drew
The master and his merlin too.

That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of life!

There now the matin-bell is rung;
The "Miserere!" duly sung;
And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood.
But what avail they? Ruthless lord,
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless and the innocent.
Sit now and answer groan for groan;
The child before thee is thy own;
And she who wildly wanders there,
The mother in her long despair,

Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,

Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping;

Of those who would not be consoled

When red with blood the river rolled!

ROGERS.

LXXXVII

THE WILD HUNTSMAN.

The Wildgrave winds his bugle horn,
To horse, to horse! halloo, halloo !

His fiery courser snuffs the morn,

And thronging serfs their lords pursue.

The eager pack, from couples freed,

Dash through the bush, the brier, the brake; While answering hound, and horn, and steed, The mountain echoes startling wake.

The beams of God's own hallowed day
Had painted yonder spire with gold,
And calling sinful man to pray,

Loud, long, and deep the bell had tolled.

But still the Wildgrave onward rides ;
Halloo, halloo ! and, hark again!
When spurring from opposing sides,
Two stranger horsemen join the train.

Who was each stranger, left and right,
Well may I guess, but dare not tell;
The right-hand steed was silver white,
The left, the swarthy hue of hell.

The right-hand horseman, young and fair, His smile was like the morn of May;

The left, from eye of tawny glare,

Shot midnight lightning's lurid ray.

He waved his huntsman's cap on high, Cried, "Welcome, welcome, noble lord! What sport can earth, or sea, or sky,

To match the princely chase afford?"

"Cease thy loud bugle's clanging knell,"

Cried the fair youth with silver voice; "And for devotion's choral swell,

Exchange this rude unhallowed noise."

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