There, where I sang thee, fair babe, to sleep, Nought but the blood-stain our race shall keep!"
And now the horn's loud blast was heard,
And now the cymbal's clang,
Till even the upper air was stirred,
As cliffs and hollows rang.
"Hark! they bring music, my joyous child!
What saith the trumpet to Suli's wild?
Doth it light thine eye with so quick a fire,
As if at a glimpse of thine armèd sire?
--Still-be thou still !-there are brave men low-
Thou wouldst not smile couldst thou see him now!"
But nearer came the clash of steel,
And louder swelled the horn;
And farther yet the tambour's peal,
Through the dark pass was borne.
"Hear'st thou the sounds of their savage mirth?
Boy, thou wert free when I gave thee birth!
Free, and how cherished! my warrior's son,
He, too, hath bless'd thee, as I have done;
Ay, and unchained must his loved ones be-
Freedom, young Suliote, for me and thee!"
And from the arrowy peak she sprung,
And fast the fair child bore;
A veil upon the wind was flung-
A cry-and all was o'er!
KING HENRY sat upon his throne,
And, full of wrath and scorn,
His eye a recreant knight surveyed--
Sir Bernardine du Born.
And he that haughty glance returned,
Like lion in his lair,
And loftily his unchanged brow
Gleamed through his crispèd hair.
"Thou art a traitor to the realm!
Lord of a lawless band!
The bold in speech, the fierce in broil,
The troubler of our land!
Thy castles and thy rebel towers
Are forfeit to the crown;
And thou beneath the Norman axe
Shalt end thy base renown!
Deign'st thou no word to bar thy doom,
Thou with strange madness fired?
Hath reason quite forsook thy breast?"
Plantagenet inquired.
Sir Bernard turned him towards the king,
And blenched not in his pride:
"My reason failed, most gracious liege,
The year Prince Henry died."
Quick, at that name, a cloud of woe
Passed o'er the monarch's brow;
Touched was that bleeding chord of love
To which the mightiest bow;
And backward swept the tide of years:
Again his first-born moved,-
The fair, the graceful, the sublime,
The erring, yet beloved:
And ever, cherished by his side,
One chosen friend was near,
To share in boyhood's ardent sport,
Or youth's untamed career;
With him the merry chase he sought,
Beneath the dewy morn,
With him in knightly tourney rode
This Bernardine du Born.
Then in the mourning father's soul
Each trace of ire grew dim,
And what his buried idol loved
Seemed cleansed of guilt to him;
And faintly through his tears he spoke :---
"God send his grace to thee!
And, for the dear sake of the dead,
Go forth unscathed and free."
BALLAD OF ROSABELLE.
Он, listen, listen, ladies gay!
No haughty feat of arms I tell;
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.
Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle ladye, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheugh,
Nor tempt the stormy Firth to-day.
The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh
Last night the gifted seer did view
A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay;
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheugh:
Why cross the gloomy Firth to-day?".
"Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball;
But that my ladye-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle hall.
"Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well;
But that my sire the wine will chide,
If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle."-
O'er Roslin all that dreary night
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'Twas broader than the watch-fire light, And redder than the bright moonbeam
It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak, And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
Seemed all on fire that chapel proud,
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie;
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.
Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
And glimmered all the dead men's mail.
Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-
So still they blaze when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high St. Clair.
There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold-
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle !
And each St. Clair was buried there,
With candle, with book, and with knell; But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung, The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.
'Tis pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear
Of tempests, and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe,
Then listen to the perilous tale again,
And, with an eager and suspended soul,
Woo terror to delight us. But to hear
The roaring of the raging elements;
To know all human skill, all human strength,
Avail not; to look round and only see
The mountain wave incumbent with its weight
Of bursting waters o'er the reeling bark,—-
This is indeed a dread and awful thing!
And he who hath endured the horror once
Of such an hour, doth never hear the storm
Howl round his home, but he remembers it,
And thinks upon the suffering mariner.
THE VETERAN TAR.
A MARINER, whom fate compelled
To make his home ashore,
Lived in yon cottage on the mount,
With ivy mantled o'er;
Because he could not breathe beyond
The sound of ocean's roar.
He placed yon vane upon the roof,
To mark how stood the wind;
For breathless days and breezy days
Brought back old times to mind,
When rocked amid the shrouds, or on
The sunny deck reclined.
And in his spot of garden ground
All ocean plants were met-
Salt lavender, that lacks perfume,
With scented mignonette;
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