In numbers high, the witching tale The prophet pour'd along; No after bard might e'er avail1 Those numbers to prolong. Yet fragments of the lofty strain He sung King Arthur's Table Round: The Warrior of the Lake; How courteous Gawaine met the wound,3 And bled for ladies' sake. But chief, in gentle Tristrem's praise, Was none excell'd in Arthur's days, The knight of Lionelle.* For Marke, his cowardly uncle's right, When fierce Morholde he slew in fight, 1 See Introduction to this ballad. 2 [This stanza was quoted by the Edinburgh Reviewer, of 1804, as a noble contrast to the ordinary humility of the genuine ballad diction.-ED.] 8 See, in the Fabliaux of Monsieur le Grand, elegantly translated by the late Gregory Way, Esq., the tale of the Knight and the Sword. [Vol. ii. p. 3.] 4 [See Sir Tristrem.] No art the poison might withstand; No medicine could be found, Till lovely Isolde's lily hand Had probed the rankling wound. With gentle hand and soothing tongue She bore the leech's part; And, while she o'er his sick-bed hung, O fatal was the gift, I ween! The maid must be rude Cornwall's queen, Their loves, their woes, the gifted bard, In fairy tissue wove; Where lords, and knights, and ladies bright, In gay confusion strove. The Garde Joyeuse, amid the tale, High rear'd its glittering head; And Avalon's enchanted vale In all its wonders spread. Brangwain was there, and Segramore, Through many a maze the winning song Till bent at length the listening throng His ancient wounds their scars expand, And where her soothing tongue? She comes! she comes !-like flash of flame She comes! she comes!-she only came She saw him die; her latest sigh Join'd in a kiss his parting breath; The gentlest pair, that Britain bare, There paus'd the harp: its lingering sound Died slowly on the ear; The silent guests still bent around, For still they seem'd to hear. Then woe broke forth in murmurs weak: But, half ashamed, the rugged cheek On Leader's stream, and Learmont's tower, The mists of evening close; In camp, in castle, or in bower, Each warrior sought repose. Lord Douglas, in his lofty tent, Dream'd o'er the woeful tale; When footsteps light, across the bent, The warrior's ear assail. He starts, he wakes;-"What, Richard, ho! What venturous wight, at dead of night, Then forth they rush'd: by Leader's tide, Beneath the moon, with gesture proud, 1 Selcouth-Wondrous. In a 2 An ancient seat upon the Tweed, in Selkirkshire. popular edition of the first part of Thomas the Rhymer, the Fairy Queen thus addresses him: "Gin ye wad meet wi' me again, Gang to the bonny banks of Fairnalie." [Fairnilee is now one of the seats of Mr. Pringle of Clifton, M. P. for Selkirkshire. 1833.] Nor scare they at the gathering crowd, Who marvel as they go. To Learmont's tower a message sped, First he woxe pale, and then woxe red; Never a word he spake but three ;— "My sand is run; my thread is spun ; This sign regardeth me." The elfin harp his neck around, Then forth he went; yet turn'd him oft To view his ancient hall: The autumn moonbeams fall; And Leader's waves, like silver sheen, 66 Farewell, my father's ancient tower! A long farewell," said he : |