IV 'WIDOWED WIFE AND WEDDED MAID' From the last Chapter WIDOWED Wife and wedded maid, Betrothed, betrayer, and betrayed,, All is done that has been said; Vanda's wrong has been y-wroken: Take her pardon by this token. VERSES FROM THE TALISMAN Published in 1825 I 'DARK AHRIMAN, WHOM IRAK STILL' From Chapter III DARK Ahriman, whom Irak still Holds origin of woe and ill! When, bending at thy shrine, We view the world with troubled eye, Where see we, 'neath the extended sky, An empire matching thine! If the Benigner Power can yield Where weary pilgrims drink; Thine are the waves that lash the rock, Thine the tornado's deadly shock, Where countless navies sink! Or if He bid the soil dispense Balsams to cheer the sinking sense, How few can they deliver From lingering pains, or pang intense, Red Fever, spotted Pestilence, The arrows of thy quiver! Chief in Man's bosom sits thy sway, And frequent, while in words we pray Whate'er of specious form be there, Say, hast thou feeling, sense, and form, Thunder thy voice, thy garments storm, As Eastern Magi say; With sentient soul of hate and wrath, And wings to sweep thy deadly path, Or art thou mixed in Nature's source, An ever-operating force, Converting good to ill; An evil principle innate, Contending with our better fate, And oh! victorious still? Howe'er it be, dispute is vain. On all without thou hold'st thy reign, Nor less on all within; Each mortal passion's fierce career, Love, hate, ambition, joy, and fear, Thou goadest into sin. Whene'er a sunny gleam appears, To brighten up our vale of tears, Thou art not distant far; 'Mid such brief solace of our lives, Thou whett'st our very banquet-knives Thus, from the moment of our birth, Thou rul'st the fate of men; Thine are the pangs of life's last hour,` And who dare answer? - is thy power, Dark Spirit! ended THEN? II 'WHAT BRAVE CHIEF SHALL HEAD THE FORCES' From Chapter XI. 'A hearing was at length procured for the poet preferred who sung, in high German, stanzas which may be thus translated': WHAT brave chief shall head the forces, Where the red-cross legions gather? Best of horsemen, best of horses, Ask not Austria why, 'midst princes, Ask as well the strong-wing'd eagle Why to heaven he soars the nighest. III THE BLOODY VEST From Chapter XXVI. "The song of Blondel was, of course, in the Norman language; but the verses which follow express its meaning and its manner.' 'T WAS near the fair city of Benevent, When the sun was setting on bough and bent, Far hath he fared, and farther must fare, And, as lacking the coin to pay armourer's care, 'Thus speaks my lady,' the page said he, And the knight bent lowly both head and knee: 'She is Benevent's Princess so high in degree, And thou art as lowly as knight may well be |