CHAP. XXXI.

O, fear not, fear not, good Lord John,

That I would you betray,

Or sue requital for a debt,
Which nature cannot pay.

Bear witness, all ye sacred powers,-
Ye lights that 'gin to shine-
This night shall prove the sacred tie
That binds your faith and mine.

Ancient Scottish Ballal

FROM THE TALISMAN.

(1.)

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
A fountain in the desert field,

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

Before another throne,

Whate'er of specious form be there,
The secret meaning of the prayer
Is, Ahriman, thine own.

Say, hast thou feeling, sense, and forın, Thunder thy voice, thy garments storm, As Eastern Magi say ;

With sentient soul of hate and wrath, And wings to sweep thy deadly path, And fangs to tear thy prey?

Or art thou mix'd 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

To tools of death and war.

Thus, from the moment of our birth,
Long as we linger on the earth,

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?

Chap. iii.

(2.)

"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,
Highest head and fairest feather.

Ask not Austria why, 'midst princes,
Still her banner rises highest;
Ask as well the strong-wing'd eagle
Why to heaven he soars the nighest.

Chap. xi

(3.) THE BLOODY VEST.

"The song of Blondel was, of course, in the Norman language; but the verses which follow express its meaning and its manner.”

'TWAS near the fair city of Benevent,

When the sun was setting on bough and bent,
And knights were preparing in bower and tent,
On the eve of the Baptist's tournament;
When in Lincoln green a stripling gent,
Well seeming a page by a princess sent,
Wander'd the camp, and, still as he went,
Inquired for the Englishman, Thomas à Kent.

Far hath he fared, and farther must fare,
Till he finds his pavilion nor stately nor rare,—
Little save iron and steel was there:
And, as lacking the coin to pay armourer's care,
With his sinewy arms to the shoulders bare,
The good knight with hammer and file did repair
The mail that to-morrow must see him wear,
For the honour of Saint John and his lady fair,

"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 beHe that would climb so lofty a tree,