He endured me because I was Ermengarde's

child,

And often from dawn till the set of the sun,

In the chase, by his stirrup, unbidden I run;

I would I were older, and knighthood could bear, I would soon quit the banks of the Tyne and the

Wear:

For my mother's command, with her last parting breath,

Bade me follow her nursling in life and to death.

XV.

"It pours and it thunders, it lightens amain, As if Lok, the Destroyer, had burst from his chain; Accursed by the church, and expell'd by his sire, Nor Christian nor Dane give him shelter or fire, And this tempest what mortal may houseless endure?

Unaided, unmantled, he dies on the moor! Whate'er comes of Gunnar, he tarries not here." He leapt from his couch and he grasp'd to his

spear;

Sought the hall of the feast. Undisturb'd by his tread,

The wassailers slept fast as the sleep of the dead: 'Ungrateful and bestial!" his anger broke forth,

"To forget 'mid your goblets the pride of the North!

And you, ye cowl'd priests, who have plenty in store,

Must give Gunnar for ransom a palfrey and ore.'

XVI.

Then heeding full little of ban or of curse, He has seized on the Prior of Jorvaux's purse: Saint Meneholt's Abbot next morning has miss'd His mantle, deep furr'd from the cape to the wrist: The Seneschal's keys from his belt he has ta'en, (Well drench'd on that eve was old Hildebrand's brain.)

To the stable-yard he made his way,

And mounted the Bishop's palfrey gay,

Castle and hamlet behind him has cast,

And right on his way to the moorland has pass'd.
Sore snorted the palfrey, unused to face
A weather so wild at so rash a pace;

So long he snorted, so loud he neigh'd,

There answer'd a steed that was bound beside, And the red flash of lightning show'd there where

lay

His master, Lord Harold, outstretch'd on the clay.

XVII.

Up he started, and thunder'd out, "Stand!
And raised the club in his deadly hand.
The flaxen-hair'd Gunnar his purpose told,
Show'd the palfrey and proffer'd the gold.
“Back, back, and home, thou simple boy'
Thou canst not share my grief or joy :
Have I not mark'd thee wail and cry
When thou hast seen a sparrow die?
And canst thou, as my follower should,

Wade ankle-deep through foeman's blood,
Dare mortal and immortal foe,

The gods above, the fiends below,

And man on earth, more hateful still,
The very fountain-head of ill?

Desperate of life, and careless of death,

Lover of bloodshed, and slaughter, and scathe,
Such must thou be with me to roam,

And such thou canst not be-back, and home!

XVIII.

Young Gunnar shook like an aspen bough,
As he heard the harsh voice and beheld the dark

brow,

And half he repented his purpose and vow.
But now to draw back were bootless shame,
And he loved his master, so urged his claim:
"Alas! if my arm and my courage be weak,
Bear with me awhile for old Ermengarde's sake;
Nor deem so lightly of Gunnar's faith,

As to fear he would break it for peril of death.

Have I not risk'd it to fetch thee this gold,

This surcoat and mantle to fence thee from cold?

And, did I bear a baser mind,

What lot remains if I stay behind?

The priests' revenge, thy father's wrath,

A dungeon, and a shameful death"

XIX.

With gentler look Lord Harold eyed
The Page, then turn'd his head aside;

And either a tear did his eyelash stain, Or it caught a drop of the passing rain. "Art thou an outcast, then?" quoth he; "The meeter page to follow me."

"Twere bootless to tell what climes they sought, Ventures achieved, and battles fought;

How oft with few, how oft alone,

Fierce Harold's arm the field hath won.
Men swore his eye, that flash'd so red

When each other glance was quench'd with dread,
Bore oft a light of deadly flame,

That ne'er from mortal courage came.

Those limbs so strong, that mood so stern,

That loved the couch of heath and fern,'
Afar from hamlet, tower, and town,

More than to rest on driven down;

That stubborn frame, that sullen mood,

Men deem'd must come of aught but good;

And they whisper'd, the great Master Fiend was

at one

With Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son.

XX.

Years after years had gone and fled,

The good old Prelate lies lapp'd in lead;
In the chapel still is shown

His sculptured form on a marble stone,
With staff and ring and scapulaire,
And folded hands in the act of prayer.
Saint Cuthbert's mitre is resting now

On the haughty Saxon, bold Aldingar's brow;

The power of his crozier he loved to extend O'er whatever would break, or whatever would

bend;

And now hath he clothed him in cope and in pall, And the Chapter of Durham has met at his call. "And hear ye not, brethren," the proud Bishop said, "That our vassal, the Danish Count Witikind's dead?

All his gold and his goods hath he given

To holy church for the love of heaven,

And hath founded a chantry with stipend and dole,

That priests and that beadsmen may pray for his soul:

Harold his son is wandering abroad,

Dreaded by man and abhorr'd by God;

Meet it is not, that such should heir

The lands of the church on the Tyne and the

Wear,

And at her pleasure, her hallow'd hands
May now resume these wealthy lands."

XXI.

Answer'd good Eustace,1 a canon old,—
"Harold is tameless, and furious, and bold;

1 ["It may be worthy of notice, that in Harold the Dauntless there is a wise and good Eustace, as in the Monastery, and a Prior of Jorvaux, who is robbed (ante, stanza xvi.) as in Ivanhoe."-ADOLPHUS's Letters on the Author of Waverley, 1822, p. 281.]