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Yet fragments of the lofty strain
Float down the tide of years,
As, buoyant on the stormy main,
A parted wreck appears.

He sung King Arthur's table round:
The warrior of the lake;

How courteous Gawaine met the wound,
And bled for ladies' sake.

But chief, in gentle Tristrem's praise,
The notes melodious swell;
Was none excelled in Arthur's days
The knight of Lionelle.

For Marke his cowardly uncle's right
A venomed wound he bore;
When fierce Morholde he slew in fight,
Upon the Irish shore.

No art the poison might withstand;
No medicine could be found,
Till lovely Isolde's lilye 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,
He paid her with his heart.

O fatal was the gift, I ween!
For, doomed in evil tide,

The maid must be rude Cornwall's queen,
His cowardly uncle's bride.

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 reared its glittering head;
And Avalon's enchanted vale

In all its wonders spread.

Brangwain was there, and Segramore,
And fiend-born Merlin's gramarye;
Of that famed wizard's mighty lore,
O who could sing but he?

Through many a maze the winning song
In changeful passion led,

Till bent at length the listening throng
O'er Tristrem's dying bed.

His ancient wounds their scars expand,
With agony his heart is wrung;

O where is Isolde's lilye hand,
And where her soothing tongue?

She comes, she comes !-like flash of flame
Can lovers' footsteps fly:

She comes, she comes !—she only came
To see her Tristrem die.

She saw him die : her latest sigh
Joined in a kiss his parting breath:
The gentlest pair that Britain bare
United are in death.

There paused the harp; its lingering sound
Died slowly on the ear;

The silent guests still bent around,

For still they seemed to hear.

Then woe broke forth in murmurs weak
Nor ladies heaved alone the sigh;
But, half ashamed, the rugged cheek
Did many a gauntlet dry.

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,
Dreamed o'er the woeful tale;

When footsteps light, across the bent,
The warrior's ears assail.

He starts, he wakes :-"What, Richard, ho!
Arise, my page, arise!

What venturous wight, at dead of night,

Dare step where Douglas lies?"

Then forth they rushed: by Leader's tide,
A selcouth sight they see-

A hart and hind pace side by side,

As white as snow on Fairnalie.

Beneath the moon, with gesture proud,
They stately move and slow;

Nor scare they at the gathering crowd,
Who marvel as they go.

To Learmont's tower a message sped,
As fast as page might run;

And Thomas started from his bed,
And soon his clothes did on.

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,
In minstrel guise, he hung;

And on the wind, in doleful sound,
Its dying accents ru

Then forth he went; yet turned him oft
To view his ancient hall;

On the gray tower, in lustre soft,

The autumn moonbeams fall.

And Leader's waves, like silver sheen,
Danced shimmering in the ray :
In deepening mass, at distance seen,
Broad Soltra's mountains lay.

"Farewell, my father's ancient tower!
A long farewell," said he :

"The scene of pleasure, pomp, or power,
Thou never more shalt be.

"To Learmont's name no foot of earth
Shall here again belong,
And on thy hospitable hearth

The hare shall leave her young.

"Adieu! Adieu !" again he cried,
All as he turned him roun'-
"Farewell to Leader's silver tide!
Farewell to Ercildoune !"

The hart and hind approached the place,
As lingering yet he stood;

And there, before Lord Douglas' face,
With them he crossed the flood.

Lord Douglas leaped on his berry-brown steed,
And spurred him the Leader o'er;

But, though he rode with lightning speed,
He never saw them more.

Some said to hill, and some to glen,

Their wondrous course had been;

But ne'er in haunts of living men
Again was Thomas seen.

WAR SONG

OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS.

THE following War-song was written during the apprehension of an invasion. The corps of volunteers, to which it was addressed, was raised in 1797, consisting of gentlemen, mounted and armed at their own expense. It still subsists, as the Right Troop of the Royal Mid-Lothian Light Cavalry, commanded by the Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Dundas. The noble and constitutional measure of arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was nowhere more successful than in Edinburgh, which furnished a force of 3,000 armed and disciplined volunteers, including a regiment of cavalry, from the city and county, and two corps of artillery, each capable of serving twelve guns. To such a force, above all others, might, in similar circumstances, be applied the exhortation of our ancient Galgacus: "Proinde ituri in aciem, et majores vestros et posteros cogitate."

To horse! to horse! the standard flies,

The bugles sound the call;

The Gallic navy stems the scas,

The voice of battle's on the breeze,-
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,
A band of brothers true ;

Our casques the leopard's spoils surround,
With Scotland's hardy thistle crowned;
We boast the red and blue.

Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown
Dull Holland's tardy train;

Their ravished toys though Romans mourn,
Though gallant Switzers vainly spurn,
And, foaming, gnaw the chain;

O had they marked the avenging call
Their brethren's murder gave,
Disunion ne'er their ranks had mown,
Nor patriot valour, desperate grown,
Sought freedom in the grave!

Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head.
In Freedom's temple born,
Dress our pale cheek in timid smile,
To hail a master in our isle,

Or brook a victor's scorn?

No! though destruction o'er the land
Come pouring as a flood,

The sun, that sees our falling day,
Shall mark our sabres' deadly sway,
And set that night in blood.

For gold let Gallia's legions fight,
Or plunder's bloody gain;
Unbribed, unbought, our swords we draw,
To guard our King, to fence our Law,
Nor shall their edge be vain.

If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tricolor,

Or footstep of invader rude,

With rapine foul, and red with blood,

Pollute our happy shore,

Then farewell home! and farewell friends! Adieu each tender tie!

Resolved, we mingle in the tide,

Where charging squadrons furious ride,

To conquer, or to die.

To horse! to horse! the sabres gleam;
High sounds our bugle call;
Combined by honour's sacred tie;
Our word is Laws and Liberty!

March forward, one and all!

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

In the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Helvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier-bitch, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather,
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long nights didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, O! was it meet, that,-
-no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him,-
Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart?
When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming;

Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a Chief of the People should foll.

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