And that to night I shall watch with thee,
To win the treasure of the tomb "
From sackcloth couch the monk arose,
With toil his stiffened limbs he reared;
A hundred years had flung their snows
On his thin locks and floating beard.

V.

And strangely on the knight looked he, And his blue eyes gleamed wild and wide; “And, darest thou, warrior! seek to see What heaven and hell alike would hide? My breast, in belt of iron pent,

With shirt of hair, and scourge of thorn; For threescore years, in penance spent, My knees those flinty stones have worn ; Yet all too little to atone

For knowing what should ne'er be known.
Wouldst thou thy every future year
In ceaseless prayer and penance drie,
Yet wait thy latter end with fear-
Then, daring warrior, follow me!"

VI.

"Penance, father, will I none;

Prayer know I hardly one;

For mass or prayer can I rarely tarry,

Save to patter an Ave Mary,

When I ride on a Border foray:

Other prayer can I none;

So speed me my errand, and let me be gone."

VII.

Again on the knight looked the churchman old,

And again he sighed heavily:

For he had himself been a warrior bold,
And fought in Spain and Italy,

And he thought on the days that were long since by,

When his limbs were strong, and his courage

was high:

Now, slow and faint, he led the way,
Where, cloistered round, the garden lay;
The pillared arches were over their head,
And beneath their feet were the bones of the

dead.

VIII.

Spreading herbs, and flow'rets bright,
Glistened with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor flow'ret, glistened there,
But was carved in the cloister arches as fair.
The monk gazed long on the lovely moon,
Then into the night he looked forth;
And red and bright the streamers light
Were dancing in the glowing north.
So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start; Sudden the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart,

He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright, That spirits were riding the northern light.

IX.

By a steel-clenched postern door,
They entered now the chancel tall;
The darkened roof rose high aloof

On pillars, lofty, and light, and small; The keystone, that locked each ribbed aisle, Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille ; The corbells were carved grotesque and grim;

And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim, With base and with capital flourished around, Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

X.

Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven,
Shook to the cold nightwind of heaven,
Around the screened altar's pale;
And there the dying lamps did burn,
Before thy low and lonely urn,
O gallant chief of Otterburne!

And thine, dark knight of Liddesdale !

O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!

XI.

The moon on the east oriel shone
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
By foliaged tracery combined;

* Corbells, the projections from which the arches spring, usually cut in a fantastic face or mask.

Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand "Twixt poplars straight the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined; Then framed a spell when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone. The silver light, so pale and faint, Showed many a prophet and many a saint Whose image on the grass was dyed; Full in the midst, his cross of red Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the apostate's pride. The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

XII.

They sate them down on a marble stone,
(A Scottish monarch slept below ;)
Thus spoke the monk, in solemn tone:-
"I was not always a man of woe;
For Paynim countries I have trod,
And fought beneath the cross of God:

Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear,
And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.

XIII.

"In these far climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame!

Some of his skill he taught to me';

And, warrior, I could say to thee

The words that cleft Eildon hills in three, And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:

But to speak them were a deadly sin;

And for having but thought them my heart within,

A treble penance must be done.

XIV.

"When Michael lay on his dying bed,
His conscience was awakened;

He bethought him of his sinful deed,
And he gave me a sign to come with speed
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.
The words may not again be said,

That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his grave.

XV.

"I swore to bury his mighty book,
That never mortal might therein look
And never to tell where it was hid,
Save at his chief of Branksome's need:
And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.

I buried him on St. Michael's night,

When the bell tolled one, and the moon was bright;