'And though my sun of glory set, Nor France nor England shall forget The terror of my name; And oft shall Britain's heroes rise, New planets in these southern skies, Through clouds of blood and flame.' Chap. II. FRAGMENT FROM ARIOSTO. LADIES, and knights, and arms, and love's fair flame, Deeds of emprise and courtesy, I sing; What time the Moors from sultry Africk came, Led on by Agramant, their youthful king Him whom revenge and hasty ire did bring O'er the broad wave, in France to waste and war; Such ills from old Trojano's death did spring, Which to avenge he came from realms afar, And menaced Christian Charles, the Roman Emperor. Of dauntless Roland, too, my strain shall sound, In import never known in prose or rhyme, How he, the chief of judgment deem'd profound, For luckless love was crazed upon a time Chap. XVI. MOTTOES. In the wide pile, by others heeded not, Hers was one sacred solitary spot, Look round thee, young Astolpho: Here's the place Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in, Rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease. Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench, Doth Hope's fair torch expire; and at the snuff, Ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild, and wayward, The desperate revelries of wild depair, Kindling their hell-born cressets, light to deeds That the poor captive would have died ere practised, Till bondage sunk his soul to his condition. Chap. XXII. The Prison, Act i. Sc. iii. FAR as the eye could reach no tree was seen, To the cataract's roar where the eagles reply, Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the lively And the lake her lone bosom expands to the sky. Chap. XXXVII. VII. here. Prophecy of Famine. Chap. XXVII. FROM THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. 'WOE to the vanquish'd!' was stern Brenno's word, MADGE WILDfire sings: WHEN the glede's in the blue cloud, When sunk proud Rome beneath the When the hound's in the greenwood Gallic sword Woe to the vanquish'd!' when his massive blade Bore down the scale against her ransom weigh'd, And on the field of foughten battle still, Who knows no limit save the victor's will. Chap. XXXI. The Gaulliad. The hind keeps the hill. O SLEEP ye sound, Sir James, she said, When ye suld rise and ride! There's twenty men, wi' bow and blade, Are seeking where ye hide. I GLANCE like the wildfire through country and town; I'm seen on the causeway-I'm seen on the down; The lightning that flashes so bright and so free, Is scarcely so blithe or so bonny as me. WHAT did ye wi' the bridal ring, bridal ring, bridal ring? What did ye wi' your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, O? I gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger, I gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o' mine, O. My banes are buried in yon kirk-yard CAULD is my bed, Lord Archibald, Sae far ayont the sea, And it is but my blithesome ghaist And sad my sleep of sorrow: But thine sall be as sad and cauld, My fause true-love! to-morrow. And weep ye not, my maidens free, Though death your mistress borrow; I'M Madge of the country, I'm Madge For he for whom I die to-day, of the town, And I'm Madge of the lad I am blithest to own The Lady of Beever in diamonds may shine, Shall die for me to-morrow. PROUD Maisie is in the wood, Singing so rarely. But has not a heart half so lightsome Sweet Robin sits on the bush, as mine. |