Sleep came at length, but with a train
Of feelings true and fancies vain,
Mingling, in wild disorder cast,
The expected future with the past.
Conscience, anticipating time,
Already rues the unacted crime,
And calls her furies forth, to shake
The sounding scourge and hissing snake;
While her poor victim's outward throes
Bear witness to his mental woes,

And show what lesson may be read
Beside a sinner's restless bed.

Thus Oswald's labouring feelings trace
Strange changes in his sleeping face,

Rapid and ominous as these

With which the moon-beams tinge the Tees,
There might be seen of shame the blush,
There anger's dark and fiercer flush,
While the perturbed sleeper's hand
Seemed grasping dagger-knife, or brand.
Relaxed that grasp, the heavy sigh,
The tear in the half-opening eye,
The pallid cheek and brow, confessed
That grief was busy in his breast;
Nor paused that mood-a sudden start
Impelled the life-blood from the heart;
Features convulsed, and mutterings dread,
Show terror reigns in sorrow's stead.
That pang the painful slumber broke,
And Oswald, with a start, awoke.

IV.

He woke, and feared again to close
His eye-lids in such dire repose;
He woke, to watch the lamp, and tell
From hour to hour the castle-bell,
Or listen to the owlet's cry,
Or the sad breeze that whistles by,
Or catch, by fits, the tuneless rhyme
With which the warder cheats the time,
And envying think, how, when the sun
Bids the poor soldier's watch be done,
Couched on his straw, and fancy-free,
He sleeps like careless infancy.

V.

Far townward sounds a distant tread,
And Oswald, starting from his bed,
Hath caught it, though no human car,
Unsharpened by revenge and fear,
Could e'er distinguish horse's clank,
Until it reached the castle-bank.

Now nigh and plain the sound appears,
The warder's challenge now he hears,
Then clanking chains and levers tell,
That o'er the moat the drawbridge fell,
And, in the castle-court below,
Voices are heard, and torches glow,
As marshalling the stranger's way,
Straight for the room where Oswald lay;
The cry was,-"Tidings from the host,
Of weight a messenger comes post."-
Stifling the tumult of his breast,
His answer Oswald thus expressed-
"Bring food and wine, and trim the fire;
Admit the stranger, and retire."-

VI.

The stranger came with heavy stride,
The morion's plumes his visage hide,
And the buff-coat, in ample fold,
Mantles his form's gigantic mould.
Full slender answer deigned he
To Oswald's anxious courtesy,
But marked, by a disdainful smile,
He saw and scorned the petty wile,
When Oswald changed the torch's place,
Anxious that on the soldier's face
Its partial lustre might be thrown,
To show his looks, yet hide his own.
His guest, the while, laid low aside
The ponderous cloak of tough bull's hide,
And to the torch glanced broad and clear
The corslet of a cuirassier;

Then from his brows the casque he drew,
And from the dank plume dashed the dew,
From gloves of mail relieved his hands,
And spread them to the kindling brands,
And, turning to the genial board,
Without a health, or pledge, or word
Of meet and social reverence said,
Deeply he drank, and fiercely fed;
As free from ceremony's sway:
As famished wolf that tears his prey.

VII.

With deep impatience, tinged with fear,
His host beheld him gorge his cheer,
And quaff the full carouse, that lent
His brow a fiercer hardiment.
Now Oswald stood a space aside,
Now paced the room with hasty stride,
In feverish agony to learn

Tidings of deep and dread concern,
Cursing each moment that his guest
Protracted o'er his ruffian feast.

Yet, viewing with alarm, at last,
The end of that uncouth repast,
Almost he seemed their haste to rue,
As, at his sign, his train withdrew,
And left him with the stranger, free
To question of his mystery.
Then did his silence long proclaim
A struggle between fear and shame.

VIII.

Much in the stranger's mien appears,
To justify suspicious fears.

On his dark face a scorching clime,
And toil, had done the work of time,
Roughened the brow, the temples bared,
And sable hairs with silver shared,
Yet left-what age alone could tame-
The lip of pride, the eye of flame,
The full-drawn lip that upward curled,
The eye, that seemed to scorn the world.
That lip had terror never blenched;
Ne'er in that eye had tear-drop quenched
The flash severe of swarthy glow,

That mocked at pain, and knew not woe;
Inured to danger's direst form,

Tornade and earthquake, flood and storm,
Death had he seen by sudden blow,
By wasting plague, by tortures slow,
By mine or breach, by steel or ball,
Knew all his shapes, and scorned them all.

IX.

But yet, though BERTRAM's hardened look,
Unmoved, could blood and danger brook,
Still worse than apathy had place
On his swart brow and callous face;
For evil passions, cherished long,

Had ploughed them with impressions strong.
All that gives gloss to sin, all gay
Light folly, past with youth away,
But rooted stood, in manhood's hour,
The weeds of vice without their flower.
And yet the soil in which they grew,
Had it been tamed when life was new,
Had depth and vigour to bring forth
The hardier fruits of virtuous worth.
Not that, e'en then, his heart had known
The gentler feelings' kindly tone;
But lavish waste had been refined
To bounty in his chastened mind,
And lust of gold, that waste to feed,
Been lost in love of glory's meed,
And, frantic then no more, his pride
Had ta'en fair virtue for its guide.

X.

Even now, by conscience unrestrained,
Clogged by gross vice, by slaughter stained,
Still knew his daring soul to soar,
And mastery o'er the mind he bore;
For meaner guilt, or heart less hard,
Quailed beneath Bertram's bold regard.
And this felt Oswald, while in vain
He strove, by many a winding train,
To lure his sullen guest to show,
Unasked, the news he longed to know,
While on far other subject hung
His heart, than faltered from his tongue.
Yet nought for that his guest did deign
To note or spare his secret pain,
But still, in stern and stubborn sort,
Returned him answer dark and short,
Or started from the theme, to range
In loose digression wild and strange,
And forced the embarrassed host to buy,
By query close, direct reply.

XI.

A while he glozed upon the cause
Of Commons, Covenant, and Laws,

And Church Reformed-but felt rebuke
Beneath grim Bertram's sneering look.

Then stammered-"Has a field been fought?
Has Bertram news of battle brought?
For sure a soldier, famed so far
In foreign fields for feats of war,
On eve of fight ne'er left the host,
Until the field were won and lost.'
"Here, in your towers by circling Tees,
You, Oswald Wycliffe, rest at ease;
Why deem it strange that others come
To share such safe and easy home,

From fields where danger, death, and toil,
Are the reward of civil broil?"-

-"Nay, mock not, friend! since well we know The near advances of the foe,

To mar our northern army's work,
Encamped before beleaguered York;

Thy horse with valiant Fairfax lay,

And must have fought-how went the day?"—

XII.

"Would'st hear the tale ?-On Marston heath
Met, front to front, the ranks of death;
Flourished the trumpets fierce, and now
Fired was each eye, and flushed each brow;
On either side loud clamours ring,

God and the Cause !-God and the King!'

Right English all, they rushed to blows,
With nought to win, and all to lose.

I could have laughed-but lacked the time-
To see, in phrenesy sublime,

How the fierce zealots fought and bled,
For king or state, as humour led;
Some for a dream of public good,
Some for church-tippet, gown, and hood,
Draining their veins, in death to claim
A patriot's or a martyr's name.-
Led Bertram Risingham the hearts,
That countered there on adverse parts,
No superstitious fool had I

Sought El Doradoes in the sky!
Chili had heard me through her states,
And Lima oped her silver gates,
Rich Mexico I had marched through,
And sacked the splendours of Peru,
Till sunk Pizarro's daring name,
And, Cortez, thine, in Bertram's fame."-
-"Still from the purpose wilt thou stray !
Good gentle friend, how went the day?"-

XIII.

"Good am I deemed at trumpet-sound,
And good where goblets dance the round,
Though gentle ne'er was joined, till now,
With rugged Bertram's breast and brow.-
But I resume. The battle's rage

Was like the strife which currents wage,
Where Orinoco, in his pride,
Rolls to the main no tribute tide,
But 'gainst broad ocean urges far
A rival sea of roaring war;

While, in ten thousand eddies driven,
The billows fling their foam to heaven,
'And the pale pilot seeks in vain,
Where rolls the river, where the main.
Even thus, upon the bloody field,
The eddying tides of conflict wheeled
Ambiguous, till that heart of flame,
Hot Rupert, on our squadrons came,
Hurling against our spears a line
Of gallants, fiery as their wine;
Then ours, though stubborn in their zeal,
In zeal's despite began to reel.

What wouldst thou more in tumult tost,

Our leaders fell, our ranks were lost.

A thousand men, who drew the sword
For both the Houses and the Word,

Preached forth from hamlet, grange, and down,
To curb the crosier and the crown,

Now, stark and stiff, lie stretched in gore,
And ne'er shall rail at mitre more.-