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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, cloister'd round, the garden lay;
The pillar'd arches were over their head,
And beneath their feet were the bones of the

dead.

VIII.

PREADING herbs, and flowerets bright,
Glisten'd with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor floweret, glisten'd 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.

Y a steel-clenched postern door,
They enter'd now the chancel tall;

The darken'd roof rose high aloof

On pillars lofty and light and small : The key-stone, that lock'd each ribbed aisle, Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille ; The corbells were carved grotesque and grim ;

And the pillars, with cluster'd shafts so trim, With base and with capital flourish'd around, Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

X.

ULL many a scutcheon and banner riven, Shook to the cold night-wind 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.

HE moon on the east oriel shone

Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand

'Twixt poplars straight the ozier 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,

Show'd many a prophet, and many a
saint,

Whose image on the glass was dyed ; Full in the midst, his Cross of Red Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride. The moon-beam kiss'd the holy pane,

And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

XII.

HEY 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.

N these far climes, it was my lot

To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;t 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.t

But to speak them were a deadly sin;

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And for having but thought them my heart

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within,

A treble penance must be done.

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XIV.

HEN 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.

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,

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