"Man of age, thou smitest sore!" No more the Elfin Page durst try Into the Wondrous Book to pry ; The clasps, though smear'd with Christian gore, Shut faster than they were before. He hid it underneath his cloak.- It was not given by man alive. XI. NWILLINGLY himself he address'd, To do his master's high behest : He lifted up the living corse, And, but that stronger spells were spread, He had laid him on her very bed. Was always done maliciously; He flung the warrior on the ground, And the blood well'd freshly from the wound, XII. S he repass'd the outer court, He spied the fair young child at sport : He was always for ill, and never for good XIII. E led the boy o'er bank and fell, Until they came to a woodland brook; The running stream dissolved the spell,† And his own elvish shape he took. Could he have had his pleasure vilde, He had crippled the joints of the noble child; Or, with his fingers long and lean, So he but scowl'd on the startled child, And darted through the forest wild; XIV. ULL sore amazed at the wondrous change, And frighten'd as a child might be At the wild yell and visage strange, And the dark words of gramarye, The child, amidst the forest bower, Stood rooted like a lily flower; And when at length, with trembling pace,' He sought to find where Branksome lay, He fear'd to see that grisly face Glare from some thicket on his way. Thus, starting oft, he journey'd on, And deeper in the wood is gone,— XV. ND hark! and hark! the deep-mouth'd bark Comes nigher still, and nigher : Bursts on the path a dark blood-hound, Soon as the wilder'd child saw he, I ween you would have seen with joy When, worthy of his noble sire, His wet cheek glow'd 'twixt fear and ire! And held his little bat on high; So fierce he struck, the dog, afraid, When dash'd an archer through the glade, And when he saw the hound was stay'd, He drew his tough bow-string; But a rough voice cried, "Shoot not, hoy. Ho! shoot not, Edward-'Tis a boy!"— XVI. HE speaker issued from the wood, And quell'd the ban-dog's ire: Well could he hit a fallow-deer Five hundred feet him fro; With hand more true, and eye more clear, His coal-black hair, shorn round and close, His bugle-horn hung by his side, And his short falchion, sharp and clear, |