With desperate courage fired Ladurlad's mind, He, too, unto the fight himself addressed; And, grappling breast to breast,

With foot firm-planted stands,

And seized the monster's throat with both his hands. Vainly, with throttling grasp, he pressed

The impenetrable scales;

And, lo! the Guard rose up, and round his foe, With gliding motion, wreathed his lengthening coils, Then tightened all their folds with stress and strain. Nought would the raging Tiger's strength avail, If once involved within those mighty toils; The armed Rhinoceros, so clasped, in vain Had trusted to his hide of rugged mail, His bones all broken, and the breath of life Crushed from the lungs, in that unequal strife. Again, and yet again, he sought to break The impassive limbs; but, when the Monster found His utmost power was vain,

A moment he relaxed in every round, Then knit his coils again with closer strain, And, bearing forward, forced him to the ground.

16.

Ereenia groaned in anguish at the sight Of this dread fight: once more the Glendoveer Essayed to break his bonds; and fear For that brave father, who had sought him here, Stung him to wilder strugglings. From the rock He raised himself half up, with might and main

Plucked at the adamantine chain, And now, with long and unrelaxing strain, In obstinate effort of indignant strength, Labored and strove in vain ;

Till his immortal sinews failed at length; And yielding, with an inward groan, to fate, Despairingly, he let himself again Fall prostrate on his prison-bed of stone, Body and chain alike with lifeless weight.

17.

Struggling they lay in mortal fray
All day, while day was in our upper sphere;
For light of day

And natural darkness never entered here;
All night, with unabated might,
They waged the unremitting fight.
A second day, a second night,
With furious will they wrestled still.
The third came on, the fourth is gone;
Another comes, another goes;

And yet no respite, no repose!
But day and night, and night and day,
Involved in mortal strife they lay;
Six days and nights have passed away,
And still they wage, with mutual rage,
The unremitting fray.

With mutual rage their war they wage,
But not with mutual will;

For, when the seventh morning came,

The Monster's worn and wearied frame In this strange contest fails; And weaker, weaker, every hour, He yields beneath strong Nature's power; For now the Curse prevails.

18.

Sometimes the Beast sprung up to bear His foe aloft, and, trusting there

To shake him from his hold,

Relaxed the rings that wreathed him round:
But on his throat Ladurlad hung,
And weighed him to the ground;
And if they sink, or if they float,
Alike with stubborn clasp he clung,
Tenacious of his grasp:

For well he knew with what a power,
Exempt from Nature's laws,

The Curse had armed him for this hour:
And in the Monster's gasping jaws,
And in his hollow eye,

Well could Ladurlad now descry
The certain signs of victory.

19.

And now the Beast no more can keep His painful watch; his eyes, oppressed, Are fainting for their natural sleep; His living flesh and blood must rest; The Beast must sleep or die.

Then he, full faint and languidly,
Unwreathes his rings, and strives to fly;
And, still retreating, slowly trails
His stiff and heavy length of scales.
But that unweariable foe,
With will relentless, follows still;
No breathing-time, no pause of fight,
He gives, but presses on his flight:
Along the vaulted chambers, and the ascent
Up to the emerald-tinted light of day,
He harasses his way,

Till lifeless, underneath his grasp,
The huge Sea-Monster lay.

20.

"That obstinate work is done!" Ladurlad cried: "One labor yet remains!"

And thoughtfully he eyed

Ereenia's ponderous chains;

And with faint effort, half despairing, tried The rivets deep in-driven. Instinctively, As if in search of aid, he looked around: Oh, then how gladly, in the near alcove, Fallen on the ground its lifeless Lord beside, The crescent cimeter he spied,

Whose cloudy blade, with potent spells imbued, Had lain so many an age unhurt in solitude!

21.

Joyfully springing there,

He seized the weapon, and with eager stroke

Hewed at the chain: the force was dealt in vain; For not as if through yielding air

Passed the descending cimeter:

Its deadened way the heavy water broke; Yet it bit deep. Again, with both his hands, He wields the blade, and dealt a surer blow. The baser metal yields

To that fine edge; and, lo! the Glendoveer Rises, and snaps the half-severed links, and stands Freed from his broken bands.

XVII.

BALY.

1.

THIS is the appointed night,

The night of joy and consecrated mirth,
When from his judgment-seat in Padalon,
By Yamen's throne,

Baly goes forth, that he may walk the Earth
Unseen, and hear his name

Still hymned and honored by the grateful voice Of human-kind, and in his fame rejoice. Therefore, from door to door, and street to street, With willing feet,

Shaking their firebrands, the glad children run: "Baly! great Baly!" they acclaim;

66