Dread the race of Zaharak ! XXII. Uncouth and strange the accents shrill Rung those vaulted roofs among; Long it was ere, faint and still, Died the far-resounding song. While yet the distant echoes roll, The warrior communed with his soul. « When first I took this venturous quest, I swore upon the rood, . Neither to stop, nor turn, nor rest, For evil or for good. My forward path, too well I ween, Lies yonder fearful ranks between ; For man unarm'd, 't is bootless hope With tigers and with fiends to copeYet, if I turn, what waits me there, Save famine dire and fell despair?Other conclusion let me try, Since, chuse howe'er I list, I die. Forward, lies faith and knightly fame; Behind, are perjury and shame. In life or death I hold my word. »— With that he drew his trusty sword, Caught down a banner from the wall, And enter'd thus the fearful hall XXIII. On high each wayward maiden threw Pursued him on his venturous way. XXIV. « Hurra, hurra! Our watch is done! We hail once more the tropic sun. Pallid beams of northern day, Farewell, farewell! Hurra, hurra! « Five hundred years o'er this cold glen « Warrior! thou, whose dauntless heart Gives us from our ward to part, Be as strong in future trial, Where resistance is denial. Now for Afric's glowing sky, Zwenga wide and Atlas high, Zaharak and Dahomay! Mount the winds! Hurra, hurra!»— XXV. The wizard song at distance died As if in ether borne astray, While through waste halls and chambers wide Till to a lofty dome he came, XXVI. CHORUS. « See the treasures Merlin piled, FIRST MAIDEN. « See these clots of virgin gold! Sever'd from the sparry mould, Nature's mystic alchemy In the mine thus bade them lie; And their orient smile can win Kings to stoop, and saints to sin.»— SECOND MAIDEN. << See these pearls that long have slept; These were tears by Naiads wept For the loss of Marinel. THIRD MAIDEN. « Does a livelier hue delight? Here are rubies blazing bright, Here the emerald's fairy green, And the topaz glows between; Here their varied hues upite In the changeful chrysolite.» Calmly and unconcern'd the knight XXVIII. And now the morning sun was high, Some frolic water-run; And soon he reach'd a court-yard square, On right and left a fair arcade Low-brow'd and dark, seem'd as it led Here stopp'd de Vaux an instant's space, And mark'd with well-pleased eye, From contemplation high And oft in such a dreamy mood, As if the nymphs of field and flood Are these of such fantastic mould, Seen distant down the fair arcade, These maids enlink'd in sister-fold, Who, late at bashful distance staid, Now tripping from the green-wood shade, Nearer the musing champion draw, And, in a pause of seeming awe, Again stand doubtful now ? Ah, that sly pause of witching powers! Be yours to tell us how.» Their hue was of the golden glow That suns of Candahar bestow, O'er which in slight suffusion flows A frequent tinge of paly rose; Their limbs were fashion'd fair and free, In nature's justest symmetry, And wreath'd with flowers, with odours graced, In eastern pomp, its gilding pale « Gentle knight, awhile delay,» To our master and to you. Over Avarice, over Fear, Love triumphant led thee here; Are slaves to Love, are friends to thee. Stay, then, gentle warrior, stay, Rest till evening steal on day; Stay, O stay!-in yonder bowers We will braid thy locks with flowers, Spread the feast and fill the wine, Charm thy ear with sounds divine, Weave our dances till delight Yield to languor, day to night. Then shall she you most approve, Sing the lays that best you love, Soft thy mossy couch shall spread, Watch thy pillow, prop thy head, Till the weary night be o'erGentle warrior, wouldst thou more? Wouldst thou more, fair warrior,-she Is slave to Love and slave to thee.»> XXXII. O do not hold it for a crime In the bold hero of my rhyme, For stoic look, And meet rebuke, He lack'd the heart or time; Downward De Vaux through darksome ways And ruin'd vaults has gone, Till issue from their wilder'd maze, Or safe retreat, seem'd none; With Asia's willing maid. Seem'd thus to chide his lagging way. XXXIV. << Son of Honour, theme of story, «He that would her heights ascend, << Lag not now, though rough the way, XXXV. It ceased. Advancing on the sound, A steep ascent the wanderer found, And then a turret stair: Nor climb'd he far its steepy round Till fresher blew the air, And next a welcome glimpse was given, A lofty hall with trophies dress'd, XXXVI. Of Europe scem'd the damsels all; With crown, with sceptre, and with globe, Emblems of empery; The fourth a space behind them stood, Of minstrel ecstasy. A crown did that fourth maiden hold, XXXVII. At.once to brave De Vaux knelt down O'er many a region wide and fair, But homage would he none : « Rather, he said, « De Vaux would ride, A warder of the Border-side, In plate and mail, than, robed in pride, So pass'd he on, when that fourth maid, SONG OF THE FOURTH MAIDEN. «Quake to your foundations deep, « Fiends that wait on Merlin's spell, « It is BIS, the first who e'er Dared the dismal Hall of Fear; << Quake to your foundations deep, XXXVIII. Thus while she sung, the venturous knight Has reach'd a bower, where milder light Through crimson curtains fell; That bower, the gazer to bewitch, All seem to sleep the timid hare Between the earth and sky. He saw King Arthur's child! For, as she slept, she smiled. XXXIX. That form of maiden loveliness, Folds his arms and clasps his hands, Trembling in his fitful joy, << St George! St Mary! can it be, XL. Gently, lo! the warrior kneels, Burst the castle walls asunder! Fierce and frequent were the shocks, Melt the magic halls away---But beneath their mystic rocks, In the arms of bold De Vaux, Safe the princess lay! Safe and free from magic power, Opening to the day; And round the champion's brows was bound The crown that druidess had wound, Of the green laurel-bay. And this was what remain'd of all The garland and the dame :- CONCLUSION. I. MY LUCY, when the maid is won, The minstrel's task, thou know'st, is done; And to require of bard That to the dregs his tale should run, Were ordinance too hard. Our lovers, briefly be it said, When tale or play is o'er; Lived long and blest, loved fond and true, The honours that they bore. Along the mountain lone, "T is now a vain illusive show, That melts whene'er the sun-beams glow, Or the fresh breeze hath blown. And O! beside these simple knaves, To such coarse joys as these, The green-wood and the wold; By ancient bards is told, NOTES. CANTO I. Note 1. Introduction. Stanza viii. pass Like COLLINS, ill-starr'd name! COLLINS, according to Johnson, « by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.» Note 2. Stanza i. the Baron of Triermain. Triermain was a fief of the Barony of Gilsland, in Cumberland; it was possessed by a Saxon family at the time of the Conquest, but, « after the death of Gilmore, Lord of Tryermaine and Torcrossock, Hubert Vaux gave Tryermaine and Torcrossock to his second son, Ranulph Vaux, which Ranulph afterwards became heir to his elder brother Robert, the founder of Lanercost, who died without issue. Ranulph, being Lord of all Gilsland, gave Gilmore's lands to his own younger son, named Roland, and let the barony descend to his eldest son Robert, son of Ranulph. Ronald had issue Alexander, and he Ranulph, after whom succeeded Robert, and they were named Rolands successively, that were lords thereof, until the reign of Edward the Fourth. That house gave for arms, Vert, a bend dexter, chequey, or and gules.»-BURN's Antiquities of Westmoreland and Cumberland, vol. II, p. 482. This branch of Vaux, with its collateral alliances, is now represented by the family of Braddyl of Cornishead Priory, in the county palatine of Lancaster; for it appears that, about the time above mentioned, the house of Triermain was united to its kindred family Vaux of Caterlen, and, by marriage with the heiress of Delamore and Leybourne, became the representative of those ancient and noble families. The male line fail ing in John de Vaux, about the year 1665, his daughter and heiress, Mabel, married Christopher Richmond, Esq. of Highhead Castle, in the county of Cumberland, descended from an ancient family of that name, lords of Corby Castle, in the same county, soon after the Conquest, and which they alienated about the 15th of Edward the Second, to Andrea de Barcla, Earl of Carlisle. Of this family was Sir Thomas de Raigemont (miles auratus), in the reign of King Edward the First, who appears to have greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Kaerlaveroe, with William Baron of Leybourne. In an ancient heraldic poem now extant, and preserved in the British Museum, describing that siege, his arms are stated to be, Or, 2 Bars Gemelles Gules, and a Chief Or, the same borne by his descendants at the present day. The Richmonds removed to their castle of Highhead in the reign of Henry the Eighth, when the then representative of the family married Margaret, daughter of Sir Hugh Lowther, by the Lady Dorothy de Clifford, only child by a second marriage of Henry Lord Clifford, great grandson of John Lord Clifford, by Elizabeth Percy, daughter of Henry (surnamed Hotspur) by Elizabeth Mortimer; which said Elizabeth was daughter of Edward Mortimer, third Earl of Marche, by Philippa, sole daughter and heiress of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The third in descent from the above-mentioned John Richmond became the representative of the families of Vaux, of Triermain, Caterlen, and Torcrossock, by his marriage with Mabel de Vaux, the heiress of them. His grandson Henry Richmond died without issue, leaving five sisters co-heiresses, four of whom married; but Margaret, who married William Gale, Esq. of Whitehaven, was the only one who had male issue surviving. She had a son, and a daughter married to Henry Curwen of Workington, Esq., who represented the county of Cumberland for many years in Parliament, and by her had a daughter married to John Christian, Esq. (now Curwen). John, son and heir of William Gale, married Sarah, daughter and heiress of Christopher Wilson of Bardsea-hall, in the county of Lancaster, by Margaret, aunt and co-heiress of Thomas Braddyl, Esq. of Braddyl, and Cornishead Priory, in the same county, and had issue four sons and two daughters:-1st. William Wilson, died an infant; 2d. Wilson, who upon the death of his cousin, Thomas Braddyl, without issue, succeeded to his estates and took the name of Braddyl, in pursuance of his will, by the king's sign manual; 3d. William, died young, and, 4th. Henry Richmond, a lieutenant-general of the army, married Sarah, daughter of the Rev. R. Baldwin; Margaret married Richard Greaves Townley, Esq. of Fulbourne, in the county of Cambridge, and of Bellfield, in the county of Lancaster; Sarah married to George Bigland, of Bigland-hall, in the same county. Wilson Braddyl, eldest son of John Gale, and grandson of Margaret Richmond, marrid Jane, daughter and heiress of Matthias Gale, Esq. of Catgill-hall, in the county of Cumberland, by Jane, daughter and heiress of the Rev. S. Bennet, D. D.; and, as the eldest surviving male branch of the families above-mentioned, he quarters, in addition to his own, their paternal coats in the following order, as appears by the records in the College of Arms. ist. Argent, a fess azure, between three saltiers of |