HERE come we to our close,-for that which follows Is but the tale of dull, unvaried misery. Steep crags and headlong linns may court the pencil, Like sudden haps, dark plots, and strange adventures; Arm and up! the morning beam But who would paint the dull and fog- Thy study, conquest; war, thy game. Shield, that would be foeman's terror, Still should gleam the morning's mirror. Poor hire repays the rustic's pain; Chap. XIX. WOMAN'S FAITH. WOMAN'S faith, and woman's trust- I have strain'd the spider's thread 'Gainst the promise of a maid; I have weigh'd a grain of sand 'Gainst her plight of heart and hand; I told my true love of the token, How her faith proved light, and her word was broken: Again her word and truth she plight, And I believed them again ere night. Chap. xx. RING out the merry bells, the bride approaches, The blush upon her cheek has shamed the morning, Or if He bid the soil dispense How few can they deliver For that is dawning palely. Grant, Red Fever, spotted Pestilence, The arrows of thy quiver! Chief in Man's bosom sits thy sway, Say, hast thou feeling, sense, and form, With sentient soul of hate and wrath, Or art thou mix'd in Nature's source, Converting good to ill; Howe'er it be, dispute is vain, Each mortal passion's fierce career, Whene'er a sunny gleam appears, Thus, from the moment of our birth, WHAT brave chief shall head the forces The mail that to-morrow must see 'TWAS near the fair city of Benevent, When the sun was setting on bough and bent, And knights were preparing in bower and tent, On the eve of the Baptist's tournament; When in Lincoln green a stripling gent, him wear, For the honour of Saint John and his lady fair. 'Thus speaks my lady,' the page said he, And the knight bent lowly both head and knee, 'She is Benevent's Princess so high in degree, And thou art as lowly as knight may well be He that would climb so lofty a tree, Or spring such a gulf as divides her from thee, Must dare some high deed, by which all men may see His ambition is back'd by his high chivalrie. 'Therefore thus speaks my lady,' the fair page he said, And the knight lowly louted with hand and with head, 'Fling aside the good armour in which thou art clad, And don thou this weed of her night gear instead, Fora hauberk ofsteel, a kirtle of thread: Well seeming a page by a princess And charge, thus attired, in the tournament dread, sent, Wander'd the camp, and, still as he And fight as thy wont is where most went, blood is shed, Enquired for the Englishman, Thomas And bring honour away, or remain a Kent. with the dead.' F |