HENGIST AND MEY.

BY W. MICKLE.

In ancient days, when Arthur reigned,
Sir Elmer had no peer;
And no young knight in all the land

The ladies loved so dear.

His sister, Mey, the fairest maid

Of all the virgin train,

Won every heart at Arthur's court;
But all their love was vain.

In vain they loved, in vain they vowed;
Her heart they could not move :
Yet, at the evening hour of prayer,
Her mind was lost in love.

The abbess saw- the abbess knew,

And urged her to explain :

"O name the gentle youth to me, And his consent I'll gain."

Long urged, long tried, fair Mey replied, "His name how can I say?

An angel from the fields above

Has 'rapt my heart away.

"But once, alas! and never more,
His lovely form I 'spied;

One evening, by the sounding shore,
All by the green-wood side.

“His eyes to mine the love confest,
That glowed with mildest grace;
His courtly mien and purple vest
Bespoke his princely race.

"But when he heard my

brother's horn,

Fast to his ships he fled;

Yet, while I sleep, his graceful form
Still hovers round my bed.

"Sometimes, all clad in armour bright, He shakes a warlike lance;

And now, in courtly garments dight,
He leads the sprightly dance.

"His hair, as black as raven's wing;
His skin-as Christmas snow;
His cheeks outvie the blush of morn,
His lips like rose-buds glow.

"His limbs, his arms, his stature shaped

By nature's finest hand;

His sparkling eyes declare him born

To love, and to command."

The live-long year, fair Mey bemoaned
Her hopeless, pining love:

But when the balmy spring returned,
And summer clothed the grove,

All round by pleasant Humber side,
The Saxon banners flew,

And to Sir Elmer's castle gates

The spearmen came in view.

N

Fair blushed the morn, when Mey looked o'er

The castle walls so sheen;

And lo! the warlike Saxon youth
Were sporting on the green.

There Hengist, Offa's eldest son,
Leaned on his burnished lance,
And all the armed youth around
Obeyed his manly glance.

His locks, as black as raven's wing,
Adown his shoulders flowed;
His cheeks outvied the blush of morn,
His lips like rose-buds glowed.

And soon, the lovely form of Mey
Has caught his piercing eyes;
He gives the sign, the bands retire,
While big with love he sighs.

Oh, thou for whom I dared the seas,
And came with peace or war;

Oh! by that cross that veils thy breast,
Relieve thy lover's care!

"For thee, I'll quit my father's throne;
With thee, the wilds explore;
Or with thee share the British crown;
With thee, the Cross adore."

Beneath the timorous virgin blush,
With love's soft warmth she glows;
So, blushing through the dews of morn,
Appears the opening rose.

'T was now the hour of morning prayer,
When men their sins bewail,

And Elmer heard King Arthur's horn,
Shrill sounding through the dale.

The pearly tears from Mey's bright eyes,

Like April dew-drops fell,

When, with a parting, dear embrace,
Her brother bade farewell.

The cross with sparkling diamonds bright,
That veiled the snowy breast,
With prayers to Heaven her lily hands
Have fixed on Elmer's vest.

Now, with five hundred bowmen true,
He's marched across the plain;
Till with his gallant yeomandrie,
He joined King Arthur's train.

Full forty thousand Saxon spears
Came glittering down the hill,

And with their shouts and clang of arms

The distant valleys fill.

Old Offa, dressed in Odin's garb,*
Assumed the hoary god;

And Hengist, like the warlike Thor,

Before the horsemen rode.

* Odin, the celebrated head of the Northern Mythology, was probably, at some very early period, a conqueror or monarch, whom the zeal of his subjects deified after death. According to the opinions of those who assign to him the highest antiquity, he existed in the first Scythian empire,-Seven Hundred, or perhaps One Thousand years B.C. Others suppose him to have been the person who led the Asiatic Scythians (now Tartarians, Siberians, &c.) into Europe, when they conquered Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, &c.)-about Five Hundred years B.C. In answer to this, it has again been urged, that it was only the name and worship of Odin which they brought with them, and under whose banners they marched to conquest. To one or other, however, of these dates must be referred the era of the first and real Odin, unless he had, as a fourth party thinks, only an allegorical existence. He was styled the God of War, and was held to be the Supreme Deity, by a people who placed their principal and almost their only virtues in conquest and slaughter. Hence, in conformity with this, their Mythology and ideas of a future state, were amongst the worst corruptions of the primitive truths

With dreadful rage the combat burns,
The captains shout amain;
And Elmer's tall victorious spear
Far glances o'er the plain.

To stop its course young Hengist flew,
Like lightning, o'er the field;

And soon his eyes the well known cross
On Elmer's vest beheld.

The slighted lover swelled his breast,
His eyes shot living fire!
And all his martial heat before,
To this was mild desire.

On his imagined rival's front,
With whirlwind speed he pressed,
And glancing to the sun, his sword
Resounds on Elmer's crest.

The foe gave way;—the princely youth

With heedless rage pursued,

Till trembling in his cloven helm

Sir Elmer's javelin stood.

that the annals of the world have presented. They had none of those romantic beauties which were thickly strewn throughout the systems of Greece and Rome; nor of those occasional instances of fidelity of principle which shone through their veiling tissue of fantastic absurdity.

A second Odin is said to have appeared about the year 70, B. C.—a warrior and priest, who assumed the name and some of the properties of his prototype, and obtained the sovereignty of Scandinavia, where he established a new code, which, like Mahomet, he confirmed by pretended communications with Heaven.

Thor, an early Northern monarch (of whom an ancient statue or idol is preserved in the cathedral of Upsal), was styled the offspring of Odin; in the same manner as Romulus was called the son of Mars, and was also deified.

From Odin (corruptly called Woden), Thor, and Freya (a female deity), were derived the ancient Northern names of three days in the week, introduced into England by the Saxons, before their conversion to Christianity; viz., Wodensday, Thorsday, and Fryday.-ED.