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The Spanish Champion.

419

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, you put strange memories in my head, Not thrice your branching limes have blown since I beheld young Laurence dead.

Oh! your sweet eyes, your low replies: a great enchantress you may be;

But there was that across his throat which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, when thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, she spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed, I heard one bitter word that scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, there stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: you changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse, to make him trust his modest worth,

And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, and slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, from yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife smile at the claims of long descent.

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'tis only noble to be good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: you pine among your halls and towers:

The languid light of your proud eyes is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, but sickening of a vague

disease,

You know so ill to deal with time, you needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, if time be heavy on your hands,

Are there no beggars at your gate, nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, oh! teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray heaven for a human heart, and let the foolish yeoman go.

(By permission of Messrs. Moxon and Co.)

5. THE SPANISH CHAMPION.

MRS. HEMANS.
[See page 190.]

THE warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire, And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned sire.

"I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train: I pledge my faith, my liege, my lord, oh! break my father's chain."

66

'Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed man this day,

Mount thy good steed, and thou and I will meet him on his

way.

Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest, his charger's foamy speed.

And lo! from far as on they press'd they met a glittering band
With one that 'mid them stately rode, like a leader in the land:
“Now haste, Bernardo, haste, for there, in very truth, is he,
The father whom thy grateful heart hath yearned so long to see."
His proud breast heaved, his dark eye flash'd, his cheeks' hue came
and went,

He reach'd that gray-haired chieftain's side, and there, dismounting, bent;

A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took-
What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?

That hand was cold-a frozen thing; it dropp'd from his like lead:
He look'd up to the face above, the face was of the dead;
A plume waved o'er the noble brow, the brow was fixed and white;
He met at last his father's eyes, but in them was no sight!

Up from the ground he sprung, and gazed, but who could paint that gaze ?

They hush'd their very hearts who saw its horror and amaze; They might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood, For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his cheek the blood.

"Father!" at length he murmur'd low, and wept like childhood then

Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike menHe thought on all his glorious hopes, on all his young renown, Then flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sate down;

And covering, with his steel-gloved hands, his darkly mournful brow,

"No more, there is no more," he said, "to lift the sword for now; My king is false, my hope betray'd, my father, oh! the worth, The glory and the loveliness, are past away from earth!"

Up from the ground he sprung once more, and seized the monarch's rein:

Amidst the pale and 'wilder'd looks of all the courtier train,
And with a fierce o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led,
And sternly set them face to face-the king before the dead.

The Inchcape Rock.

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"Came I not here upon thy pledge, my father's hand to kiss? Be still! and gaze thou on, false king, and tell me what is this; The look, the voice, the heart I sought-give answer, where are they?

If thou would'st clear thy perjured soul, put life in this cold clay.

In to those glassy eyes put light; be still, keep down thine ire,
Bid those cold lips a blessing speak, this earth is not my sire :
Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was
shed;

Thou canst not, and, O king! his blood be mountains on thy head!"

He loosed the rein, his slack hand fell-upon the silent face,

He cast one long, deep, mournful glance, and fled from that sad place;

His after fate no more was heard amid the martial train,

His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain!

6. THE INCHCAPE ROCK.

R. SOUTHEY.

[See p. 110.]

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was as still as she could be,
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sigh or sound of their shock
The waves flow'd over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.

The worthy Abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The sun in heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds scream'd as they wheel'd round,
And there was joyance in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen
A dark speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walk'd his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the rover's mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

The boat is lower'd, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles rose and burst around;

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the rock
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph the Rover sail'd away,

He scour'd the seas for many a day;

And now grown rich with plunder'd store,

He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the rover takes his stand,
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon."
"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers' roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore."
"Now where we are I cannot tell,

But I wish I could hear the Inchcape bell."

They hear no sound, the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,-
"Oh! heavens! it is the Inchcape rock!"

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair;
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

Beth Gelert.

But even now, in his dying fear

One dreadful sound could the rover hear,
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell

The fiends in triumph were ringing his knell.

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7.-BETH GELERT.

HON. WM. ROBERT SPENCER

[Was the younger son of Lord Charles Spencer, and was educated at Harrow
and Oxford. In 1796, he published a translation of Bürger's "Lenore." He
held the appointment of Commissioner of Stamps. Born 1770; died 1834.]
THE spearman heard the bugle sound,
And cheerily smiled the morn;

And many a brach, and many a hound,
Attend Llewellyn's horn:

And still he blew a louder blast,
And gave a louder cheer:

"Come, Gelert! why art thou the last
Llewellyn's horn to hear?

"Oh! where doth faithful Gelert roam?

The flower of all his race!

So true, so brave; a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase!"

In sooth, he was a peerless hound,
The gift of royal John;

But now no Gelert could be found,
And all the chase rode on.

And now, as over rocks and dells
The gallant chidings rise,
All Snowdon's craggy chaos yells
With many mingled cries.

That day Llewellyn little loved
The chase of hart or hare;
And small and scant the booty proved,
For Gelert was not there.

Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward hied,
When, near the portal-seat,
His truant Gelert he espied,
Bounding his lord to greet.

But when he gain'd the castle door,
Aghast the chieftain stood;

The hound was smeared with gouts of gore,
His lips and fangs ran blood!

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