And all his frame in awful fashion

Was shaken by some sudden passion.
What guilty fancies o'er him ran ?—

Oh, Pity will be slow to guess them;
And never, save to the holy man,

Did good Sir Rudolph e'er confess them,

But soon his spirit you might deem

Came forth from the shade of the fearful dream ; His cheek, though pale, was calm again,

And he spoke in peace, though he spoke in pain : "Not mine! not mine! now, Mary, mother, Aid me the sinful hope to smother!

Not mine, not mine!—I have loved thee long; Thou hast quitted me with grief and wrong.

But

pure the heart of a knight should be,—
Sleep on, sleep on, thou art safe for me.
Yet shalt thou know by a certain sign,
Whose lips have been so near to thine,
Whose eyes have looked upon thy sleep,
And turned away, and longed to weep,
Whose heart,-mourn,-madden as it will,-
Has spared thee, and adored thee, still!"
His purple mantle, rich and wide,
From his neck the trembling youth untied,
And flung it o'er those dangerous charms,
The swelling neck, and the rounded arms.
Once more he looked, once more he sighed ;
And away, away, from the perilous tent,
Swift as the rush of an eagle's wing,

Or the flight of a shaft from Tartar string,
Into the wood Sir Rudolph went:

Not with more joy the school-boys run

To the gay green fields, when their task is done; Not with more haste the members fly,

When Hume has caught the Speaker's eye.

At last the daylight came; and then
A score or two of serving men,
Supposing that some sad disaster

Had happened to their lord and master,
Went out into the wood, and found him,
Unhorsed, and with no mantle round him.
Ere he could tell his tale romantic,
The leech pronounced him clearly frantic,
So ordered him at once to bed,
And clapped a blister on his head.

Within the sound of the castle-clock
There stands a huge and rugged rock,
And I have heard the peasants say,
That the grieving groom at noon that day
Found gallant Roland, cold and stiff,

At the base of the black and beetling cliff.
Beside the rock there is an oak,
Tall, blasted by the thunder-stroke,
And I have heard the peasants say,
That there Sir Rudolph's mantle lay,
And coiled in many a deadly wreath
A venomous serpent slept beneath.

(1830)

THE RED FISHERMAN.

OR

THE DEVIL'S DECOY.

"O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!"

Romeo and Juliet.

THE abbot arose, and closed his book,

And donned his sandal shoon,
And wandered forth, alone, to look
Upon the summer moon:

A starlight sky was o'er his head,
A quiet breeze around;

And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed,
And the waves a soothing sound :

It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught
But love and calm delight;

Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought
On his wrinkled brow that night.

He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds:

He clasped his gilded rosary,

But he did not tell the beads;

If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke
The Spirit that dwelleth there;

If he opened his lips, the words they spoke
Had never the tone of prayer.

A pious priest might the abbot seem,
He had swayed the crosier well;

But what was the theme of the abbot's dream,
The abbot were loth to tell.

Companionless, for a mile or more,
He traced the windings of the shore.
Oh, beauteous is that river still,
As it winds by many a sloping hill,
And many a dim o'erarching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove,

And terraced lawns, whose bright arcades
The honeysuckle sweetly shades,

And rocks, whose very crags seemed bowers,
So

gay they are with grass and flowers!

But the abbot was thinking of scenery,

About as much in sooth,

As a lover thinks of constancy,

Or an advocate of truth.

He did not mark how the skies in wrath
Grew dark above his head;

He did not mark how the mossy path
Grew damp beneath his tread;

And nearer he came, and still more near,

To a pool, in whose recess

The water had slept for many a year,

Unchanged and motionless;

From the river stream it spread away
The space of a half a rood d;
The surface had the hue of clay

And the scent of human blood;

The trees and the herbs that round it grew

Were venomous and foul;

And the birds that through the bushes flew

Were the vulture and the owl;

The water was as dark and rank

As ever a Company pumped;

And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank,

Grew rotten while it jumped:

And bold was he who thither came

At midnight, man or boy;

For the place was cursed with an evil name,
And that name was "The Devil's Decoy !"

The abbot was weary as abbot could be,
And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree :
When suddenly rose a dismal tone—

Was it a song, or was it a moan?

O ho! O ho!

Above, below!

Lightly and brightly they glide and go;
The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,
The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping;
Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy,
Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy !"
In a monstrous fright, by the murky light,
He looked to the left and he looked to the right,
And what was the vision close before him,
That flung such a sudden stupor o'er him?
'Twas a sight to make the hair uprise,

And the life-blood colder run:

The startled priest struck both his thighs,
And the abbey clock struck one!