Oh! not in vain the pleading cries To offer on the cross his vows, Then tears from warriors' eyes were flowing, High hearts with soft emotions glowing, Stern foes as long-loved brothers greeting, And ardent throngs in transport meeting. And eager footsteps forward pressing And accents loud in joyous blessing; And when their first wild tumults cease, A thousand voices echo " Peace!" Twilight's dim mist hath rolled away And the rich Orient burns with day; Then, as to greet the sunbeam's birth, Rises the choral hymn of earth; Th' exulting strain through Genoa swelling, Of peace and holy rapture telling. Far float the sounds o'er vale and steep, The seaman hears them on the deep, So mellowed by the gale, they seem Peals the triumphant anthem's tone, For beings of a purer sphere Bend with celestial joy, to hear. "Not only the place of Richard's confinement " (when thrown into prison by the Duke of Austria), " if we believe the literary history of the times, but even the circumstance of his captivity, was carefully concealed by his vindictive enemies: and both might have remained unknown but for the grateful attachment of a Provençal bard, or minstrel, named Blondel, who had shared that prince's friendship and tasted his bounty. Having travelled over all the Eauropean continent to learn the destiny of his beloved patron, Blondel accidentally got intelligence of a certain castle in Germany, where a prisoner of distinction was confined, and guarded with great vigilance. Persuaded by a secret impulse that this prisoner was the King of England, the minstrel repaired to the place; but the gates of the castle were shut against him, and he could obtain no information relative to the name or quality of the unhappy person it secured. In this extremity, he bethought himself of an expedient for making the desired discovery. He chanted, with a loud voice, some verses of a song which had been composed partly by himself, partly by Richard; and, to his unspeakable joy, on making a |