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Yet often, by thy sudden light,
Enamored dames contrive to write;
And often, in the hour of need,
Enamored youths contrive to read.
(I make a small digression here:
I merely mean to make it clear,
That if Sir Eglamour had wit
To read and construe, bit by bit,
All that the wizard had expressed,
And start conjectures on the rest,
Cupid had sharpened his discerning,

The little god of love and learning.)

He revolved in his bed what Merlin had said,

Though Merlin had labored to scatter a veil on't;

And found out the sense of the tail and the head

Though none of his neighbors could make head of

tail on't.

Sir Eglamour was one o' the best

Of Arthur's table round;

He never set his spear in rest,

But a dozen went to the ground. Clear and warm as the lightning flame, His valor from his father came,

His cheek was like his mother's; And his hazel eye more clearly shone I ever have looked upon,

Than any

Save Fanny's and two others!

With his spur so bright, and his rein so light,
And his steed so swift and ready;

And his skilful sword, to wound or ward,

And his spear so sure and steady;

He bore him like a British knight
From London to Penzance;

Avenged all weeping women's. slight,
And made all giants dance.

And he had travelled far from home,
Had worn a mask at Venice,
Had kissed the Bishop's toe at Rome,
And beat the French at tennis:
Hence he had many a courtly play,
And jeerings and jibes in plenty,
And he wrote more rhymes in a single day
Than Byron or Bowles in twenty.

He clasped to his side his sword of pride,
His sword, whose native polish vied
With many a gory stain;

Keen and bright as a meteor-light;
But not so keen and not so bright,

As Moultrie's* jesting vein.

And his shield he bound his arm around,

His shield, whose dark and dingy round,
Naught human could get through;

Heavy and thick as a wall of brick,
But not so heavy and not so thick
As Roberts's Review.†

*Rev. John Moultrie, who, in 1823, (when many manuscript copies of "Lillian" were in circulation,) wrote some beautiful and pathetic lyrics, some of which appeared in Knight's Quarterly Magazine.

"My Grandmother's Review-the British."-Don Juan. Roberts was the editor.Vide Byron's celebrated Letter to him.

With a smile and a jest he set out on the quest,

Clad in his stoutest mail,

With his helm of the best, and his spear in the rest,

To flay the dragon's tail.

The warrior travelled wearily,

Many a league and many a mile;

And the dragon sailed in the clear blue sky;

And the song of the lady was sweet the while:

"My steed and I, my steed and I,

On in the path of the winds we fly,

And I chase the planets that wander at even,
And bathe my hair in the dews of heaven!
Beautiful stars, so thin and bright,
Exquisite visions of vapor and light,
I love ye all with a sister's love,
And I rove with ye wherever ye rove,
And I drink your changeless, endless song,
The music ye make as ye wander along!
Oh! let me be, as one of ye,

Floating for aye on your liquid sea;

And I'll feast with you on the purest rain,

To cool my weak and wildered brain,

'And I'll give you the loveliest lock of my hair

For a little spot in your realm of air!"

The dragon came down when the morn shone bright, And slept in the beam of the sun;

Fatigued, no doubt, with his airy flight,

As I with my jingling one.

With such a monstrous adversary
Sir Eglamour was far too weary

To think of bandying knocks;
He came on his foe as still as death,

Walking on tiptoe, and holding his breath,

And instead of drawing his sword from his sheath,

He drew a pepper-box!

The pepper was as hot as flame,

The box of a wondrous size;
He gazed one moment on the dame,
Then, with a sure and steady aim
Full in the dragon's truculent phiz
He flung the scorching powder-whiz!
And darkened both his eyes!

Have you not seen a little kite
Rushing away on its paper wing,

To mix with the wild wind's quarrelling?
Up it soars with an arrowy flight,

Till, weak and unsteady,

Torn by the eddy,

It dashes to earth from its hideous height?
Such was the rise of the beast in his pain,
Such was his falling to earth again;
Upward he shot, but he saw not his path,
Blinded with pepper, and blinded with wrath;
One struggle-one vain one-of pain and emotion!
And he shot back again, like a bird of the ocean!"

66

Long he lay in a trance that day,

And alas! he did not wake before

The cruel knight with skill and might,
Had lopped and flayed the tail he wore.

Twelve hours by the chime he lay in his slime,
More utterly blind, I trow,

Than a Polypheme in the olden time,

Or a politician now.

He sped, as soon as he could see,
To the Paynim bowers of Rosalie;
For there the dragon had hope to cure,
By the tinkling rivulets, ever pure,
By the glowing sun, and fragrant gale,
His wounded honor and wounded tail!
He hied him away to the perfumed spot:
The little dwarfs clung-where the tail was not!
The damsel gazed on that young knight,
With something of terror, but more of delight;
Much she admired the gauntlets he wore,
Much the device that his buckler bore,
Much the feathers that danced on his crest,

But most the baldrick that shone on his breast.

She thought the dragon's pilfered scale

Was fairer far than the warrior's mail,

And she lifted it up with her weak white arm,
Unconscious of its hidden charm,

And round her throbbing bosom tied,
In mimicry of warlike pride.

Gone is the spell that bound her!

The talisman hath touched her heart,

And she leaps with a fearful and fawn-like start

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