ALWYN AND RENA. Ask you, why round yon hallow'd grave Yes, I will hush this struggling sigh, Yes, I will check these flowing tears, A smile shall brighten in my eye, My bosom shall dispel its fears.' You try indeed to force a smile, Yet sorrow's drops bedew your cheek; You speak of peace, yet, ah! the while Your tears will scarcely let you speak.'. 6 Go, Alwyn, Rena bids you go, She bids you go to fields of death; Go, Alwyn, rush amidst the foe, Go, and return with Victory's wreath.' A thrilling blast the trumpet blew, The milk white courser paw'd the ground; A mix'd delight young Alwyn knew, But Rena shudder'd at the sound: Yet strove to hide the rising fears Which now in quicker throbbings swell, And faintly smiling through her tears Three tedious moons with cheerless ray To bless his drooping Rena's sight. To yon tall cliff's o'erarching brow Distill'd the slow and silent shower, For this, around yon hallow'd grave HON. CHARLES F. THE ELFIN KING. - O SWIFT, and swifter far he speeds But I hear not the feet of his courser fleet, Lone was the strath where he cross'd their path, And wide did the heath extend, The Knight in Green on that moor is seen At every seven year's end. And swift is the speed of his coal-black steed As the leaf before the gale, But never yet have that courser's feet Been heard on hill or dale. But woe to the wight who meets the Green Knight, Spell-proof he bear, like the brave St. Clair, For then shall fly his gifted eye Delusions false and dim; And each unbless'd shade shall stand portray'd In ghostly form and limb. O, swift and swifter far he speeds Than earthly steed can run 'He skims the blue air,' said the brave St. Clair, 'Instead of the heath so dun. 'His locks are bright as the streamer's light, No Elfin King, with azure wing, But a courser keen, and a Knight in Green, Nor Elfin King nor azure wing VOL. III. G G He knew not the path of the lonely strath Where the Elfin King went his round; Or he never had gone with the Green Knight on, Nor trod the charmed ground. How swift they flew! no eye could view Their track on heath or hill, Yet swift across both moor and moss And soon was seen a circle green, And the windlestrae *, so limber and gray, Of the coursers' feet as they rush'd to meet Come here, come here, with thy green feere, Before the bread be stale; To roundel dance with speed advance, And taste our wassail ale.' Then up to the Knight came a grizzly wight, 'Sir Knight, eschew this goblin crew, The tabors rung, the lilts were sung, And the Knight the dance did lead; But the maidens fair seem'd round him to stare With eyes like the glassy bead. * Rye-grass. The glance of their eye, so cold and so dry, Their motion is swift, but their limbs they lift Again to the Knight came the grizzly wight, But forward press'd the dauntless guest And there was seen the Knight in Green, And before that Knight was a goblet bright, The fretted brim was studded full trim Sir Geoffry the Bold of the cup laid hold, With heath-ale mantling o'er; And he saw as he drank that the ale never shrank, But mantled as before. Then Sir Geoffry grew pale as he quaffed the ale, And with horny beak the ravens did shriek, But soon throughout the revel rout A strange commotion ran, For beyond the round they heard the sound Of the steps of an uncharm'd man. And soon to St. Clair the grim wight did repair From the midst of the wassail crew; 'Sir Knight, beware of the revellers there, Nor do as they bid thee do.' |