Or, there's Satan!-one might venture As he 'd miss till, past retrieve, We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine.. THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. SI ride, as I ride, A With a full heart for my guide, So its tide rocks my side, As I ride, as I ride, That, as I were double-eyed, He, in whom our Tribes confide, Is descried, ways untried As I ride, as I ride. As I ride, as I ride To our Chief and his Allied, Who dares chide my heart's pride As I ride, as I ride? Or are witnesses denied, Through the desert waste and wide Do I glide unespied As I ride, as I ride? As I ride, as I ride, When an inner voice has cried, The sands slide, nor abide (As I ride, as ride) 22 COUNT GISMOND. O'er each visioned Homicide That came vaunting (has he lied?) - where he died, To reside As I ride, as I ride. As I ride, as I ride, Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied, Shows where sweat has sprung and dried, Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed, How has vied stride with stride As I ride, as I ride! As I ride, as I ride, Could I loose what Fate has tied, All that's meant me: satisfied When the Prophet and the Bride COUNT GISMOND. "HRIST God, who savest men, save most And doubtlessly ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed. That miserable morning saw I thought they loved me, did me grace If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped. They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen But no they let me laugh, and sing A last look on the mirror, trust And come out on the morning troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, That pierced it, of the outside sun, And they could let me take my state My Queen's day,-O, I think the cause COUNT GISMOND. Howe'er that be, all eyes were bent Theirs down; 't was time I should present The victor's crown, but . . . there, 't will last No long time. . . the old mist again Blinds me as then it did. How vain! See! Gismond 's at the gate, in talk Forth boldly (to my face, indeed) But Gauthier, and he thundered " Stay!" "Bring torches ! Bring no crowns, I say!" Wind the penance-sheet About her! Let her shun the chaste, Or lay herself before their feet! Shall she, whose body I embraced A night long, queen it in the day? For Honor's sake no crowns, I say!" I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul. Till out strode Gismond; then I knew I felt quite sure that God had set He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, 23 East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, This glads me most, that I enjoyed By any doubt of the event: Did I not watch him while he let His armorer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot. . . my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false Knight, Prone as his lie upon the ground: Gismond flew at him, used no sleight Which done, he dragged him to my feet From my first, to God's second death! Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked My powers forever, to a third Dear even as you are. Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast. Over my head his arm he flung Against the world; and scarce I felt |