Of Roman and of Grecian lore, Sure mortal brain can hold no more. These ancients, as Noll Bluff might say, In Fairy Land or Limbo lost, To jostle conjuror and ghost, Goblin and witch !"-Nay, Heber dear, * "Hannibal was a pretty fellow, sir-a very pretty fellow in his day."-Old Bachelor. Eneas, upon Thracia's shore, The ghost of murdered Polydore; For omens, we in Livy cross, At every turn, locutus Bos. As grave and duly speaks that ox, As if he told the price of stocks; All nations have their omens drear, Their legions wild of woe and fear. And shun "the spirit's Blasted Tree." If asked to tell a fairy tale : He fears the vengeful Elfin King, Who leaves that day his grassy ring ; Invisible to human ken, He walks among the sons of men. Didst e'er, dear Heber, pass along Beneath the towers of Franchémont, Which, like an eagle's nest in air, Hang o'er the stream and hamlet fair?. Deep in their vaults, the peasants say, Amassed through rapine and through wrong By the last lord of Franchémont. The iron chest is bolted hard, A Huntsman sits, its constant guard; His hanger in his belt is slung; Before his feet his bloodhounds lie: An 'twere not for his gloomy eye, Whose withering glance no heart can brook, As true a huntsman doth he look, As bugle e'er in brake did sound, Or ever hollowed to a hound. To chase the fiend, and win the prize, In that same dungeon ever tries An aged Necromantic Priest; It is an hundred years at least, And oft the Conjuror's words will make And oft the bands of iron break, Or bursts one lock, that still amain, Fast as 'tis opened, shuts again. May last until the day of doom, Unless the Adept shall learn to tell The very word that clenched the spell, When Franch'mont locked the treasure cell An hundred years are past and gone, And scarce three letters has he won. Such general superstition may Excuse for old Pitscottie say; Whose gossip history has given My song the messenger from heaven, That warned, in Lithgow, Scotland's King, Nor less the infernal summoning; May pass the Monk of Durham's tale, Whose Demon fought in Gothic mail; May pardon plead for Fordun grave, But why such instances to you, Your treasured hoards of various lore, And furnish twenty thousand more? Hoards, not like their's whose volumes rest Like treasures in the Franch'mont chest, While gripple owners still refuse To others what they cannot use ; Give them the priest's whole century, They shall not spell you letters three; |