Weary, wet, and spent with toil,

Where his head shall Frederick hide? Where, but in yon ruined aisle,

By the lightning's flash descried.

To the portal, dank and low,

Fast his steed the wanderer bound; Down a ruined staircase slow,

Next his darkling way he wound.

Long drear vaults before him lie!
Glimmering lights are seen to glide!
"Blessed Mary, hear my cry!
Deign a sinner's steps to guide!"

Often lost their quivering beam,
Still the lights move slow before,
Till they rest their ghastly gleam
Right against an iron door.

Thundering voices from within,

Mixed with peals of laughter, rose;

As they fell, a solemn strain

Lent its wild and wondrous close!

Midst the din, he seemed to hear

Voice of friends, by death removed;

Well he knew that solemn air,

'Twas the lay that Alice loved.

Hark! for now a solemn knell

Four times on the still night broke ; Four times, at its deadened swell, Echoes from the ruins spoke.

As the lengthened clangours die,
Slowly opes the iron door!
Straight a banquet met his eye,
But a funeral's form it wore!

Coffins for the seats extend;

All with black the board was spread; Girt by parent, brother, friend,

Long since numbered with the dead!

Alice, in her grave-clothes bound,
Ghastly smiling, points a seat;
All arose, with thundering sound;
All the expected stranger greet.

High their meagre arms they wave, Wild their notes of welcome swell; "Welcome, traitor, to the grave! Perjured, bid the light farewell!"

THE

WILD HUNTSMEN.

21*

THE

WILD HUNTSMEN.

THIS is a translation, or rather an imitation of the Wilde Jager of the German poet Burger. The tradition upon which it is founded bears, that formerly a Wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, named Falkenburg, was so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and eruel, that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but accompanied it with the most unheard of oppression upon the poor peasants, who were under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, the people adopted a superstition, founded, probably, on the many various uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a German forest, during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds; and the well known cheer of the deceased hunter, the sounds of his horses' feet, and the rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also distinctly discriminated; but the phantoms are rarely, if ever, visible. Once, as a benighted Chasseur heard this infernal chase pass by him,