Yet fragments of the lofty strain He sung King Arthur's table round. How courteous Gawaine met the wound, But chief, in gentle Tristrem's praise, Was none excelled in Arthur's days, For Marke, his cowardly uncle's right, When fierce Morholde he slew in fight, No art the poison might withstand; Till lovely Isolde's lilye hand Had probed the rankling wound. With gentle hand and soothing tongue, And, while she o'er his sick-bed hung, O fatal was the gift, I ween! For, doomed in evil tide, The maid must be rude Cornwall's queen, His cowardly uncle's bride. Their loves, their woes, the gifted bard In fairy tissue wove; Where lords, and knights, and ladies bright In gay confusion strove. The Garde Joyeuse, amid the tale, Brangwain was there, and Segramore, Through many a maze the winning song Till bent at length the listening throng His ancient wounds their scars expand With agony his heart is wrung: O where is Isolde's lilye hand, She comes, she comes!-like flash of flame She comes, she comes !-she only came She saw him die: her latest sigh Joined in a kiss his parting breath: The gentlest pair that Britain bare, There paused the harp; its lingering sound The silent guests still bent around, For still they seemed to hear. Then woe broke forth in murmurs weak Nor ladies heaved alone the sigh; But, half ashamed, the rugged cheek On Leader's stream, and Learmont's tower, Lord Douglas in his lofty tent, When footsteps light, across the bent, He starts, he wakes:-"What, Richard, ho! What venturous wight, at dead of night, Dare step where Douglas lies ?" Then forth they rushed: by Leader's tide, A hart and hind pace side by side, Beneath the moon, with gesture proud, Nor scare they at the gathering crowd, To Learmont's tower a message sped, And Thomas started from his bed, And soon his clothes did on. First he woxe pale, and then woxe red; y Wondrous. "My sand is run; my thread is spun; The elfin harp his neck around, And on the wind, in doleful sound, Then forth he went; yet turned him oft On the grey tower, in lustre soft, And Leader's waves, like silver sheen, "Farewell, my father's ancient tower! A long farewell," said he : "The scene of pleasure, pomp, or power, Thou never more shalt be. "To Learmont's name no foot of earth Shall here again belong, And on thy hospitable hearth The hare shall leave her young. "Adieu! Adieu !" again he cried, The hart and hind approached the place, And there, before Lord Douglas' face, Lord Douglas leaped on his berry-brown steed, But, though he rode with lightning speed, Some said to hill, and some to glen, Their wondrous course had been; But ne'er in haunts of living men WAR SONG OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS. THE following War-song was written during the apprehension of an invasion. The corps of volunteers, to which it was addressed, was raised in 1797, consisting of gentlemen, mounted and armed at their own expense. It still subsists, as the Right Troop of the Royal Mid-Lothian Light Cavalry, commanded by the Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Dundas. The noble and constitutional measure of arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was nowhere more successful than in Edinburgh, which furnished a force of 3,000 armed and disciplined volunteers, including a regiment of cavalry, from the city and county, and two corps of artillery, each capable of serving twelve guns. To such a force, above all others, might, in similar circumstances, be applied the exhortation of our ancient Galgacus: "Proinde ituri in aciem, et majores vestros et posteros cogitate." To horse! to horse! the standard flies, The bugles sound the call; The Gallic navy stems the seas, From high Dunedin's towers we come, Our casques the leopard's spoils surround, Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown Their ravished toys though Romans mourn, O! had they marked the avenging call The Royal colours. The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th of August, 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorized the progressive injustice by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people ou the Continent, were, at length, converted into the citadel of a foreign an military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved. Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head, No! though destruction o'er the land The sun, that sees our falling day, For gold let Gallia's legions fight, If ever breath of British gale Or footstep of invader rude, With rapine foul, and red with blood, Then farewell home! and farewell friends! Resolved, we mingle in the tide, Where charging squadrons furious ride, To conquer, or to die. To horse! to horse! the sabres gleam; |