Tis Bateman's self,-he springs into her arms, 'Tis he that clasps, and chides her vain alarms.

44

'Oh, speak, my love!" again the maid conjured; Why is thy heart in sullen woe immured?" He raised his head, and thrice essay'd to tell, Thrice from his lips the unfinish'd accents fell; When thus, at last, reluctantly he broke His boding silence, and the maid bespoke: "Grieve not, my love, but ere the morn advance I on these fields must cast my parting glance. For three long years, by cruel fate's command, I go to languish in a foreign land.

Oh, Margaret! omens dire have met my view,
Say, when far distant, wilt thou bear me true?
Should honours tempt thee, and should riches
fee,

Wouldst thou forget thine ardent vows to me,
And, on the silken couch of wealth reclined,
Banish thy faithful Bateman from thy mind?"

When to the distant land the youth was sped,
A lonely life the moody maiden led.

Still would she trace each dear, each well-known walk,

Still by the moonlight to her love would talk,
And fancy, as she paced among the trees,
She heard his whispers in the dying breeze.
Thus two years glided on in silent grief,
The third her bosom own'd the kind relief:
Absence had cool'd her love,-the impoverish d
flame

Was dwindling fast, when, lo! the tempter

came;

He offer'd wealth, and all the joys of life,
And the weak maid became another's wife!
Six guilty months had mark'd the false one s
crime,

When Bateman hailed once more his native clime.

Sure of her constancy, elate he came,
The lovely partner of his soul to claim;
Light was his heart, as up the well-known way
He bent his steps-and all his thoughts were
gay.

Oh! who can paint his agonizing throes,
When on his ear the fatal news arose!
Chill'd with amazement,- senseless with the
blow,

He stood a marble monument of woe;
Till, called to all the horrors of despair,
He smote his brow, and tore his horrent hair;
Then rushed impetuous from the dreadful spot,
And sought those scenes (by memory ne'er for
got,)

Those scenes, the witness of their growing flame,
And now like witnesses of Margaret's shame.
'Twas night-he sought the river's lonely shore,
And traced again their former wanderings o'er.
Now on the bank in silent grief he stood,
And gazed intently on the stealing flood,
Death in his mien and madness in his eye,
He watch'd the waters as they murmur'd by;
Bade the base murderess triumph o'er his grave
Prepared to plunge into the whelming wave.
Yet still he stood irresolutely bent,
Religion sternly stayed his rash intent.
He knelt.-Cool play'd upon his cheek the wind,
And fann'd the fever of his maddening mind.
The willows waved, the stream it sweetly swept,
The paly moonbeam on its surface slept,
And all was peace, he felt the general calm
O'er his rack'd bosom shed a genial balm :
When casting far behind his streaming eye,
He saw the Grove,-in fancy saw her lie,
His Margaret, lull'd in Germain's* arms to rest,
And all the demon rose within his breast.
Convulsive now, he clench'd his trembling hand,
Cast his dark eye once more upon the land,
Then, at one spring, he spurn'd the yielding
bank,

And in the calm deceitful current sank.

Sad, on the solitude of night, the sound.
As in the stream he plunged, was heard around
Then all was still-the wave was rough no more,
The river swept as sweetly as before;

* Germain is the traditionary name of her husband

Now see upon the perjured fair one hang
Remorse's glooms and never-ceasing pang.
Full well she knew, repentant now too late,
She soon must bow beneath the stroke of fate.
But, for the babe she bore beneath her breast,
The offended God prolong'd her life unblest.
But fast the fleeting moments roll'd away,
And near, and nearer, drew the dreaded day;
That day, foredoom'd to give her child the light,
And hurl its mother to the shades of night.
The hour arrived, and from the wretched wife
The guiltless baby struggled into life.-
As night drew on, around her bed, a band
Of friends and kindred kindly took their stand;
In holy prayer they pass'd the creeping time,
Intent to expiate her awful crime.

Their prayers were fruitless.-As the midnight

came

A heavy sleep oppress'd each weary frame.
In vain they strove against the o'erwhelming load,
Some power unseen their drowsy lids bestrode.
They slept, till in the blushing eastern sky
The blooming Morning oped her dewy eye;
Then waking wide they sought the ravish'd bed,
But, lo! the hapless Margaret was fled;
And never more the weeping train were doom'd
To view the false one, in the deeps entomb'd.

The neighbouring rustics told, that in the night They heard such screams as froze them with affright,

And many an infant at its mother's breast,
Started, dismay'd, from its unthinking rest.
And even now, upon the heath forlorn,

They show the path down which the fair was borne

By the fell demons, to the yawning wave,
Her own, and murder'd lover's, mutual grave.

Such is the tale, so sad, to memory dear,
Which oft in youth has charm'd my listening ear:
That tale, which bade me find redoubled sweets
In the drear silence of these dark retreats;
And even now, with melancholy power,
Adds a new pleasure to the lonely hour.
Mid all the charms by magic Nature given
To this wild spot, this sublunary heaven,
With double joy enthusiast Fancy leans
On the attendant legend of the scenes.
This sheds a fairy lustre on the floods,
And breathes a mellower gloom upon the woods;
This, as the distant cataract swells around,
Gives a romantic cadence to the sound;
This, and the deep'ning glen, the alley green,
The silver stream, with sedgy tufts between,
The massy rock, the wood-encompass'd leas,
The broom-clad islands, and the nodding trees,
The lengthening vista, and the present gloom,
The verdant pathway breathing waste perfume;
These are thy charms: the joys which these im-
part

Bind thee, blest Clifton! close around my heart.

Dear Native Grove! where'er my devious track, To thee will memory lead the wanderer back.

Or where "Oswego's swamps" obstruct the day;

Or wander lone, where wildering and wide,
The tumbling torrent laves St. Gothard's side;
Or by old Tejo's classic margent muse,
Or stand entranced with Pyrennean views;
Still, still to thee, where'er my footsteps roam,
My heart shall point, and lead the wanderer
home.

When Splendour offers, and when fame incites,
I'll pause, and think of all thy dear delights,
Reject the boon, and wearied with the change,
Renounce the wish which first induced to range;
Turn to these scenes, these well-known scenes
once more,

Trace once again old Trent's romantic shore,
And, tired with worlds, and all their busy ways,
Here waste the little remnant of my days.
But, if the Fates should this last wish deny,
And doom me on some foreign shore to die;
Oh! should it please the world's supernal King,
That weltering waves my funeral dirge shall sing;
Or that my corse should, on some desert strand,
Lie stretch'd beneath the Simoom's blasting hand;
Still, though unwept I find a stranger tomb,
My sprite shall wander through this favourite
gloom,

Ride on the wind that sweeps the leafless grove,
Sigh on the wood-blast of the dark alcove,
Sit, a lorn spectre, on yon well-known grave,
And mix its moanings with the desert wave.

GONDOLINE.

A BALLAD.

THE night it was still, and the moon it shone
Serenely on the sea,
And the waves at the foot of the rifted rock
They murmur'd pleasantly,

When Gondoline roam'd along the shore,
A maiden full fair to the sight;
Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek
And turn'd it to deadly white.

Her thoughts they were drear, and the silent tear
It fill'd her faint blue eye,

As oft she heard, in Fancy's ear,
Her Bertrand's dying sigh.

Her Bertrand was the bravest youth
Of all our good King's men,
And he was gone to the Holy Land

To fight the Saracen.

And many a month had pass'd away,
And many a rolling year,
But nothing the maid from Palestine
Could of her lover hear.

Full oft she vainly tried to pierce
The Ocean's misty face;
Full oft she thought her lover's bark
She on the wave could trace.

And his face grew deadly blue:

And his father he tore his thin grey hair,

And kissed the livid hue.

And then she told, how she bored a hole
In the bark, and it fill'd away:

And 'twas rare to hear, how some did swear,
And some did vow and pray.

The man and woman they soon were dead,

The sailors their strength did urge;

But the billows that beat were their winding-sheet, And the winds sung their funeral dirge.

She threw the infant's hair in the fire,
The red flame flamed high,

And round about the caldron stout

They danced right merrily.

The second begun: She said she had done The task that Queen Hecate had set her, And that the devil, the father of evil,

Had never accomplish'd a better.

She said, there was an aged woman,
And she had a daughter fair,
Whose evil habits fill'd her heart.
With misery and care.

The daughter had a paramour,
A wicked man was he,

And oft the woman him against

Did murmur grievously.

And the hag had work'd the daughter up To murder her old mother,

That then she might seize on all her goods, And wanton with her lover.

And one night as the old woman

Was sick and ill in bed,
And pondering sorely on the life
Her wicked daughter led,

She heard her footstep on the floor,
And she raised her pallid head,

And she saw her daughter, with a knife,
Approaching to her bed.

The skin was mangled scre, And they all agreed, a nobler deed

Was never done before.

And she threw the fingers in the fire,
The red flame flamed high,
And round about the caldron stout
They danced right merrily.

The third arose: She said she'd been To Holy Palestine ;

And seen more blood in one short day, Than they had all seen in nine.

Now Gondoline, with fearful steps,
Drew nearer to the flame,
For much she dreaded now to hear
Her hapless lover's name.

The hag related then the sports
Of that eventful day,
When on the well-contested field
Full fifteen thousand lay.

She said that she in human gore
Above the knees did wade,
And that no tongue could truly tell
The tricks she there had play'd.

There was a gallant-featured youth,
Who like a hero fought;
He kiss'd a bracelet on his wrist,
And every danger sought.

And in a vassal's garb disguised,
Unto the night she sues,
And tells him she from Britain comes
And brings unwelcome news.

That three days ere she had embark'd,
His love had given her hand
Unto a wealthy Thane, and thought
Him dead in holy land.

And to have seen how he did writhe
When this her tale was told,

It would have made a wizard's blood
Within his heart run cold.