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GILDEROY.

THE last, the fatal hour is come,
That bears my love from me:
I hear the dead note of the drum,
I mark the gallows tree!

The bell has toll'd: it shakes my heart;
The trumpet speaks thy name;
And must my Gilderoy depart
To bear a death of shame?

No bosom trembles for thy doom;
No mourner wipes a tear;
The gallows foot is all thy tomb,
The sledge is all thy bier.

Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then
So soon, so sad to part,
When first in Roslin's lovely glen
You triumph'd o'er my heart?

Your locks they glitter'd to the sheen,
Your hunter-garb was trim;
And graceful was the ribbon green
That bound your manly limb!

Ah! little thought I to deplore
Those limbs in fetters bound;
Or hear, upon the scaffold-floor,
The midnight hammer sound.

Ye cruel, cruel, that combined
The guiltless to pursue;
My Gilderoy was ever kind,
He could not injure you!

A long adieu! but where shall fly
Thy widow all forlorn,
When every mean and cruel eye
Regards my wo with scorn?

Yes! they will mock thy widow's tears,

And hate thine orphan boy; Alas! his infant beauty wears The form of Gilderoy.

Then will I seek the dreary mound
That wraps thy mouldering clay,
And weep and linger on the ground,
And sigh my heart away.

S

ADELGITHA.

THE ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded,
And sad pale ADELGITHA came,
When forth a valiant champion bounded,
And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept, deliver'd from her danger;
But when he knelt to claim her glove-
"Seek not," she cried, "oh! gallant stranger,
For hapless ADELGITHA's love.

"For he is in a foreign far land

Whose arm should now have set me free; And I must wear the willow garland For him that's dead, or false to me.”

66 Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!"He raised his vizor-At the sight

She fell into his arms and fainted;

It was indeed her own true knight!

----

ABSENCE.

'Tis not the loss of love's assurance,
It is not doubting what thou art,
But 'tis the too, too long endurance
Of absence, that afflicts my heart.

The fondest thoughts two hearts can cherish,
When each is lonely doom'd to weep,
Are fruits on desert isles that perish,
Or riches buried in the deep.

What though, untouch'd by jealous madness,
Our bosom's peace may fall to wreck;
The undoubting heart, that breaks with sadness,
Is but more slowly doom'd to break.

Absence! is not the soul torn by it,

From more than light, or life, or breath ? "Tis Lethe's gloom, but not its quiet,—

The pain without the peace of death!

THE RITTER BANN.

THE Ritter Bann from Hungary
Came back, renown'd in arms,
But scorning jousts of chivalry
And love and ladies' charms,

While other knights held revels, he
Was wrapt in thoughts of gloom,
And in Vienna's hostelrie

Slow paced his lonely room.

There enter'd one whose face he knew,

Whose voice, he was aware,

He oft at mass had listen'd to,

In the holy house of prayer.

"Twas the Abbot of St James's monks,

A fresh and fair old man:

His reverend air arrested even
The gloomy Ritter Bann.

But seeing with him an ancient dame,
Come clad in Scotch attire,

The Ritter's colour went and came,
And loud he spoke in ire.

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