While spitefully he stuck his dirk :

Mine habergeon of Milan work

Serv'd me no better than my skin,
Nor the Milan quilt therein
Which in a battle once had kept
My father safe. I almost wept

To think it had wrapp'd him and me;
But felt too dull with enmity.

Hands, rage, all fail'd me. Every mesh
Of steel seem'd only in my flesh;
By nought but his own grasp I stood;
My blind eyes grew forlorn with blood,
And my brain reel'd, and down I fell
Betwixt his hands. He gave a yell
Which seem'd to wither up my head,
Then dropp'd me, and I lay for dead.

'How long I lay I know not. He
Was gone, when sense return'd to me;
And with him from my hand was gone
(This hand the gentle glove is on)
A little finger. I, for woe,

Lay back, and wish'd my life would go,
When to mine ear there came a sound
Of water through the grassy ground.
I rose, and on my hands and feet
I crept, and found that water sweet.

280

290

I steep'd me in it, all I could,

300

The freshness was so pure and good,

And wash'd the blood from out mine eyes,

And breath'd till I could better rise,

And then I stood a little space,

And look'd about through all that place.
No one I saw; but near me lay
My gear that had been hack'd away,
My broken sword, and haft of knife,
And red the grass was, nigh with life.
I could have wrung my hands to see
What mockery had been made of me.

My steed, a little farther on,

Lay stuck. He seem'd my last friend gone ;
But looking round again, I spied

Another, saddled. Heavy-eyed

He rais'd his neck from where he fed,

To hear me speak with voice half dead;
And seem'd to love, yet doubt my sight,
For he belong'd to that slain knight;
And stopping oft, he came to me.
Oh heavily and painfully

I clomb that steed, and paced him forth:
The task was not the trouble's worth.

310

320

'Slowly I rode till it was night:

I saw a turret by a light

A little from a murmuring town;
And as I near'd it, I got down
And sate me on a bank to rest

My wounds, and think what course was best,
For help they needed, flesh and bone,
And I was loth my name were known.
The pain they gave me made me speak
Against my will, I was so weak;
And at the little cry, I heard
A startled and a gentle word,
And then a call upon a name,

And tow'rds me many servants came
Out of a doorway in the wall,
And help'd me in to a great hall,
Where stood three ladies, waiting me
With brows of aching sympathy,

And hands that help'd me, ere we met;
Mine eyes at theirs turn'd glimmering wet.
Beauteous they were, sweet sisters all;
It seem'd a sudden heav'n, that hall.
The eldest had been walking forth
To mourn a knight of matchless worth
Slain by the very man I met:

She counted every wound a debt

And when they found I thought it shame,
They never tried to know my name,
Nor yet would have my face be seen,
But let the curtain blush between
The light of it; though half the day
They would extol me as I lay,
And every night a guard would keep
And lull me with a lute to sleep,
Singing low of all sweet things
That sort with shades and murmurings,
But none that either wept or laugh'd,
(And that, methought, was lovely craft)
Till into rest my grief and I
Went drooping with the harmony.
And when their care had heal'd me so,
That I could rise, and needs must go,
And would not wait a stronger hour,
They stay'd me not with wayward power
Nor any the least shade of look
That gives a hasting guest rebuke
But only begg'd that I would take
All comforts with me for their sake,
And set me on a noble steed,
And shook my hand; and then indeed
I saw their beauteous bosoms rise,
And farewell drops perplex their eyes,
But still they smil'd with chearful glee,
And said all happy words to me,

And those were surely angels three.'

'In Welcome's very Paradise,'

Thought sad Sir Graham; yet thine eyes
Could quit them to behold again
Halls that exclude thee with disdain !

The sullen, overlooking bower

Of devilish Pride's own paramour!'

'I rode,' Sir Edgar said, and sigh'd, Many a morn and even-tide

There follows a cancelled half-line:

380

390

400

410

Right soft and well and the remainder is missing.

AN UNFINISHED POEM IN HEROIC COUPLETS

[By the kindness of Mr. Francis Edwards I am enabled to print the following unfinished poem for the first time, from a MS. in his hands. The length of the poem and its incidental beauties seem to entitle it to a place, however belated, in the text of this edition, rather than in the notes. The MS. is on eight half-sheets of notepaper, six of them written on both sides, the versos being used for more or less rough notes towards the poem. The first six rectos yield a continuous and fairly finished poem (l. 1-137), into which are here inserted, between square brackets, conjecturally and for the sake of their beauty, two passages from the versos. Folios 7 (both sides) and 8 consist of experimental versions, mostly uncancelled. In the footnotes the rectos are numbered 1-8 and the versos ra, &c. Illegible words in the MS. are represented by a query; the blanks correspond to blanks in the MS. Many variant readings are suppressed. Lines 25-6 are themselves a variant of the last two lines of the Epilogue (also in heroic couplets) to 'The Descent of Liberty', 1815 (see p. 313) and lines 152 to the end may have been attempts towards the versification of what finally appeared as a prose stage-direction in that poem (see pp. 304-5). Fragments (e), (f), (g) support the suggestion that these heroic couplets were intended for 'The Descent of Liberty'.

IT was the time when Autumn with the thrill
Of Summer's farewell kiss was sparkling still,
And each new day had its renewed delights:
Fresh morns, and golden noons, and silver nights,
When forth at eve I took [left incomplete]
Calm with the finished labours of the day,

To breathe fresh air and fresher change of thought,
And while the balmy gales my temples sought,
To mark o'er all how Twilight's shadowy hand
Came with its gentle blessing on the land.

[The darkening trees that stood between the light
Tufted [
arrayed, a graceful sight,

?

In the blue void just moved their silv'ry plumes,
While ever and anon, subtle perfumes

By tricksome airs from bank and briar let free
Swept o'er the sense with long-drawn luxury.
Then would there come from Philomela's throat
The softest, clearest, lowliest, liquid note,
Piercing the calm, like [nectar del.]

Sucked up by sighing airs from founts of pearl.
Such mournful meaning seemed it, as expressed
By spirit suffering in that little breast
Magic transformed, or doomed for small offence
To range the year in gentle penitence.
Nature lay thrilled, and Silence, without might,
Sat with her finger up hushing Delight.]

Proud had the day gone past, profuse of gold,-
And welcomed like a conqueror of old,
As with a ling'ring pride he towered along,
With nature's pomp, full gales, and vocal song,
And waving palms, and living tap'stry hung
From tree to tree, by the strong breezes swung.

10

20

30

40

50

But now from vale to hill, from hill to sky
Was stillness all and wrapt obscurity

Till the moon rose; and as I gained a mound
That sloped into a dell with groves walled round,
I met, full gaze, her gentleness of light
Bending with calm attention through the night,
As though she came, with mute o'erlifted face,
To view the slumber of that lovely place.
Half dusk with shade it was and half o'erlaid
With the pure silver that the moonlight made,

Which from a neighb'ring brook might scarce be known

So dewy light and chrystal was its tone

But that the stream went babbling on its road

And had a sparkling motion as it flowed.

So [left incomplete]

The turf felt double to my lightsome feet
The very turf [cancelled]

And led me step by step [left incomplete]

It seemed a spot shut out from vulgar eyes

For spirits when they [chose del.] to leave the skies,
What time to celebrate a poet's birth

They pay a radiant visit to the earth

Sees the quick fires flash downward to the plain
And often [ ] and often looks behind
At the strange voices calling in the wind.
Often my path I turned, but oftener stood
And ran my sight around the circling wood,
Marking its massy outline in the sky
And fancying oft, with half expectant eye,
To see some fairy train [cut through]

Some gentle ghost, for whom such walks are made,
Might take its nightly wand'ring from the shade.
But most I loved to fix my placid look

Not on that shade, nor on that sparkling brook,

Nor yet on that fair light, with calmness fraught,
That seemed to look the silence into thought,
But on one star, sparkling and yet as still,
That in the holier distance seemed to thrill,
Touched haply by the hand that bade it rise
Or trembling to the sounds that woke the skies
And set the spheres afloat in mingling harmonies.
Once, I remember well, 'twas at the time
When Love beset me first and stole my rhime
I woke and from the pillow leaned to see
What light it was that kissed me as I lay
And shed upon the wall a christal ray,
When full upon my eyes with smiles of flame
Like a kind fair the radiant stranger came: