And lifted his barred aventayle,
To hail the Monk of St Mary's aisle.

IV.

"The Ladye of Branksome greets thee by me;
Says, that the fated hour is come,

And that to-night I shall watch with thee,
To win the treasure of the tomb."--
From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,
With toil his stiffened limbs he reared;
A hundred years had flung their snows
On his thin locks and floating beard.

66

V.

And strangely on the Knight looked he,
And his blue eyes gleamed wild and wide;
And, darest thou, warrior! seek to see
What heaven and hell alike would hide?
My breast, in belt of iron pent,

With shirt of hair and scourge of thorn;
For threescore years, in penance spent,

My knees those flinty stones have worn;
Yet all too little to atone

For k owing what should ne'er be known.
Wouldst thou thy every future year

In ceaseless prayer and penance drie,
Yet wait thy latter end with fear-
Then, daring warrior, follow me."

VI.

"Penance, father, will I none; Prayer know I hardly one;

For mass or prayer can i rarely tarry,

Save to patter an Ave Mary,

When I ride on a Border foray:

Other prayer can I none;

So speed me my errand, an'l let me be gone."

VII.

Again on the Knight looked the Churchman old,

And again he sighed heavily;

For he had himself been a warrior bold,

And fought in Spain and Italy.

And he thought on the days that were long since by,

When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high:

Now, slow and faint, he led the way,

Where, cloistered round, the garden lay;

The pillared arches were over their head,

And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead.

VIII.

Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright,

Glistened with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor floweret, glistened there,

But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair.

* Visor of the helmet.

The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon,
Then into the night he looked forth;
And red and bright the streamers light
Were dancing in the glowing north.
So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start;
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart.

He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light.

IX.

By a steel-clenched postern door,

They entered now the chancel tall;
The darkened roof rose high aloof

On pillars, lofty, and light, and small;
The key-stone, that locked each ribbed aisle,
Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille;

*

The corbels were carved grotesque and grim
And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim,
With base and with capital flourished around,
Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

X.

Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven,
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,
Around the screened altar's pale;

And there the dying lamps did burn,

Before thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant Chief of Otterburne,

And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale !

O fading honours of the dead!

O high ambition, lowly laid!

XI.

The moon on the east oriel shone,

Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand,
"Twixt poplars straight the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot had twined;
Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow-wreaths to stone.
The silver light, so pale and faint,
Showed many a prophet, and many saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his Cross of Red
Triumphant Michael brandishèd,

And trampled the Apostate's pride.

The moon-beam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

XII.

They sate them down on a marble stone,
A Scottish monarch slept below;

• The projections from which the arches spring, usually cut in a fantastic

Thus spoke the Monk in solemn tone :-
"I was not always a man of woe;
For Paynim countries I have trod,
And fought beneath the Cross of God;
Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear,
And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.

XIII.

"In these far climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me;
And, Warrior, I could say to thee

The words, that cleft Eildon hills in three,

And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:

But to speak them were a deadly sin;

And for having but thought them my heart within, A treble penance must be done.

XIV.

"When Michael lay on his dying bed,
His conscience was awakened;

He bethought him of his sinful deed,
And he gave me a sign to come with speed:
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.
The words may not again be said,

That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his grave.

XV.

"I swore to bury his Mighty Book, That never mortal might therein look;

And never to tell where it was hid,

Save at his chief of Branksome's need;

And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.

I buried him on St Michael's night,

When the bell tolled one and the moon was bright;

And I dug his chamber among the dead,

When the floor of the chancel was stained red.

That his patron's Cross might over him wave,

And scare the fiends from the Wizard's grave.

XVI.

"It was a night of woe and dread,

When Michael in the tomb I laid!

Strange sounds along the chancel passed,

The banners waved without a blast,"

Still spoke the Monk, when the bell tolled oue!--

I tell you, that a braver man

Than William of Deloraine, good at need,

Against a foe ne'er spurred a steed;

B

Yet somewhat was he chilled with dread,
And his hair did bristle upon his head.

XVII.

"Lo, Warrior! now, the Cross of Red
Points to the grave of the mighty dead.
Within it burns a wondrous light,

To chase the spirits that love the night:
That lamp shall burn unquenchably,

Until the eternal doom shall be."

Slow moved the Monk to the broad flag-stone,

Which the bloody Cross was traced upon:

He pointed to a secret nook;

An iron bar the Warrior took;

And the Monk made a sign with his withered hami.

The grave's huge portal to expand.

XVIII.

With beating heart to the task he went;

His sinewy frame o'er the grave-stone bent;

With bar of iron heaved amain,

Till the toil-drops fell from his brows, like rain.
It was by dint of passing strength,

That he moved the massy stone at length.

I would you had been there, to see
How the light broke forth so gloriously,
Streamed upward to the chancel roof,
And through the galleries far aloof!
No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright:
It shone like heaven's own blessed light,
And, issuing from the tomb,

Showed the Monk's cowl, and visage pale,
Danced on the dark-brow'd Warrior's mail,
And kissed his waving plume.

ΧΙΧ.

Before their eyes the Wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver rolled,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,

Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:
His left hand held his Book of Might;
A silver cross was in his right;

The lamp was placed beside his knee:
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled was his face :-
They trusted his soul had gotten grace.

XX.

Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,

And neither known remorse or awe;
Yet now remorse and awe he owned;

His breath came thick, his head swam round,
When this strange scene of death he saw.
Bewildered and unnerved he stood,

And the priest prayed fervently and loud:
With eyes averted prayed he;

He might not endure the sight to see,
Of the man he had loved so brotherly.

XXI.

And when the priest his death-prayer had prayed,
Thus unto Deloraine he said:-

"Now, speed thee what thou hast to dɔ,

Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue;

For those, thou mayst not look upon,

Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!"
Then Deloraine, in terror, took

From the cold hand the Mighty Book,

With iron clasped, and with iron bound:

He thought, as he took it, the dead man frowned;

But the glare of the sepulchral light,

Perchance had dazzled the Warrior's sight.

XXII.

When the huge stone sunk o'er the tomb,

The night returned in double gloom;

For the moon had gone down, and the stars were few; And, as the Knight and Priest withdrew,

With wavering steps and dizzy brain,

They hardly might the postern gain.

'Tis said, as through the aisles they passed,
They heard strange noises on the blast;
And through the cloister-galleries small,

Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs, and laughter louder ran,
And voices unlike the voice of man;

As if the fiends kept holiday,

Because these spells were brought to day.

I cannot tell how the truch may be;

I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

""

ΧΧΠΙ.

Now, hie thee hence," the Father said, "And, when we are on death-bed laid,

O may our dear Ladye, and sweet St John,
Forgive our souls for the deed we have done!"-
The monk returned him to his cell,

And many a prayer and penance sped;
When the.convent met at the noontide bell-
The monk of St Mary's aisle was dead!

Before the cross was the body laid,

With hands clasped fast, as if still he prayed.

XXIV.

The Knight breathed free in the morning wind,
And strove his hardihood to find:

He was glad when he passed the tombstones gray,
Which girdle round the fair Abbaye;