Of that famed wizard's mighty lore,
Oh, who could sing but he!

Through many a maze the winning song
In changeful passion led,

Till bent at length the listening throng
O'er Tristrem's dying bed.

His ancient wounds their scars expand
With agony his heart is wrung:
Oh, where is Isolde's lilye hand,
And where her soothing tongue?

She comes, she comes!-like flash of flare
Can lovers' footsteps fly:

She comes, she comes!-she only came
To see her Tristrem die.

She saw him die: her latest sigh

Joined in a kiss his parting breath:

The gentlest pair that Britain bare,
United are in death.

There paused the harp; its lingering sound
Died slowly on the ear;

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
Did many a gauntlet dry.

On Leader's stream, and Learmont's tower,
The mists of evening close;

In camp, in castle, or in bower
Each warrior sought repose.

Lord Douglas in his lofty tent,
Dreamed o'er the woeful tale;

When footsteps light, across the bent,
The warrior's ears assail.

He starts, he wakes:-" What, Richard, hol

Arise, my page, arise!

What venturous wight, at dead of night,

Dare step where Douglas lies?"

Then forth they rushed: by Leader's tide. A selcouth sight they see

A hart and hind pace side by side

As white as snow on Fairnalie.

Beneath the moon, with gesture proud,
They stately move and slow;

Nor scare they at the gathering crowd,
Who marvel as they go.

* Wondrous.

To Learmont's tower a message sped,
As fast as page might run;
And Thomas started from his bed,
And soon his clothes did on.

First he woxe pale, and then woxe red,
Never a word he spake but three ;---
"My sand is run; my thread is spun;
This sign regardeth me."

The elfin harp his neck around,
In minstrel guise, he hung;

And on the wind, in doleful sound,
Its dying accents rung.

Then forth he went; yet turned him oft

To view his ancient hall;

On the gray tower, in lustre soft,
The autumn moonbeams fall.

And Leader's waves, like silver sheen,
Danced shimmering in the ray:
In deepening mass, at distance seen,
Broad Soltra's mountains lay.

"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.
All as he turned him roun❜-
"Farewell to Leader's silver tide!
Farewell to Ercildoune!"

The hart and hind approached the place.
As lingering yet he stood;

And there, before Lord Douglas' face,
With them he crossed the flood.

Lord Douglas leaped on his berry-brown steed,
And spurred him the Leader o'er;

But, though he rode with lightning speed,
He never saw them more.

Some said to hill, and some to glen,

Their wondrous course had been;

But ne'er in haunts of living men
Again was Thomas seen.

WAR SONG

OF THE ROYAL EDINBURGH LIGHT DRAGOONS.

THE following War-song was written during the apprehension of an invs. sion. 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 constitu`tional measure of arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was nowhere more successful than in Edinburgh, which furnished & force of 3000 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,
The voice of battle 's on the breeze,--
Arouse ye, one and all!

From high Dunedin's towers we come,
A band of brothers true;

Our casques the leopard's spoils surround,
With Scotland's hardy thistle crowned;
We boast the red and blue.*

Though tamely crouch to Gallia's frown
Dull Holland's tardy train;

Their ravished toys though Romans mon,
Though gallant Switzers vainly spurn,
And, foaming, gnaw the chain;

Oh, had they marked the avenging call
Their brethren's† murder gave,
Disuniou ne'er their ranks had mown.
Nor patriot valour, desperate grown,
Sought freedom in the grave!

Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head,
In Freedom's temple born,

Dress our pale cheek in timid smile,
To hail a master in our isle,

Or brook a victor's scorn?

*The Royal colours.

The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss guards, on the fatal 10th 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 authorised the progressive injustice by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people on the Continent, at length have been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded, is half-enslaved.

No! though destruction o'er the land
Come pouring as a flood,

The sun, that sees our falling day,
Shall mark our sabres' deadly sway,
And set that night in blood.

For gold let Gallia's legions fight,
Or plunder's bloody gain;
Unbribed, unbought, our swords we draw,
To guard our King, to fence our Law,
Nor shall their edge be vain.

If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tricolor,

Or footstep of invader rude,

With rapine foul, and red with blood,
Pollute our happy shore,-

Then farewell, home! and farewell, friends!
Adieu, each tender tie!

Resolved, we mingle in the tide,
Where charging squadrons furious ride,
To conquer, or to die.

To horse! to horse! the sabres gleam;
High sounds our bugle call;
Combined by honour's sacred tis;
Our word is Laws and Liberty!
March forward, one and all

TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS OF

GERMAN BALLADS.

THE CHASE.

THIS and the following ballad were first published anonymously in a small book, entitled, "The Chase and William and Helen;" two ballads, from the German of Gctted Augustus Bürger. Edinburgh: Printed by Mundell and Son, Bank Close, for Manners and Miller, Parliament Square; and sold by T. Cadell, jun., and W. Davies, in the Strand, London. 1796. 4to. It goes generally by the title, "The Wild Huntsman."]

THIS is a translation, or rather an imitation of the "Wilde Jäger" of the German poet Bürger. The tradition upon which it is founded bears, that formerly a Wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, named Falkenburg, was so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and cruel, that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but accompanied it with the most unheard-of oppression upon the poor peasants who were under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, the people adopted a superstition, founded probably on the many various uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a German forest during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds; and the well-known cheer of the deceased hunter, the sounds of his horse's feet, and the rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also distinctly discriminated; but the phantoms are rarely, if ever visible. Once, as a benighted Chasseur heard this infernal chase pass by him, at the sound of the halloo with which the Spectre Huntsman cheered his hounds, he could not refrain from crying, “Glück zu Falkenburg!" [Good sport to ye, Falkenburg!] "Dost thou wish me good sport?" answered a hoarse voice; "thou shalt share the game;" and there was thrown at him what seemed to be a huge piece of foul carrion. The daring Chasseur lost two of his best horses soon after, and never perfectly recovered the personal effects of this ghostly greeting. This tale, though told with some variations, is universally believed all over Germany.

The French had a similar tradition concerning an aërial hunter, whe infested the forest of Fountainbleau.