Lion and tiger; there it lay,

The winsome lady's glove!

Fair Cunigonde said, with a lip of scorn,

To the knight DELORGES" If the love you have sworn Were as gallant and leal as you boast it to be,

I might ask you to bring back that glove to me!"

The Knight left the place where the lady sate;
The Knight he has passed through the fearful gate;
The lion and tiger he stoop'd above,

And his fingers have closed on the lady's glove!

All shuddering and stunn'd, they beheld him there-
The noble knights and the ladies fair;

But loud was the joy and the praise the while
He bore back the glove with his tranquil smile!

With a tender look in her softening eyes,
That promised reward to his warmest sighs,
Fair Cunigonde rose her knight to grace-
He tossed the glove in the lady's face!
"Nay, spare me the guerdon, at least," quoth he;
And he left for ever that fair ladye!

THE KNIGHT OF TOGGENBURG.

IN this beautiful ballad, Schiller is but little indebted to the true Legend of Toggenburg, which is nevertheless well adapted to Narrative Poetry. Ida, wife of Henry Count of Toggenburg, was suspected by her husband of a guilty attachment to one of his vassals, and ordered to be thrown from a high wall. Her life, however, was miraculously saved; she lived for some time as a female hermit in the neighbouring forest, till she was at length discovered, and her innocence recognised. She refused to live again with the lord whose jealousy had wronged her, retired to a convent, and was acknowledged as a saint after her death. This Legend, if abandoned by Schiller, has found a German Poet not unworthy of its simple beauty and pathos. Schiller has rather founded his poem, which sufficiently tells its own tale, upon a Tyrolese Legend, similar to the one that yet consecrates Rolandseck and Nonnenwörth on the Rhine. Hoffmeister implies that, unlike "The Diver,” and some others of Schiller's ballads, "The Knight of Toggenburg dispenses with all intellectual and typical meaning, draws its poetry from feeling, and has no other purpose than that of moving the heart. Still, upon feeling itself are founded those ideal truths which make up the true philosophy of a Poet. In these few stanzas is represented the poetical chivalry of an age-the contest between the earthly passion and the religious devotion, which constantly agitated human life in the era of the Crusades. How much of deep thought has been employed to arouse the feelings-what intimate conviction of the moral of the Middle Ages, in the picture of the Knight looking up to the convent of the Nun bowing calmly to the vale!

"KNIGHT, a sister's quiet love,
Gives my heart to thee!

Ask me not for other love,

For it paineth me!

66

Calmly can I greet thee now,
Calmly see thee go;
Calmly ever, why dost thou
Weep in silence, so?"

Sadly (not a word he said!)---
To the heart she wrung,

Sadly clasped he once the maid,-
On his steed he sprung!

Up, my men of Swisserland!

Up awake the brave!

Forth they go-the Red-Cross band,
To the Saviour's grave!

High your deeds, and great your fame,

Heroes of the Tomb!

Glancing through the carnage came

Many a dauntless plume.

Terror of the Moorish foe,

Toggenburg, thou art!

But thy heart is heavy! Oh,
Heavy is thy heart!

Heavy was the load his breast

For a twelvemonth bore:
Never could his trouble rest!
And he left the shore.
Lo! a ship on Joppa's strand,

Breeze and billow fair;

On to that belovëd land,

Where she breathes the air!

Knocking at her castle-gate

Was the pilgrim heard;

Woe the answer from the grate!
Woe the thunder-word!

"She thou seekest lives—a Nun!
To the world she died,

When, with yester-morning's sun, Heaven receiv'd a Bride!"

From that day, his father's hall
Ne'er his home may be ;

Helm and hauberk, steed and all,
Evermore left he!

Where his castle-crowned height

Frowns the valley down,

Dwells unknown the hermit-knight,

In a sackcloth gown.

Rude the hut he builds him there,

Where his eyes may view Wall and cloister glisten fair Dusky lindens through.1

There, when dawn was in the skies,

Till the eve-star shone,

Sate he with mute wistful eyes,

Sate he there-alone !

Looking to the cloister, still,

Looking forth afar,

Looking to her lattice-till

Clink'd the lattice-bar :

Till-a passing glimpse allow'd-
Paused her image pale,

Calm and angel-mild, and bow'd
Meekly towards the vale.

Then the watch of day was o'er,

Then, consoled awhile,

Down he lay, to greet once more
Morning's early smile.

Days and years are gone, and still
Looks he forth afar,

Uncomplaining, hoping―till

Clinks the lattice-bar :

Till-a passing glimpse allow'd

Paused her image pale,
Calm and angel-mild, and bow'd

Meekly towards the vale.

So, upon that lonely spot,

Sate he, dead at last,

With the look where life was not

Towards the casement cast!

1 In this description (though to the best of our recollection it has escaped the vigilance of his many commentators) Schiller evidently has his eye and his mind upon the scene of his early childhood at Lorch, a scene to which in later life he was fondly attached. The village of Lorch lies at the foot of a hill crowned with a convent, before the walls of which springs an old linden or lime tree. The ruined castle of Hohenstaufen is in the immediate neighbourhood.