"Kings seem to grant what God denies,— Trust my prophetic breath,

(So the indignant dame replies),

That Horse shall prove thy Death!”

She spoke, and with a voice so keen,
It searched his inmost soul;
And caused a storm of fearful spleen,
Through his dark brain to roll.

Half credulous, half wildly brave,
Now doubt, now rage prevails:
He stood, like a black suspended wave
Struck by two adverse gales.

A doubt, by superstition nursed,
Made all just thoughts recede;
Frantic he waved his sword, and pierced
His life-preserving steed!

“Thy prophecies I thus destroy,

(He cried), thou wretched crone; Threats on my days no more employ, But tremble for thy own."

Striding away, his steed he left

In his pure blood to roll: He quickly, of all aid bereft,

Breathed out his nobler soul.

The boastful knight, now gay with pride,

By his successful crimes,
Floating on folly's golden tide,
Prospered in stormy times.

Ungrateful both to man and beast,
His sovereign he betrayed;

And lent, ere Harold's empire ceased,
The Norman treacherous aid.

379

The Norman tyrant much caressed

This proud and abject slave;
And lands, by worthier lords possessed,
For his base succour gave.

Now years, since that eventful hour
In which his courser bled,

Had poured increase of wealth and power
On his aspiring head :

As near, with much enlarged estate,

To his domain he drew,

He chanced before his castle gate,

A signal scene to view.

The scene his war-steeled nerves could shock ;·

Seated on mossy stones,

The Widow, leaning 'gainst a rock,

Wept o'er his Horse's bones!

Enraged, from his new steed he vaults,
Quick with his foot to spurn

These bones, that bid his bloody faults
To his base mind return.

The head, now bleached, his proud foot strikes
With such indignant speed,
The bone its fierce aggressor spikes ;-

"T is now his turn to bleed.

The trivial wound, the wrathful knight

Disdains to search with care,

But soon he finds, the wound though slight,
Death lurks in ambush there.

Now to his bed of sorrow bound,

By penitential pain,

He seems, by his heart-reaching wound,

A purer mind to gain.

Near to his couch he bids, with care,
The widow to be brought,
And speaks to her with softened air,
His self-correcting thought.

"True prophetess! I feel thee now;
So God my crimes forgive,
As I with thee true concord vow
In comfort mayst thou live.

"Behold upon this chartered scroll,
A pictured cottage stand;
I give it thee with all my soul,
With its adjacent land.

"The only rent I would assume,
Be this: At close of day,
Sit thou, with pity, on my tomb,
And for my spirit pray!

"That tomb be raised by sculpture's aid,

To warn men from my guilt; My horse's head beside me laid, Whose blood I basely spilt!"

He spoke, he died. The tomb was made ;

His statue looked to Heaven:

And daily then the widow prayed,

His crimes might be forgiven!

THE LUCK OF EDEN-HALL.*

Ir is currently believed in Scotland, and on the Borders, that he who has courage to rush upon a Fairy festival, and snatch away the drinking-cup, shall find it prove to him a cornucopia of good fortune, if he can bear it in safety across a running stream. A goblet is still carefully preserved in Eden-hall, Cumberland, which is supposed to have been seized, at such a banquet, by one of the ancient family of Musgrave. The Fairy train vanished, crying aloud—

"If that glass either break or fall,

Farewell the luck of Eden-hall!"

From this prophecy, the goblet took the name it bears,―The Luck of Eden-hall.-Scott's Border Minstrelsy.-W.

ON Eden's wild romantic bowers,

The summer moonbeams sweetly fall,
And tint with yellow light the towers
The stately towers of Eden-hall.
There, lonely in the deepening night,
A lady at her lattice sits,
And trims her taper's wavering light,

And tunes her idle lute by fits.

* For this pleasing ballad, the Editor is indebted to the obliging offer of its author, Mr. J. H. WIFFEN, the translator of Tasso, and Garcilasso de la Vega.

But little can her idle lute

Beguile the weary moments now; And little seems the lay to suit

Her wistful eye and anxious brow.

For, as the chord her finger sweeps,

Oft-times she checks her simple song, To chide the froward chance that keeps Lord Musgrave from her arms so long.

And listens, as the wind sweeps by,

His steed's familiar step to hear—
Peace, beating heart! 't was but the cry
And foot-fall of the distant deer.

In, lady, to thy bower; fast weep
The chill dews on thy cheek so pale ;
Thy cherished hero lies asleep—
Asleep in distant Russendale.

The noon was sultry, long the chase-
And when the wild stag stood at bay,
BURBEK reflected from its face

The purple lights of dying day.

Through many a dale must Musgrave hie-
Up many a hill his courser strain,

Ere he behold, with gladsome eye,
His verdant bowers, and halls again.

But twilight deepens-o'er the wolds
The yellow moonbeam rising plays,
And now the haunted forest holds
The wanderer in its bosky maze.

No ready vassal rides in sight;

He blows his bugle, but the call Roused Echo mocks: farewell to night The home-felt joys of Eden-hall!