Or dream of greeting, peace, or truce,
With excommunicated Bruce!
Yet will I grant to end debate,
Thy sainted voice decide his fate."

The Abbot seemed with eye severe
The hardy chieftain's speech to hear;
Then on King Robert turned the
Monk,

But twice his courage came and sunk,

Confronted with the hero's look;
Twice fell his eye, his accents shook;
Like man by prodigy amazed,
Upon the King the Abbot gazed;
Then o'er his pallid features glance
Convulsions of ecstatic trance;
His breathing came more thick and
fast,

And from his pale blue eyes were

"Thrice vanquished on the battle plain,

Thy followers slaughtered, fled, or ta'en,

A hunted wanderer on the wild,
On foreign shores a man exiled,
Disowned, deserted, and distressed,-
I bless thee, and thou shalt be
blessed!

Blessed in the hall and in the field,
Under the mantle as the shield.
Avenger of thy country's shame,
Restorer of her injured fame,
Blessed in thy sceptre and thy
sword,

De Bruce, fair Scotland's rightful Lord,

Blessed in thy deeds and in thy fame, What lengthened honors wait thy name!

In distant ages, sire to son

Shall tell thy tale of freedom won,
And teach his infants, in the use
Of earliest speech, to falter Bruce.
Go, then, triumphant! sweep along
Thy course, the theme of many a
song!

The Power, whose dictates swell my breast,

Hath blessed thee, and thou shalt be blessed!"

*Henry de Joyeuse, Comte du Bouchage, Frère puiné du Duc de Joyeuse, tué à Coutras. Un jour qu'il passoit à Paris à quatre heures du matin, près du Convent des Capucins, après avoir passé la nuit en débauche, il s'imagina que les Anges chantoient Matines dans le Couvent. Frappé de cette idée, il se fit Capucin, sous le noin de Frère-Ange.' Cette anecdote est tirée des Notes sur l'Henriade." - Mé. moires de Sully, Livre Dixième, Note 67.

66 My knee is stiff with steel, And will not bend it well. 'My sins!' A peerless knight like me, What should he have to tell?

"I never turned in fight

Till treason wrought my harm, Nor then, before my shattered sword Weighed down my shattered arm.

"I never broke mine oath,

Forgot my friend or foe, Nor left a benefit unpaid

With weal, or wrong with woe.

Keep thee from me!' * I said, Still, ere my blows began, Nor gashed mine unarmed enemy, t Nor smote a felled man,

“Observing every rule

Of generous chivalry;

And maid and matron ever found A champion leal in me.

"What gallantly I won

In war, I did not hoard, But spent as gallantly in peace, With neighbors round my board."

"Thy neighbors, son? The serfs

For miles who tilled thy ground?" "Tush, father, nay! The high-born knights

For many a league around.

"They were my brethren sworn, In battle and in sport. "Twere wondrous shame, should one like me

With beggar kernes consort!

"Clean have I made my shrift,"
He said; and so he ceased,
And bore a blithe and guileless cheer,
That sore perplexed the priest.

With words both soft and keen,
He searched his breast within.
Still said he, "So I sinnèd not,"

Or, "That is, sure, no sin." *The regular form of announcement that a single combat had begun between knights.

"To smyte a wounded man that may not stonde, God deffende me from such a shame." Wyt thon well, Syr Gawayn, I wyl neuer smvte a fellyd knight."- - Prose Romance of King Arthur.