Eyes hung the empty walls, weak laughing sounds
Of triumph o'er her shame, pervaded wide
The tranquil air, all with herself at league
Shook scorns upon herself. Dim evening falls
O'er earth and sky, slow flits the shadowy night.
"Slaves there!" she cried, "my steed! alone I ride."
She, wont to find her every look a law,
Now almost wonders all so swift obey.

The moon's white sickle tenderly array'd
With dubious lustre the grey heavens; scarce tinged
The dew-webs, whiten'd not the yellow crown
Of the unwaving forest; ignorant,

Or with feign'd ignorance 'guiling even herself,
Long upon Samor's track the Lady rides.

Her softness like the nightingale's first notes
After rude evening, o'er his passion steals:
He cast not off Rowena's hand, it fell
As from a dead man's grasp; slow rose his head
From its fair zone, as from a bank of snow
The winter traveller, by its smoothness guiled
Almost to deathful sleep; he dares not now
Welcome that heavenly visitant, nor could,
Nor would he her mild rescue bid depart.
Nor dares he now with chill abhorrence shrink
From that impassion'd Lady; on his lips
Clung wretched, pale, beseechingness, that framed
Nor word nor sound. But time for thought in her
Gave time for shame, for struggling pride gave time.
"Thou deem'st me loose, wild, wanton, deem'st me

come

To lure thee with light sweets of lawless love,
Hunting mine own shame through the midnight

woods.

Oh false, all false.-How thee shall I persuade,
Ay me! that scarce persuade myself, 't was chance,

That led me thoughtless, hopeless - did I say
Hopeless? yet scorn not thou, the lightest won
Are oft best won. Oh why, ere now so mild,
So gentle, why so stern, so ghastly still?"
"Thou lovest my pride, my honour, my renown;
Now, Queen Rowena, mayst thou do a deed
Shall make my pride thine own, make thee my fount
Of honour, all my noontide of renown
On thee in all its golden brilliance shine;
And if henceforth man's voice cry out, High deeds
Hath Samor's arm achieved, thy heart shall bound
And thy lips answer, Mine! all mine!' and I
Will bless thee, thank thee, praise thee for that truth."

"Tis not a stag that couches on the heath;
Hope on her dim cheek brightens, from her steed
Soft she dismounts, she ruffles not the fern,
The moss springs printless up beneath her feet,
So light her gliding to that slumbering man.
She knows him, she starts back.-"Oh, came I here, "T was fate, 't was ministration of bad spirits,
Lost and abased, him, only him to seek,
That answers mine immodest heart with flight,
With scorn, perchance with hate! yet wonderous he,
Wonderous in rest as action! Sleep'st thou calm,
While numberless as these brown heath-spikes rise
Legions of spears around thee, for thy blood
Leagued in one furious thirst? Unwise and rash!
To-night thou slumber'st not unguarded, sleep;
And if Rowena mingle with thy dreams,
Sleep calmly, breathingly as now! He wakes-
Oh, hateful even in slumber that harsh name
Grates on his sense."-His eyes unfold, nor start,
So soft the vision; wonder's self is calm,
And quaffs it in with mild unshrinking gaze.
Her long bright hair, like threads of silver streak
The moonlight, her fair forehead's marble arch
Wild joyous fearfulness, ecstatic doubt,
Bathe with the dewiness of melting snow,
Ere yet unblanch'd its stainless glitter pure.
Oh, soft and slow that melody of mien
Steals o'er the slumberer, ere the reason woke,
The sense was drunken, one hand folded hers
That answer'd not its pressure, nor withdrew,
Tremulous, yet motionless: his rising head
Found on her other arm such pillowing soft,
A the fond ringdove on its mate's smooth down.
They spake not, moved not. 'Tis the noon of night,
Hour known to Samor not by sign or sound
Of man's wise art to mark the fleeting time,
Nor changing of the starry heavens; but e'er
By motion of the secret soul, by calm
Habitual sliding into the soothed heart,
Distinct from turbulent day and weary eve,
Emeric's own hour, her consecrated spot

In his life's wilderness. She comes, she comes,
The clouds have dropt her from their silvery folds;
The mild air wafts her, the rank earth impure
Stainless she skims, distrust, doubt, fear, no place
Find in the sinless candour of her mien.
In languid soft security she melts

On Samor's fever'd soul, she fills his sense,

O'er proud Rowena past his solemn voice
Tremendously delightful, as the sound
Of thunder over Jove's bolt-minist'ring bird,
That sternly rocks on th' agitated air.
"Speak, speak; 't is hours, 't is years until 't is done."
Return'd one brief, one powerful word-" Depart."
She struggled yet to wear the lofty light

That flush'd her brow; she struggled, and she fell
Her white arms round his neck. Light as the breeze
Pass'd over his her cheek. Then back
She started, seized her courser's rein; far, far
The rocks gave answer to its trampling hoofs.

To solitude, to peace, ah, not to peace!
Was Samor left; large dewy beads distil
From his full brow, as from the forest leaves
The sunny icicle: fierce, merciless,
Relentless inquest o'er himself he holds,
In him a sin in thought is sin in deed.

"And I, that on the frantic waxen wings
Of mine own arrogance, have deem'd my soul
Kindred and heritor of that rich bliss

That bathes the Angels' radiant wings in strength;
That wander'd o'er this sublunary wild
As with a chartered scorn, that mix'd with men
But in disdainful mastery to o'er-rule

Their dim and wavering destinies, that took
With noble violence admiring earth,
O'er me hath passion wound her silken nets;
And that soft Dalila, lascivious sin,

Shorn my full honours. Now, who clothed my steps
With darkness, dread, and danger, hung my arms
With lightning, kept at bay the envious death
That feasts upon the famous of mankind;
God, God abandons me. So farewell pride,

From gore by treason shed, should dim its gleam;
And when I burst my iron toils, and won
My dangerous safety, how indignant joy
Stood bathing thy stern brow. Brave Anglian, thou
But thou, of German race, to faint sloth chill'st
My sword's quick wrath."-" What, Samor out of love
With strife, with music of conflicting steel?
Hath Abisa's pale blood so quench'd his fire?
Were't not I now could force my glorious will,

And with pride farewell strength, the burning hope, Yea, I could sue thee, Briton, for the joy.
Glad agonies, brave bliss of holy war,

Farewell, soft midnights, delicate regards
Fix'd on me from fond eyes yet bright from heaven,
Mild agitations of the purer sense.

Fresh bloomings of my faded joys, ye dreams
Lovelier than actual bliss, as heaven than earth,
Emeric abandons me. For how can snow
Drop on his foul earth stainless? how canst thou
Visit unsullied thy sad shrine defiled,
Or beam upon this lust-benighted heart?
Oh never felt before, the fear to front

Mine own past life, the ignoble shame that burns
At human sight, and memory that ne'er sleeps;
Heart-sickening at its own deformities,
A miserable welcome bid I ye;

Come, dismal comforters, faint-footed guides,
Teach me the hate of life, the dread of death."

And Samor wander'd on, not now with scope
Resolved, and steady purpose that absorb'd
And fix'd on one stern centre all his soul,
True as the arrow to its mark. Now where,
Whither, is all indifferent; he pursues
The wildering of the forest track, the brook
Winding its lucid error: two sad days

Thou wilt not credit, air hath been defiled
With creeping whispers cold, that I, I shrunk
To second in his dangers that brave boy,
As though Argantyr would partake a foe,
And with division spiritless and base,
Mete out his province in one man to slay,
Hear; Well the famous Anglian won his half
Of that great conquest!' But I have thee now
Whole, undivided, now, or man, or more,
If aught be mortal in thee, guard that spot,
My steel will search it."—" Samor is not now
As Samor was, but knows not yet to scorn
Such brave allurements." Forth his anlace flash'd,
But not as wont, uplooks he to the sky;
He thinks not now, oh, if I fall, float near,
My Emeric, that no Angel's voice but thine
Welcome thy Samor to his opening heaven:
And if I vanquish, Britain and the Lord
Take to your hecatomb one Saxon more.

But on Argantyr sprung, as wanton boy
To the cool health of summer streamlet pure:
Around, above, beneath his winged sword
Leaps in its fiery joy, red, fierce and far
As from a midnight furnace start the sparks.
As brazen statue on proud palace top,
Shakes off the pelting tempest, so endured
Samor, but not in patient hope austere

And chance hath led him back to Wye's green bank. Of victory; but habitual skill and power

Sudden before him swept in gallant pack,

Fleet hounds, whose keen scent quaff'd the morning dews.

Sole on their track a noble huntsman bow'd

Protracting long the cold indifferent strife;
Till twice that sword that in its downward sweep
Flash'd the white sunlight, cloudy rose and dim
With ominous purple: then his nature burst
Its languid bonds, not front alone to front;

O'er his steed's high-curved neck. But when he saw But soul to soul the riot of the fight

Samor, that scarce his coming mark'd or heard
He vaulted from his uncheck'd steed so fleet,
The courser seem'd to feel it not, but on
Went stately bounding down the glen. But he
Unslung his bugle horn, his hunting-spear
Cast to the winds, and held his burnish'd sword
To heaven, as though to paragon its light.

"Oh, thunderer Thor, but one bold prayer of mine
E'er scaled thy heavens, and that, munificent,
I thank thee for thy granting. Samor now,
Now Christian, now baptized in German blood,
Avenger, we are met, and ere we part,
Earth must be ruddier with some blood of ours."

"Noble Argantyr, deem not thou unknown Thy name, thy presence, nor forgot, how thou, When Murther quaff'd his glut on Ambri plain, Didst hold thy jealous steel aloft, lest ștain

They mingle, like to giddy chariot wheels
The whirling of their swords, as fierce the din
Of buckler brast, helm riven, and breastplate cloven
As when the polar wind the ice-field rends.
Such nobleness sublime of hideous fight
From Ilion's towers her floating mantled dames
Saw not; nor Thebes, when Capaneus call'd down
Jove's thunder, and disdain'd its fall; nor pride
Of later Bards, when mad Orlando met
On that frail bridge the giant Sarzan king,
And with him in the boiling flood dash'd down,
Till that fond eagerness, that brave delight
O'erpower'd frail nature, breathless each, and each
Careless, yet conscious of deep trenching wounds,
For admiration paused, for hope, for power
To satiate the unwearying strong desire.

Lo, the far hills Argantyr first descried
Radiant with spearmen, and he cried, "Away,

A broad irregular duskiness. Aloof
Snowdon, the triple-headed giant, soars,
Clouds rolling half-way down his rugged sides.

Slow as he trod amid their dizzy heights,
Their silences and dimly mingling sounds,
Rushing of torrents, roar of prison'd winds;

From their high calm indifference to sense
Of our light motions. Simple truth severe
Best seemeth aged lips; oh, holy famed

And sage, how ill strong Wisdom's voice melts down
To the faint chime of flattery."-" Poor of pride!
Feeble of hope! thou seest thyself forlorn,
An hunted wanderer in thy native land.

O'er all his wounded soul flow'd strength, and pride, I see thee clad in victory and revenge,

And hardihood; again his front soar'd up

To commerce with the skies, and frank and bold
His majesty of step his rugged path
Imprinted. So in old poetic faith
Hyperion from his native Delian bowers,
'Mid the rich music of those sisters nine,
Walk'd the bright heights of Helicon, and shook
His forehead's clustering glories wide, and flush'd
The smoothness of his fair immortal face

Thy glory sailing wide on all the winds,
Beautiful with thy blessings at thy feet
Thy own fair Britain, Fate so freely spreads,
Her music volume for my sight."—"Oh, blind,
And ignorant as blind our insect race!

The mole would count the sunbeams, the blind worm
Search the hid jewels in the depths of earth,
And man, dim dreamer, would invade the heavens,
Self-seated in the Almighty's councils, read

With purple Godhead. Whence, ye mountains, whence The secrets of Omniscience, yea, with gaze
The spirit that within your secret caves

Familiar scrutinize the Inscrutable.

Holds kindred with man's soul? Is 't that your pomp I tell thee, Merlin, that the soul of man

Of exaltation, your aërial crowns

In their heaven-scaling rivalry cast forth
Bold sympathies of loftiness, and scorn
Contagious? or in that your purer air,
Where fresh and virgin from its golden fount,
Lies the fine light at morning, or at eve
Melts upward and resolves itself from earth,
And with its last clear trembling round ye clings:
The soul, unwound its coarse material chains,
Basks in its own divinity, and feels

There in the verge and portal of the heavens
The neighbourhood of brighter worlds unseen?
Where the blue Glasslyn hurries her fleet course
To wanton on the yellow level sands,
On either side in sheer ascent abrupt
The rocks, like barriers that in elder time
Wall'd the huge cities of the Anakim,
Upblacken to the sky, whose tender blue
With mild relief salutes th' o'erlabour'd sight.
There on the scanty slippery way, that winds
With the stream's windings, Samor loiters on.
But who art thou, that in the Avenger's path
Standest in dark serenity? what joy
Instinct amid thy thick black locks reveals
The full voluptuous quietude within?
Oh, Prophet! in thy wanderings wide and far
Amid the pregnant hours of future time,
Haply the form of Samor, disarray'd
Calamity's sad vesture, hath appear'd
In plenitude of glory. Hence thine eye
With recognition glad and bright salutes
The Man of Fate. To earth the Prophet old
Bow'd down, then look'd he on the waters dark,
Then upward to the mountains. Stony earth,
Within thy secret bosom feel'st not thou

A wonderous presence? dwells not, thou blue stream,
Under thy depth of waves a silent awe?—
Yea, Snowdon, lift thou up in sternest pride
Thy cloudy mantled brow; ye know him all,
Ye know the Avenger."-" Merlin, mock not thou
Thy fellow-creature of the dust, the child
Of sin and sorrow, with o'erlabour'd phrase,
Abasing the immortal elements

Is destiny on earth! God gave us limbs
To execute, and intellect to will
Or good or evil, and his unseen Spirit
Our appetites of holiness, else faint

And wavering, doth corroborate: hence man's prides,
Man's glories, and man's virtues all are God's.

If yet this heart unwearied may bear on,

Nor from its holy purpose faintly swerve,
The Lord be praised, its fate is pride and joy.
But if, and oh the peril! it play false
Its country's lofty hazard, shall it shift
On wayward destiny its sloth and sin?
Evil is not, where man no evil wills,
And good is not, where will not man and God.”

"Chief wise as brave, as to our feeble sight
Yon pebble's slight circumference, the Past,
The Present, and the future of this world
Are to the All-seeing vision; oft doth Heaven
In sign and symbol duskily reveal
The unborn future; oft Fate's chariot wheels
Are harbinger'd by voices that proclaim
The fashion of their coming; gifted Seers
Feel on their lips articulate the deeds
Of later days, and dim oracular sights
Crowd the weak eyes, till pall'd attention faint
To dizziness."-"Oh, Merlin, time hath been
When in the guilty cities the Lord's voice
Hath spoken by his Prophets, hath made quail
By apparitions ominous and dire
Strong empires on their unassailed height.
But oh, for us of this devoted isle,
Drench'd with the vials of Almighty wrath,
To gaze up, and beseech the clouds to rain
Bright miracles on this poor speck of earth."

"Shame choke thy speech, despondent slanderer
thee

Avenger! this from thee! Away! my lips
Burn with the fire of heaven, my heart flows o'er
With gladness and with glory. Peerless Isle,
How dost thou sit amid thy blue domain
Of ocean like a sceptred Queen! The bonds

Like flax have wither'd from thy comely limbs.
Thou, the strong freedom of thy untamed locks
Shaking abroad, adornest God's fair world.
Thou noblest Eden of man's fallen state,
Apart and sever'd from the common earth,
Even like a precious jewel, deep and far
In the abyss of time thy dawn of pride
Still with a fuller and more constant blaze
Grows to its broad meridian, and Time's rolls
Are silent of thy setting. Oh, how fair
The steps of freemen in thy vales of peace;

Heroic vauntings, sumptuous imagings,
Set in its veil of darkness from their sight.
The filmless, the pellucid heaven above
One broad pure sheet of sunlight." Gifted Man,
(Cried Samor,) wherefore to this desolate
Untrodden!"-"Ha! untrodden! know ye not,
Where coarse humanity defiles not, there
The snowy-footed Angels lightly skim
The taintless soil, the fragrance of their plumes
Fans the pure air where chokes no breath of sin
The limpid current? Desolate! the motes

Thy broad towns teem with wealth, thy yellow fields That flicker in the sun are few and rare

Laugh in their full fertility; thy bays

Whiten and glisten with thy myriad barks.

The Angels love thee, and the airs of heaven

Are gladden'd by thy holy hymns; while Faith
Sits on thy altars, like a nestling dove,
In unattainted snowiness of plume."

To the immortal faces that smile down
Exquisite transport on the ravish'd sense.
Here, from their kindred elements, emanate
The festive creatures of the heavenly fields,
Glories, and Mercies, and Beatitudes
Some dropping on the silent summer dews,
Some trembling on the rainbow's violet verge,

"Now, by my soul, thou strange and solemn Man, Some rarely charioteering on the wings Mistrust thee more I dare not; be 't a dream

Or revelation of immortal truth,

Of Britain's fame I cannot choose but hear
With a child's transport."-Then the Prophet shook
The dark profusion of his swelling hair
With a stern triumph; then his aged eye
Grew restless with delight: his thin white hand
Closing around the Baron's arm, lay there
Like a hard glove of steel. He led him on,
Till now the black and shaggy pass spread out
To a green quiet valley, after named
The Bed of Gelert, that too-faithful hound
Slain fondly by his erring Lord: the stream
Here curl'd more wanton, lightly wafting down
The last thin golden leaves the alders dropt,
Like fairy barges skimming the blue waves.
That stream o'erpass'd, rightward their silent way
Lay to the foot of Snowdon. Pause was none,
They front the steep ascent, and upward wind
A long, sheer, toilsome path, their footfalls struck
Upon the black bare stillness, audible

As in thick forest the lone woodman's axe.

Of the mild winds, in moonlight some. Why shakes
The Man of Vengeance? wherefore of mine hand
This passionate wringing?"-"Tell me, truly tell;
The name of Emeric from some mild-lipp'd tone
Hath it e'er trembled on thine ear? Old Man,
Is't sin to say her presence might adorn
That gentle company?"-"To souls like thine,
Warrior, Heaven grants sweet intercourse and free
With its beatified."—" Ah! now thou rakest
The ashes of a buried grief; gone all,
My gentle visitations broken off,
My delicate discoursings silent, ceased!
Oh, I talk idly, Prophet, speak thou on."

"Ay, Warrior, and of mild and soft no more;
Grandeurs there are, to which the gates of heaven
Set wide their burnish'd portals: midnight feels
Cherubic splendours ranging her dun gloom,
The tempests are ennobled by the state

Of high seraphic motion. I have seen,

I, Merlin, have beheld. It stood in light,

It spake in sounds for earth's gross winds too pure.

"T was strange, yet slack'd not that old reverend Man Between the midnight and the morn 't was here,

His upward step, as though the mountain air
Were his peculiar element, still his breath
Respired unlabouring, lively bounded on

I lay, I know not if I slept or woke,
Yet mine eyes saw. Long, long this heart had
yearn'd,

His limbs, late slow and tremulous. Three long hours 'Mid those rich passings and majestic shows

Now front to front upon that topmost peak,
Erwydfa, sit they motionless, alone:

As when two vultures on some broken tower,

That beetles o'er a dismal battle-field,

In dark and greedy patience ruminate
Their evening feast; a stillness as of sleep

For shape distinct, and palpable clear sound.
It burst at length, yea front to front it stood,
The immortal Presence. I clench'd up the dust

In the agony and rapture of my fear,

And my soul wept with terror and deep joy.
It stood upon the winds, an Angel plumed,

Heaves in their ruffled plumes, their deep bright eyes And mail'd and crown'd; his plumes cast forth a tinge

Half closed in languid rest; so undisturb'd,
So lofty, sate the Avenger and the Seer.
The atmosphere, that palls our restless world,
Lay coiling in its murky folds below:
So in some regal theatre, when droops
The unfolding curtain, and within it shrouds
The high disastrous passions, crimes, and woes
Erewhile that fretted on its pomp of scene;
Thus Earth, with all its solemn tragedies,

Like blood on th' air around: his arms, in shape

Etherial panoply complete, in hue

The moonlight on the dark Llanberis lake,

A bright blue rippling glitter; for the crown,
Palm leaves of orient light his brow enwreathed,
That bloom'd in fair divinity of wrath,
And beautiful relentlessness austere.
Knowledge was in my heart, and on my lips;
I felt him, who he was.-" Archangel! hail,