Am I to hie and make me known?
Alas! he goes to Scotland's throne,
Buys his friends' safety with his own;-
He goes to do what I had done,
Had Douglas' daughter been his son !"

XI.

"Nay, lovely Ellen!-dearest, nay!
If aught should his return delay,
He only named yon holy fane

As fitting place to meet again.

Be sure he's safe; and for the Græme,-
Heaven's blessing on his gallant name!--
My vision'd sight may yet prove true,
Nor bode of ill to him or you,
When did my gifted dream beguile ?
Think of the stranger at the isle,
And think upon the harpings slow,
That presaged this approaching woe!
Sooth was my prophecy of fear;
Believe it when it augurs cheer.
Would we had left this dismal spot!
Ill luck still haunts a fairy grot.
Of such a wond'rous tale I know-
Dear lady, change that look of woe!
My harp was wont thy grief to cheer,”-

ELLEN.

"Well, be it as thou wilt; I hear,
But cannot stop the bursting tear."
The Minstrel tried his simple art,
But distant far was Ellen's heart.

XII.

BALLAD.

ALICE BRAND.

Merry it is in the good green wood,

When the mavis* and merlet are singing,

When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in

cry,

And the hunter's horn is ringing.

"O Alice Brand, my native land

Is lost for love of you;

And we must hold by wood and wold,

As outlaws wont to do.

"O Alice, 't was all for thy locks so bright,
And 't was all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight,
Thy brother bold I slew.

"Now must I teach to hew the beech,
The hand that held the glaive,
For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.

"And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,

A cloak must shear from the slaughter'd deer
To keep the cold away.”—

"O Richard! if my brother died,
'Twas but a fatal chance;
For darkling was the battle tried,
And Fortune sped the lance.

"If pall and vair no more I wear,
Nor thou the crimson sheen,
As warm, we'll say, is the russet gray,
As gay the forest-green.

"And, Richard, if our lot be hard,
And lost thy native land,
Still Alice has her own Richard,
And he his Alice Brand."-

XIII.

BALLAD CONTINUED.

'Tis merry, 't is merry, in good green wood, So blithe Lady Alice is singing;

On the beech's pride, and the oak's brown side, Lord Richard's axe is ringing.

Up spoke the moody Elfin king,
Who won'd within the hill,-

Like wind in the porch of a ruin'd church,
His voice was ghostly shrill.

"Why sounds yon stroke on beach and oak,
Our moonlight circle's screen?

Or who comes here to chase the deer,
Beloved of our Elfin Queen?

Or who may dare on wold to wear
The fairie's fatal green?

K

"Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie,

For thou wert christen'd man ; For cross or sign thou wilt not fly, For mutter'd word or ban.

"Lay on him the curse of the wither'd heart, The curse of the sleepless eye;

Till he wish and pray that his life would part, Nor yet find leave to die."

XIV.

BALLAD CONTINUED.

'Tis merry, 't is merry, in good green wood, Though the birds have still'd their singing; The evening blaze doth Alice raise,

And Richard is faggots bringing.

Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf,
Before Lord Richard stands,

And, as he cross'd and bless'd himself,
"I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf,
"That is made with bloody hands."-

But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
That woman void of fear,-

"And if there's blood upon his hand,
"T is but the blood of deer."

"Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!

It cleaves unto his hand,

The stain of thine own kindly blood,

The blood of Ethert Brand."

Then forward stepp'd she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,-

"And if there's blood on Richard's hand,
A spotless hand is mine.

"And I conjure thee, Dæmon elf,
By Him whom Dæmons fear,
To show us whence thou art thyself?
And what thine errand here?"

"'T is

XV.

BALLAD CONTINUED.

merry, 't is merry, in Fairy land, When fairy birds are singing,

When the court doth ride by their monarch's side, With bit and bridal ringing :

"And gaily shines the fairy land—

But all is glistening show,

Like the idle gleam that December's beam

Can dart on ice and snow.

"And fading, like that varied gleam,

Is our inconstant shape,

Who now like knight and lady seem,
And now like dwarf and ape.

"It was between the night and day, When the Fairy King has power,

That I sunk down in a sinful fray,

And, 'twixt life and death, was snatch'd away, To the joyless Elfin bower.