Gently he raised her-and the while To him thy woes, thy wishes, bring; Ask nought for Douglas-yester even, His prince and he have much forgiven: Wrong hath he had from slanderous tongue, I, from his rebel kinsmen, wrong. We would not to the vulgar crowd Yield what they craved with clamour loud; What clouds thy misbelieving brow? XXVIII Then forth the noble Douglas sprung, Yet would not James the general eye That brought this happy chance to speed. Then, in a tone apart and low, "Ah, little trait'ress! none must know What idle dream; what lighter thought, What vanity full dearly bought, Joined to thine eye's dark witchcraft, drew Pledge of my faith, Fitz-James's ring- XXIX. Full well the conscious maiden guessed, 66 Nay, then, my pledge has lost its force, And stubborn justice holds her course. Malcolm, come forth!"-And, at the word, Down kneel'd the Græme to Scotland's Lord. "For thec, rash youth, no suppliant sues, From thee may Vengeance claim her dues, Who, nurtured underneath our smile. Hast paid our care by treacherous wile, And sought amid thy faithful clan, A refuge for an outlawed man, Dishonouring thus thy loyal name. Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, Thy numbers sweet with Nature's vespers blend- With distant echo from the fold and lea, And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee. Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long Through secret woes the world has never known. When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone. That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine own. Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring VISION ОР DON RODERICK. 361 THE following poem is founded upon a Spanish tradition, particularly detailed in the notes; but bearing, in general, that Don Roderick, the last Gothic King of Spain when the invasion of the Moors was impending, had the temerity to descend into an ancient vault, near Toledo, the opening of which had been denounced as fatal to the Spanish monarchy. The legend adds, that his rash curiosity was mortified by an emblematical representation of those Saracens who, in the year 714, defeated him in battle, and reduced Spain-under their dominion. I have presumed to prolong the vision of the revolutions of Spain down to the present eventful crisis of the Peninsula; and to divide it, by a sup posed change of scene, into three periods. The first of these represents the invasion of the Moors, the defeat and death of Roderick, and closes with the peaceful occupation of the country by the victors. The second embraces the state of the Peninsula, when the conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the East and West Indies had raised to the highest pitch the renown of their arms; sullied, however, by superstition and cruelty. An illusion to the inhumani ties of the Inquisition terminates this picture. The last part |