He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light.

IX

By a steel-clenched postern door,
They entered now the chancel tall;
The darkened roof rose high aloof

On pillars, lofty, and light, and small;
The key-stone, that locked each ribbed aisle,
Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille;

The corbels were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim,
With base and with capital flourished around,
Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

X

Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven,
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,
Around the screenèd altar's pale;
And there the dying lamps did burn,
Before thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant Chief of Otterburne,"

And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale !▾

O fading honours of the dead!

O high ambition, lowly laid!

ΧΙ

The moon on the east oriel shone,"

Through slender shafts of shapely stone,

The projections from which the arches spring, usually cut in a fantastic face, or mask.

"The famous and desperate battle of Otterburne was fought 15th August, 1388, betwixt Henry Percy, called Hotspur, and James ear of Douglas. Both these renowned champions were at the head of a chosen body of troops, and were rivals in military fame. The issue of the conflict is well known: Percy was made prisoner, and the Scots won the day, dearly purchased by the death of their gallant general, the earl of Douglas, who was slain in the action. He was buried at Melrose, beneath the high altar.

▾ William Douglas, called the knight of Liddesdale, flourished during the reign of David II., and was so distinguished for his valour, that he was called the Flower of Chivalry. Nevertheless, he tarnished his renown by the cruel murder of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, originally his friend and brother in arms. The king had conferred apon Ramsay the sheriffdom of Teviotdale, to which Douglas pretended some claim. In revenge of this preference, the knight of Liddesdale came down upon Ramsay, while he was administering justice at Hawick, seized, and carried him off to his remote and inaccessible castle of Hermitage, where he threw his unfortunate prisoner into a dungeon, and left him to perish of hunger. So weak was the royal authority, that David, though highly incensed at this atrocious murder, found himself obliged to appoint the knight of Liddesdale successor to his victim as sheriff of Teviotdale. He was soon after slain, while hunting in Ettricke Forest, by his own godson and chieftain, William earl of Douglas.

w It is impossible to conceive a more beautiful specimen of the

By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand,
"Twixt poplars straight the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined;
Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow-wreaths to stone.
The silver light, so pale and faint,
Showed many a prophet, and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his Cross of Red
Triumphant Michael brandishèd,

And trampled the Apostate's pride.
The moon-beam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

XII

They sate them down on a marble stone,*
A Scottish monarch slept below;
Thus spoke the Monk in solemn tone:-
"I was not always a man of woe;
For Paynim countries I have trod,

And fought beneath the Cross of God;

Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear,
And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.

XIII

"In these far climes, it was my lot

To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;"
A wizard of such dreaded fame,

That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me;

lightness and elegance of Gothic architecture, when in purity, than the eastern window of Melrose Abbey.

A large marble stone, in the chancel of Melrose, is pointed out as the monument of Alexander II., one of the greatest of the early kings of Scotland; others say, it is the resting-place of Waldeve, one of the early abbots, who died in the odour of sanctity.

y Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie flourished during the thirteenth century, and was one of the ambassadors sent to bring the fair maid of Norway to Scotland, upon the death of Alexander III., 1290. By apoetical anachronism, he is here placed in a later era. He wrote several works upon the abstruse sciences, and passed among his contemporaries for a skilful magician. His memory survives in many a legend, and in the south of Scotland, any work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed, either to the agency of Auld Michael, of Sir William Wallace, or of the devil. Tradition varies as to the place of his burial, but all agree that his books of magic were interred in his grave, or preserved in the convent where he died.

z Spain, from the reliques, doubtless, of Arabian learning and superstition, was accounted a favourite residence of magicians. Pope Sylvester, who actually imported from Spain the use of the Arabian numerals, was supposed to have learned in that country the magic for which he was stigmatized by the ignorance of his age.

c

And, Warrior, I could say to thee

The words, that cleft Eildon a hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:
But to speak them were a deadly sin;

And for having but thought them my heart within,
A treble penance must be done.

XIV

"When Michael lay on his dying bed,
His conscience was awakened;

He bethought him of his sinful deed,
And he gave me a sign to come with speed:
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.
The words may not again be said,

That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his grave.

XV

"I swore to bury his Mighty Book,
That never mortal might therein look;
And never to tell where it was hid,
Save at his chief of Branksome's need;
And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.

I buried him on St. Michael's night,

When the bell tolled one and the moon was bright;

And I dug his chamber among the dead,

When the floor of the chancel was stained red.
That his patron's Cross might over him wave,
And scare the fiends from the Wizard's grave.

XVI

"It was a night of woe and dread,
When Michael in the tomb I laid!

Strange sounds along the chancel passed,
The banners waved without a blast,"

Still spoke the Monk, when the bell tolled one!
I tell you, that a braver man

Than William of Deloraine, good at need,
Against a foe ne'er spurred a steed;

Yet somewhat was he chilled with dread,
And his hair did bristle upon his head.

XVII

"Lo, Warrior! now, the Cross of Red
Points to the grave of the mighty dead.

a Michael Scott was, once upon a time, much embarrassed by a spirit, for whom he was under the necessity of finding constant employment. He commanded him to build a cauld, or dam-head, across the Tweed at Kelso: it was accomplished in one night. Michael next ordered that Eildon Hill, which was then a uniform cone, should be divided

Within it burns a wondrous light,

To chase the spirits that love the night:
That lamp shall burn unquenchably,"
Until the eternal doom shall be."-

Slow moved the Monk to the broad flag-stone,
Which the bloody Cross was traced upon :

He pointed to a secret nook;

An iron bar the warrior took:

And the Monk made a sign with his withered hand,
The grave's huge portal to expand.

XVIII

With beating heart to the task he went;
His sinewy frame o'er the grave-stone bent;
With bar of iron heaved amain,

Till the toil-drops fell from his brows, like rain.
It was by dint of passing strength,

That he moved the massy stone at length.
I would you had been there, to see
How the light broke forth so gloriously,
Streamed upward to the chancel roof,
And through the galleries far aloof!
No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright:
It shone like heaven's own blessed light,
And, issuing from the tomb,

Showed the Monk's cowl, and visage pale,
Danced on the dark-brow'd Warrior's mail,
And kissed his waving plume.

XIX

Before their eyes the Wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver rolled,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldricd bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:
His left hand held his Book of Might;
A silver cross was in his right;

The lamp was placed beside his knee:

High and majestic was his look,

At which the fellest fiends had shook,

into three. Another night was sufficient to part its summit into the three picturesque peaks which it now bears.

b Baptista Porta, and other authors who treat of natural magic, talk much of eternal lamps, which they pretend to have been found burning in ancient sepulchres.

e The amice or amite is the first of the sacerdotal vestments. It is, says Mr. Way, a piece of fine linen, of an oblong square form, which was formerly worn on the head until the priest arrived before the altar, and then thrown back upon the shoulders.-Halliwell, Arch. Dict.

d A belt, girdle, or sash of various kinds.-Halliwell.

And all unruffled was his face :-
They trusted his soul had gotten grace.

XX

Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,
And neither known remorse or awe;
Yet now remorse and awe he owned;
His breath came thick, his head swam round,
When this strange scene of death he saw.
Bewildered and unnerved he stood,

And the priest prayed fervently, and loud:
With eyes averted prayèd he;

He might not endure the sight to see,

Of the man he had loved so brotherly.

XXI

And when the priest his death-prayer had prayed,
Thus unto Deloraine he said:-

66

Now, speed thee what thou hast to do,

Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue;

For those, thou mayst not look upon,

Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!"
Then Deloraine, in terror, took

From the cold hand the Mighty Book,

With iron clasped, and with iron bound:

He thought, as he took it, the dead man frowned;
But the glare of the sepulchral light,

Perchance, had dazzled the warrior's sight.

XXII

When the huge stone sunk o'er the tomb,

The night returned in double gloom;

For the moon had gone down, and the stars were few;

And, as the Knight and Priest withdrew,

With wavering steps and dizzy brain,

They hardly might the postern gain.

"Tis said, as through the aisles they passed,
They heard strange noises on the blast;
And through the cloister-galleries small,

Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs, and laughter louder ran,
And voices unlike the voice of man;
As if the fiends kept holiday,

Because these spells were brought to-day.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

XXIII

"Now, hie thee hence," the Father said,
"And, when we are on death-bed laid,

O may our dear Ladye, and sweet St. John,
Forgive our souls for the deed we have done!"-