Mourned o'er love's fond contract torn, Hope, and peace, and honour flown. Mark her breast's convulsive throbs! See, the tear of anguish flows!Mingling soon with bursting sobs, Loud the laugh of frenzy rose.

Wild she cursed and wild she prayed; Seven long days and nights are o'er; Death in pity brought his aid,

As the village bell struck four.

Far from her, and far from France,
Faithless Frederick onward rides,
Marking, blithe, the morning's glance
Mantling o'er the mountain's sides.
Heard ye not the boding sound,

As the tongue of yonder tower,
Slowly, to the hills around,

Told the fourth, the fated hour?

Starts the steed, and snuffs the air,
Yet no cause of dread appears;
Bristles high the rider's hair,

Struck with strange mysterious fears.

Desperate, as his terrors rise,

In the steed the spur he hides; From himself in vain he flies; Anxious, restless, on he rides.

Seven long days, and seven long nights,
Wild he wandered, woe the while!
Ceaseless care, and causeless fright,
Urge his footsteps many a mile.

Dark the seventh sad night descends;
Rivers swell, and rain-streams pour;
While the deafening thunder lends
All the terrors of its roar.

Weary, wet, and spent with toil,

Where his head shall Frederick hide?

Where, but in yon ruined aisle,

By the lightning's flash descried.

To the portal, dank and low,

Fast his steed the wanderer bound;

Down a ruined staircase slow,

Next his darkling way he wound.

Long drear vaults before him lie! Glimmering lights are seen to glide !

"Blessed Mary, hear my cry!

Deign a sinner's steps to guide !"—

Often lost their quivering beam,
Still the lights move slow before,
Till they rest their ghastly gleam
Right against an iron door.
Thundering voices from within,
Mixed with peals of laughter, rose;
As they fell, a solemn strain

Lent its wild and wondrous close!

'Midst the din, he seemed to hear
Voice of friends, by death removed;-
Well he knew that solemn air,

"Twas the lay that Alice loved.

Hark! for now a solemn knell

FOUR times on the still night broke;
FOUR times, at its deadened swell,
Echoes from the ruins spoke.

As the lengthened clangours die,
Slowly opes the iron door!
Straight a banquet met his eye,
But a funeral's form it wore!
Coffins for the seats extend;

All with black the board was spread,
Girt by parent, brother, friend,

Long since numbered with the dead!
Alice, in her grave-clothes bound,
Ghastly smiling, points a seat;
All arose, with thundering sound;
All the expected stranger greet.
High their meagre arms they wave,
Wild their notes of welcome swell;
"Welcome, traitor, to the grave!
Perjured, bid the light farewell!"

THE ERL-KING.

FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.

IT is necessary the reader should be informed, that in the legends of Danish superstition, certain mischievous spirits are supposed to preside over different elements, and to amuse themselves with inflicting calamities on man. One of these is termed the WATER-KING, another the FIRE-KING, and a third the CLOUD-KING. The hero of the present piece is the ERL or OAK-KING, a fiend, who is supposed to dwell in the recesses of the forest, and thence to issue forth upon the benighted traveller to lure him to his destruction.

O! who rides by night through the woodland so wild? It is the fond Father embracing his Child;

And close the boy nestles within his loved arm,

From the blast of the tempest-to keep himself warm.

66

O father! see yonder, see yonder!" he says.

My boy, upon what dost thou fearfully gaze ?"

O, 'tis the Erl-King with his staff and his shroud!" 'No, my love! it is but a dark wreath of the cloud."

The Phantom speaks.

"O! wilt thou go with me, thou loveliest child?
By many gay sports shall thy hours be beguiled;
My mother keeps for thee full many a fair toy,
And many a fine flower shall she pluck for my boy."--

"O father! my father! and did you not hear
The Erl-King whisper so close in my ear ?"—
"Be still, my loved darling, my child be at ease!
It was but the wild blast as it howled through the
trees."-

The Phantom.

"O wilt thou go with me, thou loveliest boy!

My daughter shall tend thee with care and with joy; She shall bear thee so lightly through wet and through

wild,

And hug thee, and kiss thee, and sing to my child.”—

"O father! my father! and saw you not plain The Erl-King's pale daughter glide past through the rain ?"

"O no, my heart's treasure! I knew it full soon, It was the grey willow that danced to the moon."

The Phantom.

"Come with me, come with me, no longer delay!
Or else, silly child, I will drag thee away."
"O father! O father! now, now, keep your hold!
The Erl-King has seized me-his grasp is so cold."-

Sore trembled the father; he spurred through the wild,
Clasping close to his bosom his shuddering child.
He reaches his dwelling in doubt and in dread;
But, clasped to his bosom, the infant was dead!

Miscellaneous.

HELLVELLYN.

IN the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Hellvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier-bitch, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmorland.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide; All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending, And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died. Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather, Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather, Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay. Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended, The much-loved remains of her master defended, And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?

How many long days and long nights didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, O! was it meet, that, no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him,-
Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart?

When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:"

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;

In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming;
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature, And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, Thy obsequies sung by the grey plover flying, With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

THE MAID OF TORO.

O, Low Shone the sun on the fair lake of Toro,
And weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,
All as a fair maiden, bewildered in sorrow,

Sorely sighed to the breezes, and wept to the flood.
O saints! from the mansions of bliss lowly bending;
Sweet Virgin! who hearest the suppliant's cry;
Now grant my petition, in anguish ascending,
My Henry restore, or let Eleanor die!"-

All distant and faint were the sounds of the battle,
With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail,
Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread
rattle,

And the chase's wild clamour, came loading the gale.
Breathless she gazed on the woodlands so dreary;
Slowly approaching a warrior was seen;

Life's ebbing tide marked his footsteps so weary,
Cleft was his helmet, and woe was his mien.

"O, save thee, fair maid, for our armies are flying!
O, save thee, fair maid, for thy guardian is low!
Deadly cold on yon heath thy brave Henry is lying;
And fast through the woodland approaches the foe."-
Scarce could he falter the tidings of sorrow,

And scarce could she hear them, benumbed with despair:
And when the sun sunk on the sweet lake of Toro,
For ever he set to the Brave, and the Fair.

a This and the three following pieces were first published in Haydn's Collection of Scottish Airs, Edinburgh, 1806.