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And as we rounded to the port,
Beneath the watch-tower's wall,
We heard the clash of the atabals,

And the trumpet's wavering call.
"Why sounds yon Eastern music here
So wantonly and long,
And whose the crowd of armed men
That round yon standard throng?"
"The Moors have come from Africa
To spoil and waste and slay,

And King Alonzo of Castile

Must fight with them to-day."

"Now shame it were,'
e," cried good Lord James,
"Shall never be said of me

That I and mine have turned aside
From the Cross in jeopardie!

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But thicker, thicker grew the swarm,

And sharper shot the rain, And the horses reared amid the press, But they would not charge again.

"Now Jesu help thee," said Lord James, "Thou kind and true St. Clair! An' if I may not bring thee off, I'll die beside thee there!"

Then in his stirrups up he stood,
So lion-like and bold,
And held the precious heart aloft
All in its case of gold.

He flung it from him, far ahead,
And never spake he more,

But-"Pass thou first, thou dauntless heart,
As thou wert wont of yore !"

The roar of fight rose fiercer yet,

And heavier still the stour,

Till the spears of Spain came shivering in, And swept away the Moor.

"Now praised be God, the day is won!
They fly o'er flood and fell,
Why dost thou draw the rein so hard,
Good knight, that fought so well?"

"O, ride ye on, Lord King!" he said, "And leave the dead to me, For I must keep the dreariest watch That ever I shall dree!

"There lies, above his master's heart,
The Douglas, stark and grim;
And woe is me I should be here,
Not side by side with him!

"The world grows cold, my arm is old, And thin my lyart hair,

And all that I loved best on earth
Is stretched before me there.

"O Bothwell banks, that bloom so bright Beneath the sun of May!

The heaviest cloud that ever blew
Is bound for you this day.

"And Scotland! thou mayst veil thy head
In sorrow and in pain :
The sorest stroke upon thy brow
Hath fallen this day in Spain !

"We'll bear them back unto our ship,
We'll bear them o'er the sea,
And lay them in the hallowed earth
Within our own countrie.

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FROM "THE LADY OF THE LAKE."

THERE is no breeze upon the fern,
No ripple on the lake,
Upon her eyrie nods the erne,

The deer has sought the brake;
The small birds will not sing aloud,
The springing trout lies still,
So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud,
That swathes, as with a purple shroud,
Benledi's distant hill.

Is it the thunder's solemn sound
That mutters deep and dread,
Or echoes from the groaning ground
The warrior's measured tread ?
Is it the lightning's quivering glance
That on the thicket streams,
Or do they flash on spear and lance
The sun's retiring beams?

I see the dagger crest of Mar,
I see the Moray's silver star

Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war,

That up the lake comes winding far! To hero boune for battle strife,

Or bard of martial lay,

'T were worth ten years of peaceful life, One glance at their array!

Their light-armed archers far and near
Surveyed the tangled ground,
Their center ranks, with pike and spear,
A twilight forest frowned,

Their barbed horsemen, in the rear,
The stern battalia crowned.
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum;
Save heavy tread, and armor's clang,
The sullen march was dumb.

There breathed no wind their crests to shake,

Or wave their flags abroad;

Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,

That shadowed o'er their road. Their vawrd scouts no tidings bring,

Can rouse no lurking foe,

Nor spy a trace of living thing,

Save when they stirred the roe;
The host moves like a deep sea wave,
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,
High swelling, dark, and slow.
The lake is passed, and now they gain
A narrow and a broken plain,

Before the Trosach's rugged jaws ;
And here the horse and spearmen pause,
While, to explore the dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass, the archer men.

At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,
As all the fiends, from heaven that fell,
Had pealed the banner cry of hell!
Forth from the pass in tumult driven,
Like chaff before the wind of heaven,
The archery appear:

For life for life! their flight they ply -
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broadswords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive, in dreadful race,
Pursuers and pursued ;

Before that tide of flight and chase,
How shall it keep its rooted place,

The spearmen's twilight wood?

- "Down, down," cried Mar, "your lances down!

Bear back both friend and foe!"
Like reeds before the tempest's frown,
That serried grove of lances brown
At once lay leveled low;
And closely shouldering side to side,
The bristling ranks the onset bide.
"We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
As their Tinchel* cows the game;

• A circle of sportsmen, surrounding the deer.

They come as fleet as forest deer,
We'll drive them back as tame."
Bearing before them, in their course,
The relics of the archer force,
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam,
Right onward did Clan-Alpine come.
Above the tide, each broadsword bright
Was brandishing like beam of light,
Each targe was dark below;
And with the ocean's mighty swing,
When heaving to the tempest's wing,
They hurled them on the foe.

I heard the lance's shivering crash,
As when the whirlwind rends the ash;
I heard the broadsword's deadly clang,
As if a hundred anvils rang!

But Moray wheeled his rearward rank
Of horsemen on Clan-Alpine's flank-

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My bannerman, advance!

I see," he cried, "their columns shake.
Now, gallants! for your ladies' sake,
Upon them with the lance!"
The horsemen dashed among the rout,

As deer break through the broom;
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out,
They soon make lightsome room.
Clan-Alpine's best are backward borne —
Where, where was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle-horn

Were worth a thousand men! And refluent through the pass of fear The battle's tide was poured; Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear, Vanished the mountain sword. As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep, Receives her roaring linn,

As the dark caverns of the deep

Suck the wild whirlpool in,
So did the deep and darksome pass
Devour the battle's mingled mass;
None linger now upon the plain,
Save those who ne'er shall fight again.

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In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake;
The Archangel's trump, not glory's, must awake
Those whom they thirst for; though the sound
of Fame

May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake
The fever of vain longing, and the name
So honored but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:

| Nor was one forward footstep stayed,
As dropped the dying and the dead.
Fast as their ranks the thunders tear,
Fast they renewed each serried square ;
And on the wounded and the slain
Closed their diminished files again,
Till from their lines scarce spears' lengths three,
Emerging from the smoke they see
Helmet and plume and panoply.

Then waked their fire at once!
Each musketeer's revolving knell
As fast, as regularly fell,
As when they practice to display
Their discipline on festal day.

The tree will wither long before it fall;
The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;
The roof-tree sinks, but molders on the hall
In massy hoariness; the ruined wall
Stands when its wind-worn battlements are Down were the eagle-banners sent,

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Then down went helm and lance,

Down reeling steeds and riders went,
Corselets were pierced and pennons rent;
And, to augment the fray,
Wheeled full against their staggering flanks,
The English horsemen's foaming ranks
Forced their resistless way.
Then to the musket-knell succeeds
The clash of swords, the neigh of steeds;
As plies the smith his clanging trade,
Against the cuirass rang the blade;
And while amid their close array
The well-served cannon rent their way,
And while amid their scattered band
Raged the fierce rider's bloody brand,
Recoiled in common rout and fear
Lancer and guard and cuirassier,
Horsemen and foot, - a mingled host,
Their leaders fallen, their standards lost.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE CHARGE AT WATERLOO.

ON came the whirlwind, - like the last
But fiercest sweep of tempest-blast ;
On came the whirlwind, steel-gleams broke
Like lightning through the rolling smoke;

The war was waked anew.

Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud,
And from their throats, with flash and cloud,
Their showers of iron threw.
Beneath their fire, in full carcer,
Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier,
The lancer couched his ruthless spear,
And, hurrying as to havoc near,

The cohorts' eagles flew.

In one dark torrent, broad and strong,
The advancing onset rolled along,
Forth harbingered by fierce acclaim,
That, from the shroud of smoke and flame,
Pealed wildly the imperial name.
But on the British heart were lost
The terrors of the charging host;
For not an eye the storm that viewed
Changed its proud glance of fortitude,

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