Room for the men of steel!
Through crest and plate.
The broadsword's weight

Both head and heart shall feel.

Just when to weal or woe Your disembodied souls take flight On trembling wing-each startled sprite Our choir of death shall know.

VII.
Wheel the wild dance
While lightnings glance,

And thunders rattle loud,
And call the brave
To bloody grave,

To sleep without a shroud.

Burst, ye clouds, in tempest showers,
Redder rain shall soon be ours

See the east grows wan
Yield we place to sterner game,
Ere deadlier bolts and direr flame
Shall the welkin's thunders shame;
Elemental rage is tame

To the wrath of man.

VIII.

At morn, grey Allan's mates with awe
Heard of the vision'd sights he saw,
The legend heard him say;
But the Seer's gifted eye was dim,'
Deafen'd his ear, and stark his limb,
Ere closed that bloody day-
He sleeps far from his Highland heath,-
But often of the Dance of Death
His comrades tell the tale,
On picquet-post, when ebbs the night,
And waning watch-fires glow less bright,
And dawn is glimmering pale.

ROMANCE OF DUNOIS.

FROM THE FRENCH.

The original of this little Romance makes part of a manuscript collection of French Songs, probably compiled by some young officer, which was found on the Field of Waterloo, so much stained with clay and with blood, as sufficiently to indicate what had been the fate of its late owner. The song is popular in France, and is rather a good specimen of the style of composition to which it belongs. The translation is strictly literal.]

It was Dunois, the young and brave, was bound for Palestine,

But first he made his orisons before St. Mary's shrine: "And grant, immortal Queen of Heaven," was still the Soldier's prayer,

"That I may prove the bravest knight, and love the fairest fair."

'[This ballad appeared in 1815, in Paul's Letters, and in the Edinburgh Annual Register. It has since been set to music by G. F. Graham, Esq., in Mr. Thomson's Select Melodies, &c.]

2

[The original romance,

"Partant pour la Syrie,

Le jeune et brave Dunois," &c.

was written, and set to music also, by Hortense Beauharnois, Duchesse de St. Leu, Ex-queen of Holland.]

VOL. V. 29

His oath of honour on the shrine he graved it with his sword,

And follow'd to the Holy Land the banner of his Lord; Where, faithful to his noble vow, his war-cry fill'd the air,

"Be honour'd aye the bravest knight, beloved the fairest fair."

They owed the conquest to his arm, and then his Liege Lord said,

"The heart that has for honour beat by bliss must be repaid.―

My daughter Isabel and thou shall be a wedded pair, For thou art bravest of the brave, she fairest of the fair."

And then they bound the holy knot before Saint Mary's shrine,

That makes a paradise on earth, if hearts and hands combine;

And every lord and lady bright, that were in chapel there,

Cried, "Honour'd be the bravest knight, beloved the fairest fair!"

THE TROUBADOUR.'

FROM THE SAME COLLECTION.

GLOWING with love, on fire for fame,
A Troubadour that hated sorrow,
Beneath his Lady's window came,

66

And thus he sung his last good-morrow:
My arm it is my country's right,
My heart is in my true-love's bower;
Gaily for love and fame to fight
Befits the gallant Troubadour."

And while he march'd with helm on head
And harp in hand, the descant rung,
As, faithful to his favourite maid,

The minstrel-burden still he sung:
'My arm it is my country's right,

66

My heart is in my lady's bower; Resolved for love and fame to fight, I come, a gallant Troubadour."

Even when the battle-roar was deep,

With dauntless heart he hew'd his way, 'Mid splintering lance and falchion-sweep, And still was heard his warrior-lay;

1 The original of this ballad also was written and composed by the Duchesse de St. Leu. The translation has been set to music by Mr. Thomson. See his collection of Scottish Songs. 1826.]