And lend no ear unto my purposes:
Those prisoners you shall keep.

HOT.

Nay, I will; that's flat.

He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,

5 And in his ear I'll holla

10

66

166 Mortimer!"

Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but " Mortimer," and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.

WOR. Hear you, cousin; a word.

HOT. All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke,

And that same sword-and-buckler† Prince of Wales —
But that I think his father loves him not,
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
15 I'd have him poisoned with a pot of ale.

WOR. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you
When you are better tempered to attend.

CXXXVIII. -THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.

LONGFELLOW.

[This poem was published in 1842. The author, in an introduction, says: "The following ballad was suggested to me while riding on the sea-shore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armor ; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Wind Mill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ances tors."]

1

"SPEAK! Speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast

Still in rude armor drest,

Comest to daunt me!

* Purposes, conversation.

↑ The sword and buckler were weapons worn by low fellows.

And as the wind-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.

10" She was a Prince's child, I but a Viking wild,

And, though she blushed and smiled,

* Skaw, the extreme northern headland of Denmark,