When they had glided from the cell

Of sin and misery.

XXXIII.

An hundred winding steps convey
That conclave to the upper day;1
But, ere they breathed the fresher air,
They heard the shriekings of despair,
And many a stifled groan:

With speed their upward way they take,
(Such speed as age and fear can make,)
And cross'd themselves for terror's sake,
As hurrying, tottering on:

Even in the vesper's heavenly tone,2
They seem'd to hear a dying groan,
And bade the passing knell to toll
For welfare of a parting soul.

Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung,
Northumbrian rocks in answer rung;
To Warkworth cell the echoes roll'd,
His beads the wakeful hermit told,

"From that dark penance vault to day."

"That night amid the vesper's swell,

They thought they heard Constantia's yell,
And bade the mighty bell to toll,

For welfare of a passing soul.”

The sound of the knell that was rung for the parting soul of this victim of seduction, is described with great force and solemnity. Jeffrey.

The whole of this trial and doom presents a high-wrought scene of horror, which, at the close, rises almost to too great a pitch. Scots Mag., March, 1808.

The Bamborough peasant raised his head,
But slept ere half a prayer he said;
So far was heard the mighty knell,
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostril to the wind,
Listed before, aside, behind,

Then couch'd him down beside the hind,
And quaked among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound, so dull and stern.

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THIRD

To William Erskine, Esq.1

Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

LIKE April morning clouds, that pass,
With varying shadow, o'er the grass,
And imitate, on field and furrow,
Life's chequer'd scene of joy and sorrow;
Like streamlet of the mountain north,
Now in a torrent racing forth,

Now winding slow its silver train,

And almost slumbering on the plain;

Like breezes of the autumn day,
Whose voice inconstant dies away,
And ever swells again as fast,

When the ear deems its murmur past;

1 William Erskine, Esq., advocate, Sheriff-depute of the Orkneys, became a Judge of the Court of Session by the title of Lord Kinnedder, and died at Edinburgh in August, 1822. He had been from early youth the most intimate of the Poet's friends, and his chief confidant and adviser as to all literary matters. See a notice of his life and character by the late Mr. Hay Donaldson, to which Sir Walter Scott contributed several paragraphs.- ED.

Thus various, my romantic theme
Flits, winds, or sinks, a morning dream.
Yet pleased, our eye pursues the trace
Of Light and Shade's inconstant race;
Pleased, views the rivulet afar,
Weaving its maze irregular;

And pleased, we listen as the breeze
Heaves its wild sigh through Autumn trees;

Then, wild as cloud, or stream, or gale,
Flow on, flow unconfined, my Tale!

Need I to thee, dear Erskine, tell
I love the license all too well,
In sounds now lowly, and now strong,
To raise the desultory song? —1
Oft, when 'mid such capricious chime,
Some transient fit of lofty rhyme
To thy kind judgment seem'd excuse
For many an error of the muse,
Oft hast thou said, "If, still misspent,
Thine hours to poetry are lent,2
Go, and to tame thy wandering course,
Quaff from the fountain at the source;
Approach those masters, o'er whose tomb
Immortal laurels ever bloom:

Instructive of the feebler bard,

Still from the grave their voice is heard;

1 MS.-"With sound now lowly, and now higher, Irregular to wake the lyre."

MS. "Thine hours to thriftless rhyme are lent."