He bethought him of his sinful deed,

And he gave me a sign to come with speed:
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.
The words may not again be said
That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his grave.

XV.

'I swore to bury his Mighty Book,
That never mortal might therein look;
And never to tell where it was hid,
Save at his Chief of Branksome's need;
And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.

I buried him on Saint Michael's night, When the bell tolled one and the moon was bright,

And I dug his chamber among the dead, When the floor of the chancel was stained

red,

That his patron's cross might over him wave,

And scare the fiends from the wizard's grave.

XVI.

'It was a night of woe and dread
When Michael in the tomb I laid;
Strange sounds along the chancel passed,
The banners waved without a blast'

Still spoke the monk, when the bell tolled one!

I tell you, that a braver man

Than William of Deloraine, good at need, Against a foe ne'er spurred a steed;

Yet somewhat was he chilled with dread, And his hair did bristle upon his head.

XVII.

'Lo, warrior! now, the cross of red
Points to the grave of the mighty dead:
Within it burns a wondrous light,
To chase the spirits that love the night;
That lamp shall burn unquenchably,
Until the eternal doom shall be.'

Slow moved the monk to the broad flag

stone

Which the bloody cross was traced upon : He pointed to a secret nook;

An iron bar the warrior took;

And the monk made a sign with his withered hand,

The grave's huge portal to expand.

XVIII.

With beating heart to the task he went, His sinewy frame o'er the gravestone bent, With bar of iron heaved amain

Till the toil-drops fell from his brows like rain.

It was by dint of passing strength
That he moved the massy stone at length.
I would you had been there to see
How the light broke forth so gloriously,
Streamed upward to the chancel roof,
And through the galleries far aloof!
No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright;
It shone like heaven's own blessed light,
And, issuing from the tomb,

Showed the monk's cowl and visage pale,

Danced on the dark-browed warrior's mail, And kissed his waving plume.

XIX.

Before their eyes the wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver rolled,

He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round,

With a wrought Spanish baldric bound, Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea: His left hand held his Book of Might, A silver cross was in his right;

The lamp was placed beside his knee. High and majestic was his look, At which the fellest fiends had shook, And all unruffled was his face : They trusted his soul had gotten grace.

XX.

Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,

And neither known remorse nor awe,
Yet now remorse and awe he owned;
His breath came thick, his head swam round,
When this strange scene of death he saw.
Bewildered and unnerved he stood,
And the priest prayed fervently and loud:
With eyes averted prayed he;
He might not endure the sight to see
Of the man he had loved so brotherly.

XXI.

And when the priest his death-prayer had prayed,

Thus unto Deloraine he said:

'Now, speed thee what thou hast to do, Or, warrior, we may dearly rue;

For those thou mayst not look upon

Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!'
Then Deloraine in terror took

From the cold hand the Mighty Book,
With iron clasped and with iron bound:
He thought, as he took it, the dead man
frowned;

But the glare of the sepulchral light
Perchance had dazzled the warrior's sight.

When the half sigh her swelling breast
Against the silken ribbon pressed,
When her blue eyes their secret told,
Though shaded by her locks of gold
Where would you find the peerless fair
With Margaret of Branksome might com-
pare!

XXIX.

And now, fair dames, methinks I see
You listen to my minstrelsy;
Your waving locks ye backward throw,
And sidelong bend your necks of snow.
Ye ween to hear a melting tale
Of two true lovers in a dale;
And how the knight, with tender fire,
To paint his faithful passion strove,
Swore he might at her feet expire,

But never, never cease to love;

And how she blushed, and how she sighed, And, half consenting, half denied,

XXXI.

Beneath an oak, mossed o'er by eld,
The Baron's dwarf his courser held,

And held his crested helm and spear:
That dwarf was scarce an earthly man,
If the tales were true that of him ran

Through all the Border far and near. 'T was said, when the Baron a-hunting rode Through Reedsdale's glens, but rarely trod, He heard a voice cry, Lost! lost! lost!' And, like tennis-ball by racket tossed,

A leap of thirty feet and three Made from the gorse this elfin shape, Distorted like some dwarfish ape,

And lighted at Lord Cranstoun's knee. Lord Cranstoun was some whit dismayed; 'Tis said that five good miles he rade, To rid him of his company;

But where he rode one mile, the dwarf ran four.

And the dwarf was first at the castle door.