Up, up the stairs they clatter now, In found like wint'ry wolves that scour And he has feiz'd Elfina fair, To bend her to his wild defire, And yonder is her own true love, He blew his horn in the green wood, Elfina was not there! He fought her through the green-wood path, With forrow and with care. He fought her here, he fought her there, Till in her father's hall, And there he faw her aged fire Lie murder'd at the wall. Palc Pale fear thrill'd through his manly breaff, In ev'ry limb he shook, But, ah! his love, she was not there; And frantic grew his look! He rais'd his voice, with all his might, And call'd Elfina's name, But nought was heard thro' the wild bounds, The bleak wind whiftled thro' the hall, He fought her here, he fought her there, He fought her thro' both wood and wild, He fought her thro' the country's bounds, And with Despair lay down at night, And with her rose at morn. His hair was matted all with thorns, His cloathes were rent away, His eyes were funk, his cheeks were pale, Where deadly horrors play. Thus Thus, wretched man, he ranged on, Refolv'd to fling his fhrivel'd corfe As lightning thro' the low'ring cloud So gleam'd the eye of Heav'n on him, The nipping blaft, thro' his loopt rags, And rouz'd him from the deed of death, When thro' the dim and dead of night, But it awaken'd in his breaft A ray of hope to gleam; Tho' tender as the cheerlefs light That trembles o'er the ftream. Hark on the bofom of the air, A feraph feems to fing, Borne by fweet zephyrs to his ear, B Fair Fair Hope fpread fmiling o'er his foul, So fhoots the beam o'er Cheviot hills, The found ftill trembles on his ear, Where he ftood on the brink forlorn, She weeps in yonder lonely tow'r, Afide the taper's light, Sweet as the lilly of the morn, Bright joy poffefs'd his manly breaft, Yet trembling, like the early fun, He fmil'd at Terror's deadly frown, And yonder wretched thing is he, That gains the other fide. For For he has ftood where Honour bade, Tho' Death trod on his heel : Mean is the foul that ftoops to fear; None fuch did William feel. He leans against the castle-wall, He play'd a pibroch soft and sweet, While bloody Morcar, with his knights, Sat drinking in the hall. Hark! hark! what's that that plays fo fweet, As foft as on the fummer's wind, She knew it was her long-loft love, As if the would have leapt with joy, And, oh they parted kindeft words, In fecret mirtle grove. B 2 And |