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Full in the midst, his Cross of Red
Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride.
The moonbeam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

9.

They sate them down on a marble stone
(A Scottish monarch slept below);
Thus spoke the Monk, in solemn tone:
'I was not always a man of woe;
For Paynim countries I have trod,

And fought beneath the Cross of God;

Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear,

And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.

10.

In these far climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott,
A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre-Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me;
And, Warrior, I could say to thee

The words that cleft Eildon Hills in three,

And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:

But to speak them were a deadly sin;

And for having but thought them my heart within,
A treble penance must be done.

11.

"When Michael lay on his dying bed,

His conscience was awakened;

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.

12.

'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 St 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.

13.

'It was a night of woe and dread, When Michael in the tomb I laid;

Pagan

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.

14.

'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 flagstone,
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.

15.

With beating heart to the task he went:
His sinewy frame o'er the grave-stone 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,

Shewed the Monk's cowl, and visage pale,
Danced on the dark-browed Warrior's mail,
And kissed his waving plume.

16.

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.

17.

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.

18.

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 mayest 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.

19.

When the huge stone sunk o'er the tomb,

The night returned in double gloom;

For the moon had gone down, and the stars were few;

And, as the Knight and Priest withdrew,

With wavering steps and dizzy brain,

They hardly might the postern gain.

"Tis said, as through the aisles they passed,

They heard strange noises on the blast;

And through the cloister-galleries small,

Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs, and laughter louder, ran,

And voices unlike the voice of man;

As if the fiends kept holiday,

Because these spells were brought to day.

I cannot tell how the truth may be;

I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

20.

Now, hie thee hence,' the Father said;
'And, when we are on death-bed laid,
O may our dear Ladye, and sweet St John,
Forgive our souls for the deed we have done!'
The Monk returned him to his cell,

And many a prayer and penance sped:
When the convent met at the noontide bell-
The Monk of St Mary's aisle was dead!

Before the cross was the body laid,
With hands clasped fast, as if still he prayed.

Lord Byron: 1788-1824.

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Apostrophe to the Ocean.-From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.'

1.

Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

2.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay.

3.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war-

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

4.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou-
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

5.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time-

Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of eternity, the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

6.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

To his Sister-From the Rhine.

1.

The castled crag of Drachenfels

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strewed a scene which I should see
With double joy wert thou with me.

2.

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,

Walk smiling o'er this paradise;

Above, the frequent feudal towers

Through green leaves lift their walls of gray,

And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay,

Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;

But one thing want these banks of Rhine-
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

3.

I send the lilies given to me;

Though long before thy hand they touch,
I know that they must withered be,
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherished them as dear,
Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
And knowest them gathered by the Rhine,
And offered from my heart to thine!

4.

The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;

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