They rear'd the Cid on his barbed steed, And the shield from his neck hung bright. There was arming heard in Valencia's halls, With a measur'd pace, as the pace of one, And they gave no battle shout. When the first went forth, it was midnight deep, In heaven was the moon, in the camp was sleep; When the last through the city's gates had gone, O'er tent and rampart the bright day shone, With a sun-burst from the sea. There were knights five hundred went arm'd before, 1 And the Campeador 1 came stately then, 1 A title of the Cid. 2 Bavieca, the favourite charger of the Cid, is scarcely less celebrated than Bucephalus. He is mentioned in almost every one of the hundred ballads concerning the Cid, and was buried near his master under the trees in front of the convent of San Pedro de Cardeña. He was there, the Cid, with his own good sword, And Ximena following her noble lord; 1 Her eye was solemn, her step was slow, The halls in Valencia were still and lone, So the burial train mov'd out. With a measur'd pace, as the pace of one, Was the still death-march of the host begun ; And they gave no battle shout. But the hills peal'd with a cry ere long, He that was wrapt with no funeral shroud, 1 The Cid's wife. The Chimène of Corneille's celebrated tragedy of "Le Cid." The market-place. 3 One of the Cid's bravest warriors, and governor of Valencia after his death. A Moorish princess, who accompanied King Bucar with a band of female archers. Then a terror fell on the king Bucar1, And the Libyan2 kings who had join'd his war: And their hearts grew heavy and died away, And their hands could not wield an assagay 3, For the dreadful things they saw ! For it seem'd where Minaya 4 his onset made, And the crested form of a warrior tall, There was fear in the path of his dim white horse, There was death in the giant-warrior's course! Where his banner stream'd with its ghastly light, Where his sword blaz'd out, there was hurrying flight, For it seem'd not the sword of man! The field and the river grew darkly red, There was work for the men of the Cid that day! The Moorish king that had invaded Spain. * African. Alvaro Fanez Minaya. 5 A lofty mountain in Spain. 3 A Moorish weapon. The kings and the leaders of Afric fled! MRS. HEMANS. INSTABILITY OF FRIENDSHIP. ALAS!-how light a cause may move And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm, when waves were rough, Like ships that have gone down at sea, A word unkind or wrongly taken - MOORE. CONTENTMENT. WE live not in our moments or our years- Wiser it were to welcome and make ours Whate'er of good, though small, the present brings; Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers, With a child's pure delight in little things 1; And of the griefs unborn to rest secure, TRENCH. "Though sometimes small evils, like invisible insects, inflict great pain, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an under-growth of small pleasures."-Sharp's Letters and Essays. "Thrice happy is he who acquires the habit of looking every where for excellences and not for faults-whether in art or in nature-whether in a picture, a poem, or a character. Like the bee in its flight, he extracts the sweet and not the bitter wherever he goes; till his mind becomes a dwellingplace for all that is beautiful, receiving, as it were by instinct, what is congenial to itself, and rejecting every thing else almost as unconsciously as if it was not there."- Rogers. |