The Fire-Bing.

The blessings of the evil Genii, which are curses, were upon him."-Eastern Tale.

[1801.]

When the Crescent went back, and the Red-cross rush'd on,

O saw ye him foremost on Mount Lebanon

"O lady, fair lady, the tree green it
grows;
O lady, fair lady, the stream pure it flows;
Your castle stands strong, and your hopes soar on
high;

"The green boughs they wither, the thunderbolt

falls,

Thi.. ballad was written at the request of MR. LEWIS, to be inserted in his "Tales of Wonder." It is But, lady, fair lady, all blossoms to die. the third in a series of four ballads, on the subjet of Elementary Spirits. The story is, however, partly historical; for it is recorded, that, during the struggles of the Latin kingdom of Jerus dem, a Knight-Templar, called Saint-Alban, deserted to the Saracens, and defeated the Christians in many combats, till he was finally routed Count Albert is prisoner on Mount Lebanon." and stain, in a conflict with King Baldwin, unr the walls of Jerusalem.

BOLD knights and fair dames, to my harp give an

car,

Of love, and of war, and of wonder to hear;
And you haply may sigh, in the midst of your
glee,

At the tale of Count Albert, and fair Rosalie.

O see you that castle, so strong and so high?
And see you that lady, the tear in her eye?
And see you that palmer, from Palestine's land,
The shell on his hat, and the staff in his hand?—

"Now palmer, gray palmer, O tell unto me,
What news bring you home from the Holy Coun-
trie ?

And how goes the warfare by Galilee's strand?
And how fare our nobles, the flower of the
land?"-

"() well goes the warfare by Galilee's wave,
For Gilead, and Nablous, and Ramah we have;
And well fare our nobles by Mount Lebanon,
For the Heathen have lost, and the Christians have
won."

A fair chain of gold 'mid her ringlets there hung;
U'er the palmer's gray locks the fair chain has she
flung:

"O palmer, gray palmer, this chain be thy fee,
For the news thou hast brought from the Holy
Countrie.

"And, palmer, good palmer, by Galilee's wave, O saw ye Count Albert, the gentle and brave?

↑ Published in 1901 See ante, p. 573.

It leaves of your castle but levin-scorch'd walls;
The pure stream runs muddy; the gay hope is

gone;

O she's ta'en a horse, should be fleet at her speed;
And she's ta'en a sword, should be sharp at her
need;

And she has ta'en shipping for Palestine's land,
To ransom Count Albert from Soldanrie's hand

Count Albert has arm'd him the Paynim among, Though his heart it was false, yet his arm it was strong;

Far off was their murmur, it came not more nigh,
The flame burn'd unmoved, and naught else did And the Red-cross wax'd faint, and the Crescent

he spy.

Loud murmur'd the priests, and amazed was the
King,

came on,

From the day he commanded on Mount Lebanon.

From Lebanon's forests to Galilee's wave,

While many dark spells of their witchcraft they The sands of Samaar drank the blood of the brave.

When the winds from the four points of heaven So fell was the dint, that Count Albert stoop'd

were abroad,

They made each steel portal to rattle and ring,
And, borne on the blast, came the dread Fire-
King.

low

Before the cross'd shield, to his steel saddlebow; And scarce had he bent to the Red-cross his head,— "Bonne Grace, Notre Dame !" he unwittingly said.

o'er,

Full sore rock'd the cavern whene'er he drew nigh, Sore sigh'd the charm'd sword, for its virtue was
The fire on the altar blazed bickering and high;
In volcanic explosions the mountains proclaim
The dreadful approach of the Monarch of Flame.

Unmeasured in height, undistinguish'd in form,
His breath it was lightning, his voice it was storm;
I ween the stout heart of Count Albert was tame,
When he saw in his terrors the Monarch of Flame.

It sprung from his grasp, and was never seen more;
But true men have said, that the lightning's red

wing

Did waft back the brand to the dread Fire-King.

He clench'd his set teeth, and his gauntleted hand; He stretch'd, with one buffet, that Page on the strand;

In his hand a broad falchion blue-glimmer'd through As back from the stripling the broken casque smoke,

roll'd,

And Mount Lebanon shook as the monarch he You might see the blue eyes, and the ringlets of gold.

spoke :

Often lost their quivering beam,
Still the lights move slow before,
Till they rest their ghastly gleam
Right against an iron door.

Thundering voices from within,

Mix'd with peals of laughter, rose; As they fell, a solemn strain

Lent its wild and wondrous close!

Midst the din, he seem'd to hear
Voice of friends, by death removed;→→
Well he knew that solemn air,

"Twas the lay that Alice loved.—

Hark! for now a solemn knell
Four times on the still night broke;
Four times, at its deaden'd swell,

Echoes from the ruins spoke.

As the lengthen'd clangors die,
Slowly opes the iron door!
Straight a banquet met his eye,

But a funeral's form it wore !

Coffins for the seats extend;

All with black the board was spread; Girt by parent, brother, friend,

Long since number'd with the dead!

Alice, in her grave-clothes bound,
Ghastly smiling, points a seat;
All arose,

with thundering sound;
All the expected stranger greet.

High their meagre arms they wave, Wild their notes of welcome swell:"Welcome, traitor, to the grave!

Perjured, bid the light farewell!”

The Battle of Sempach.

[1818.]

THESE Verses are a literal translation of an ancient Swiss ballad upon the battle of Sempach, fought 9th July, 1386, being the victory by which the Swiss cantons established their independence; the author, Albert Tchudi, denominated the Souter, from his profession of a shoemaker. He was a citizen of Lucerne, esteemed highly among his countrymen, both for his powers as a MeisterSinger, or minstrel, and his courage as a soldier; so that he might share the praise conferred by Collins on Eschylus, that

66

Not alone he nursed the poet's flame, But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot steel. The circumstance of their being written by a poet returning from the well-fought field he describes, and in which his country's fortune was secured, may confer on Tchudi's verses an interest which they are not entitled to claim from their poetical merit. But ballad poetry, the more literally it is translated, the more it loses its simplicity, without acquiring either grace or strength; and, therefore, some of the faults of the verses must be imputed to the translator's feeling it a duty to keep as closely as possible to his original. The various puns, rude attempts at pleasantry, and disproportioned episodes, must be set down to Tchudi's account, or to the taste of his age.

The military antiquary will derive some amusement from the minute particulars which the martial poet has recorded. The mode in which the Austrian men-at-arms received the charge of the Swiss, was by forming a phalanx, which they defended with their long lances. The gallant Winkelreid, who sacrificed his own life by rushing among the spears, clasping in his arms as many as he could grasp, and thus opening a gap in those iron battalions, is celebrated in Swiss history. When fairly mingled together, the unwieldy length of their weapons, and cumbrous weight of their defensive armor, rendered the Austrian men-at-arms a very unequal match for the light-armed mountaineers. The victories obtained by the Swiss over the German chivalry, hitherto deemed as formidable on foot as on horseback, led to important changes in the art of war. The poet describes the Austrian knights and squires as cutting the peaks from their boots ere they could act upon foot, in allusion to an inconvenient piece of foppery, often mentioned in the middle ages. Leopold III., Archduke of Austria, called "The handsome manat-arms," was slain in the Battle of Sempach, with the flower of his chivalry.

THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH.'

"TWAS when among our linden-trees
The bees had housed in swarms
(And gray-hair'd peasants say that these
Betoken foreign arms),

Then look'd we down to Willisow,
The land was all in flame;
We knew the Archduke Leopold
With all his army came.

1 This translation first appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for February, 1818.-ED.