The bard hath paused-for another tone
Blends with the music of his own;
And his heart beats high with hope again,
As a well-known voice prolongs the strain.

"Are there none within thy father's hall,
Far o'er the wide blue main,

Young Christian! left to deplore thy fall,
With sorrow deep and vain?"

"There are hearts that still, through all the past, Unchanging have loved me well;

There are eyes whose tears were streaming fast
When I bade my home farewell.

"Better they wept o'er the warrior's bier Than th' apostate's living stain;

There's a land where those who loved when here, Shall meet to love again."

"Tis he! thy prince-long sought, long lost, The leader of the red-cross host!

'Tis he! to none thy joy betray,
Young Troubadour! away, away!
Away to the island of the brave,
The gem on the bosom of the wave ;4
Arouse the sons of the noble soil,
To win their Lion from the toil;
And free the wassail-cup shall flow,
Bright in each hall the hearth shall glow;
The festal board shall be richly crown'd,
While knights and chieftains revel round,
And a thousand harps with joy shall ring,
When merry England hails her king.

NOTES.

Note 1, page 113, line 6.

No helmet hangs o'er the massy gate.

It was a custom in feudal times to hang out a helmet on a castle as a token that strangers were invited to enter, and partake of hospitality. So in the romance of "Perceforest," "ils fasoient mettre au plus hault de leur hostel un heaulme, en signe que tous les gentils hommes et gentilles femmes entrassent hardiment en leur hostel comme en leur proper."

Note 2, page 113, lines 17 and 18.

Or the wild huntsman's bugle blast,

When his phantom-train are hurrying past.

Popular tradition has made several mountains in Germany the haunt of the wild Jäger, or supernatural huntsman-the superstitious tales relating to the Unterburg are recorded in Eustace's Classical Tour: and it is still believed in the romantic district of the Odenwald, that the knight of Rodenstein, issuing from his ruined castle, announces the approach of war by traversing the air with a noisy armament to the opposite castle of Schnellerts.-See the "Manuel pour les Voyageure sur le Rhin," and "Autumn on the Rhine."

Note 3, page 113, tine 43.

On the Great Plain its notes have rung.

The Plain of Esdraelon, called by way of eminence the "Great Plain;" in Scripture and elsewhere, the "field of Megiddo," the "Galilæan Plain." This plain, the most fertile part of all the land of Canaan, has been the scene of many a memorable contest in the first ages of Jewish history, as well as during the Roman empire, the Crusades, and even in later times. It has been a chosen place for encampment in every contest carried on in this country, from the days of Nebuchodonosor, king of the Assyrians, until the disastrous march of Bonaparte from Egypt into Syria. Warriors out of "every nation which is under heaven" have pitched their tents upon the Plain of Esdraelon, and have beheld the various banners of their nations wet with the dews of Hermon and Thabôr.-Dr. Clarke's Travels.

66

Note 4, page 115, line 22.

The gem on the bosom of the wave.
This precious stone set in the silver sea.'

Richard II.

THE DEATH OF CONRADIN.

FROM SISMONDI'S "REPUBLIQUES ITALIENNES."

"La défaite de Conradin ne devoit mettre une terme ni à ses malheurs, ni aux vengeances du roi (Charles d' Anjou). L'amour du peuple pour l'héritier légitime du trône, avoit éclaté d'une manière effrayante; it pouvoit causer de nouvelles révolutions, si Conradin demeuroit en vie; et Charles, revêtant sa défiance et sa cruaute des formes del a justice, resolut de faire périr sur l'échafaud le dernier rejeton de la Maison de Souabe, l'unique espérance de son parti. Un seul juge provençal et sujet de Charles, dont les historiens n'ont pas voulu conserver le nom, osa voter pour la mort, d'autres se renfermèrent dans un timide et coupable silence; et Charles, sur l'autorité de ce seul juge, fit prononcer, par Robert de Bari, protonotaire du royaume, la sentence de mort contre Conradin et tous ses compagnons. Cette sentence fut communiquée à Conradin, comme il jouoit aux échecs; on lui laissa peu de temps pour se preparer à son exécution, et le 26 d'Octobre, il fut conduit, avec tous ses amis, sur la Place du Marché de Naples, le long du rivage de la mer. Charles étoit présent, avec toute sa cour, et une foule immense entouroit le roi vainqueur et le roi condamné. Conradin étoit entre les mains des bourreaux; il détacha lui-même son manteau, et s'étant mis à genoux pour prier, il se releva en s'écriant: 'Oh, ma mére, quelle profonde douleur te causera la nouvelle qu'on va te porter de moi!' Puis il tourna les yeux sur la foule qui l'entouroit; il vit les larmes, il entendit les sanglots de son peuple; alors, détachant son gant, il jeta au milieu de ses sujets ce gage d'un combat de vengeance, et rendit sa tête au bourreau. Après lui, sur le même echafaud, Charles fit trancher la tête au Duc d'Autriche, aux Comtes Gualferano et Bartolommeo, Lancia, et aux Comtes Gerard et Galvano Donoratico de Pise. Par un rafinement de cruauté, Charles voulut que le premier, fils du sécond, prêcédât son père, et mourût entre ses bras. Les cadavres, d'après ses ordres, furent exclus d'une terre sainte, et inhumés sans pompe sur le rivage de la mer. Charles II., cependant fit dans la suite, bâtir sur le même lieu une église de Carmelites, comme pour appaiser ces ombres irritées."

No cloud to dim the splendor of the day
Which breaks o'er Naples and her lovely bay,
And lights that brilliant sea and magic shore
With every tint that charm'd the great of yore;
Th' imperial ones of earth-who proudly bade
Their marble domes e'en Ocean's realm invade.

That race is gone-but glorious nature here
Maintains unchanged her own sublime career,
And bids these regions of the sun display
Bright hues, surviving empires pass'd away.

9*

117

The beam of Heaven expands its kindling smile
Reveals each charm of many a fairy isle,
Whose image floats, in softer coloring drest,
With all its rocks and vines, on Ocean's breast.
Misenum's cape hath caught the vivid ray,
On Roman streamers there no more to play;
Still as of old, unalterably bright,
Lovely it sleeps on Posilipo's height
With all Italia's sunshine to illume
The ilex canopy of Virgil's tomb.

Campania's plains rejoice in light, and spread
Their gay luxuriance o'er the mighty dead;
Fair glittering to thine own transparent skies,
Thy palaces, exulting Naples! rise;

While, far on high Vesuvius rears his peak,
Furrow'd and dark with many a lava streak.

Oh, ye bright shores of Circe and the Muse!
Rich with all Nature's and all fiction's hues;
Who shall explore your regions, and declare
The poet err'd to paint Elysium there?

Call up his spirit, wanderer! bid him guide
Thy steps, those siren-haunted seas beside;
And all the scene a lovelier light shall wear,
And spells more potent shall pervade the air.
What though his dust be scatter'd, and his urn
Long from its sanctuary of slumber torn,
Still dwell the beings of his verse around,
Hovering in beauty o'er th' enchanted ground:
His lays are murmur'd in each breeze that roves
Soft o'er the sunny waves and orange-groves;
His memory's charm is spread o'er shore and sea,
The soul, the genius of Parthenope;

Sheding o'er myrtle shade and vine-clad hill
The purple radiance of Elysium still.

Yet that fair soil and calm resplendent sky
Have witness'd many a dark reality.

Oft o'er those bright blue seas the gale hath borne
The sighs of exiles never to return.?

There with the whisper of Campania's gale
Aath mingled oft affection's funeral-wail,
Mourning for buried heroes-while to her
That glowing land was but their sepulchre.3
And there of old, the dread mysterious moan
Swell'd from strange voices of no mortal tone;
And that wild trumpet, whose unearthly note
Was heard, at midnight, o'er the hills to float
Around the spot where Agrippina died,
Denouncing vengeance on the matricide.

Pass'd are hose ages-yet another crime,
Another woe, must stain th' Elysian clime.
There stands a scaffold on the sunny shore-
It must be crinson'd ere the day is o'er!
There is a throne in regal pomp array'd,-
A scene of death from thence must be survey'd,
Mark'd ye the rushing throngs?-each mien is pale,
Each hurried glance reveals a fearful tale;
But the deep workings of th' indignant breast,
Wrath, hatred, pity, must be all suppress'd;
The burning tear awhile must check its course,
Th' avenging thought concentrate all its force;
For tyranny is near, and will not brook
Aught but submission in each guarded look.

Girt with his fierce Provençals, and with mien
Austere in triumph, gazing on the scene,
And in his eye a keen suspisious glance
Of jealous pride and restless vigilance,
Behold the conqueror!-vainly in his face,
Of gentler feeling hope would seek a trace:
Cold, proud, severe, the spirit which hath lent
Its haughty stamp to each dark lineament;
And pleading mercy, in the sternness there,
May read at once her sentence-to despair!

But thou, fair boy! the beautiful, the brave,
Thus passing from the dungeon to the grave,
While all is yet around thee which can give
A charm to earth, and make it bliss to live;
Thou on whose form hath dwelt a mother's eye,
Till the deep love that not with thee shall die
Hath grown too full for utterance-Can
And is this pomp of death prepared for thee?
Young, royal Conradin ! who should'st have known

Of life as yet the sunny smile alone!

be?

Oh! who can view thee, in the pride and bloom

Of youth, array'd so richly for the tomb

Nor feel deep swelling in his inmost soul,

Emotions tyranny may ne'er control?

Bright victim! to Ambition's altar led,

Crown'd with all flowers that heaven and earth can shed,

Who, from th' oppressor towering in his pride,

May hope for mercy-if to thee denied?

There is dead silence on the breathles throng,
Dead silence all the peopled shore along,
As on the captive moves-the only sound,
To break that calm so fearfully profound,
The low, sweet murmur of the rippling wave,
Soft as it glides, the smiling shore to lave;
While on that shore, his own fair heritage,
The youthful martyr to a tyrant's rage