While from the rich, dark tracery, along the vaulted wall, Lights gleamed on harness, plume and spear, o'er the proud old Gothic hall.

Fast hurrying through the outer gate, the mailed retainers poured,

On through the portal's frowning arch, and thronged around the board;

While at its head, within his dark, carved, oaken chair of state,

Armed cap-à-pie, stern Rudiger, with girded falchion, sat.

"Fill every beaker up, my men!-pour forth the cheering wine!

There's life and strength in every drop,-thanksgiving to the vine!

Are ye all there, my vassals true ?-mine eyes are waxing dim:

Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim !

"Ye're there, but yet I see you not!-forth draw each trusty sword,

And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my

board!

I hear it faintly!-louder yet! What clogs my heavy breath?

Up, all !—and shout for Rudiger, 'Defiance unto death!' "

to bowl, steel clanged to steel, and rose a deafen

Bowl rang ing cry,

That made the torches flare around, and shook the flags on

high:

"Ho! cravens! do ye fear him? Slaves! traitors! have ye flown?

Ho! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone?

"But I defy him!-let him come !" Down rang the massy

cup,

While from its sheath the ready blade came flashing half-way

up;

And, with the black and heavy plumes scarce trembling on

his head,

There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair, old Rudiger satdead!

Ex. CXXV.-THE FIELD OF TALAVERA.

BYRON.

AWAKE, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance!
Lo! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries;
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance,
Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies:
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies,
And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar:
In every peal she calls-" Awake! arise!"
Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore,
When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore?

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking saber smote;
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? the fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high-from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe,
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

Lo! where the giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And
eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;

Restless it rolls, now fixed, now anon
Flashing afar,-and at his iron feet

Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done;

For on this morn three potent nations meet,

To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
Are met-as if at home they could not die-
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

There shall they rot-Ambition's honored fools
Yes, Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay!

Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools, The broken tools, that tyrants cast away By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts-to what?-a dream alone. Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone.

Ex. CXXVI-THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Look on him-through his dungeon grate,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed

His hand upholds his drooping head-
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard,
Unshorn, his gray, neglected beard;
And o'er his bony fingers flow

His long, disheveled locks of snow.

What has the gray-haired prisoner done?
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so: his crime's a fouler one:

God made the old man poor!

For this he shares a felon's cell-
The fittest earthly type of hell!

For this-the boon for which he poured
His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost—
His blood-gained liberty is lost!

And so, for such a place of rest,

Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain
On Concord's field and Bunker's crest,
And Saratoga's plain?

Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars!
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument upreared to thee-
Piled granite and a prison cell-
The land repays thy service well!

Go, ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle shout:
Let boasted eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;
Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With "glory" for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise" our glorious liberty!"

And when the patriot cannon jars
The prison's cold and gloomy wall,
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind, and fall—
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb,
What is your carnival to him?

Ex. CXXVII.-THE BELLS.

HEAR the sledges with the bells,

Silver bells!

EDGAR A. POE.

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle

In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twingle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells,

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,-
Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night,
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle dove, that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!

Oh! from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!

How it dwells

On the future !-how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells,

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Hear the loud alarum bells,-
Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of time,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor
Now-now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh! the bells!

What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,