GONDOLINE;

A BALLAD.

THE night it was still, and the moon it shone

Serenely on the sea,

And the waves at the foot of the rifted rock
They murmur'd pleasantly.

When Gondoline roam'd along the shore,
A maiden full fair to the sight;

Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek,
And turn'd it to deadly white.

Her thoughts they were drear, and the silent tear

It fill'd her faint blue eye,

As oft she heard, in fancy's ear,
Her Bertrand's dying sigh.

Her Bertrand was the bravest youth

Of all our good King's men,

And he was gone to the Holy Land
To fight the Saracen.

And many a month had pass'd away,
And many a rolling year,

But nothing the maid from Palestine
Could of her lover hear.

Full oft she vainly tried to pierce
The Ocean's misty face;

Full oft she thought her lover's bark
She on the wave could trace.

And every night she placed a light
In the high rock's lonely tower,

To guide her lover to the land,

Should the murky tempest lower.

But now despair had seiz'd her breast,
And sunken in her eye:
"Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live,
"And I in peace will die."

She wander'd o'er the lonely shore,
The Curlew scream'd above,

She heard the scream with a sickening heart,
Much boding of her love.

Yet still she kept her lonely way,

And this was all her cry,

"Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live,

"And I in peace shall die."

And now she came to a horrible rift

All in the rock's hard side,

A bleak, and blasted oak, o'erspread
The cavern yawning wide.

And pendant from its dismal top
The deadly night-shade hung,

The hemlock, and the aconite,

Across the mouth were flung.

And all within, was dark, and drear,
And all without, was calm,
Yet Gondoline entered, her soul upheld
By some deep-working charm.

And, as she enter'd the cavern wide,
The moonbeam gleamed pale,
And she saw a snake on the craggy rock,
It clung by its slimy tail.

Her foot it slipp'd, and she stood aghast, She trod on a bloated toad;

Yet still, upheld by the secret charm,

She kept upon her road.

Mysterious sounds arose,

So, on the mountain's piny top,

The blustering North-wind blows.

Then furious peals of laughter loud Were heard with thundering sound, Till they died away, in soft decay,

Low whispering o'er the ground.

Yet still the maiden onward went,
The charm yet onward led,
Though each big glaring ball of sight
Seem'd bursting from her head.

But now a pale blue light she saw,
It from a distance came,
She followed, till upon her sight,
Burst full a flood of flame.

She stood appall'd; yet still the charm
Upheld her sinking soul,

Yet each bent knee the other smote,
And each wild eye did roll.

And such a sight as she saw there,
No mortal saw before,
And such a sight as she saw there,
No mortal shall see more.

A burning cauldron stood in the midst, The flame was fierce and high,

And all the cave so wide and long,

Was plainly seen thereby.