When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn;
And nearly veiled in mist her waning horn;
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,
And hew the bough that bought his children's

food,

1200

Passed by the river that divides the plain
Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain:
He heard a tramp
From out the wood before him was a cloak
Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow,
Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,”
And some foreboding that it might be crime,
Himself unheeded watched the stranger's course,
Who reached the river, bounded from his horse, 1210
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,
Heaved up the bank, and dashed it from the shore,
Then paused, and looked, and turned, and seem-
ed to watch,

a horse and horseman broke

And still another hurried glance would snatch,
And follow with his step the stream that flowed,
As if even yet too much its surface showed:
At once he started, stooped, around him strown
The winter floods had scattered heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gathered there,

And slung them with a more than common care. 1220
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean;
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glittered starlike on the vest,
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:

1230

It rose again but indistinct to view,
And left the waters of a purple hue,
Then deeply disappeared: the horseman gazed
Till ebbed the latest eddy it had raised;
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant spurred him into panting speed.
His face was masked the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread;
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,

Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.
If thus he perished, Heaven receive his soul!
His undiscovered limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell
It was not Lara's hand by which he fell.

1240

Alike without their monumental stone!

The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean

From lingering where her chieftain's blood had

been;

1250

Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;
But furious would you tear her from the spot
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not,
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;
But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talked all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints:
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall; 1260
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she staunched anew some phantom's wound.
Herself would question, and for him reply;

Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit;
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand — 1270
This could not last—she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold her truth too dearly proved. ·

THE event in section 24, Canto 2d, was suggested by the description of the death or rather burial of the Duke of Gandia.

The most interesting and particular account of this mysterious event, is given by Burchard; and is in substance as follows: "On the eighth day of June, the cardinal of Va"lenza, and the duke of Gandia, sons of the pope, supped " with their mother, Vanozza, near the church of S. Pietro ad “vincula; several other persons being present at the enter"tainment. A late hour approaching, and the cardinal "having reminded his brother, that it was time to return "to the apostolic palace, they mounted their horses or mules, "with only a few attendants, and proceeded together as far ་་ 'as the palace of cardinal Ascanio Sforza, when the duke "informed the cardinal, that before he returned home, he "had to pay a visit of pleasure. Dismissing therefore all "his attendants, excepting his staffiero, or footman, and a " person in a mask, who had paid him a visit whilst at sup"per, and who, during the space of a month, or thereabouts, "previous to this time, had called upon him almost daily, at the apostolic palace, he took this person behind him on his mule, and proceeded to the street of the Jews, where "he quitted his servant, directing him to remain there until 'a certain hour; when, if he did not return, he might repair