ACT IV.

SCENE, A Court, &c. as before.-Flourish of Trumpets.

Enter Lord RANDOLPH, attended.

Lord Rand. Summon a hundred horse, by break

of day,

To wait our pleasure at the castle-gate.

Enter Lady RANDOLPH,

Lady Rand. Alas! my lord! I've heard un

welcome news:

The Danes are landed.

Lord Rand. Ay, no inroad this

Of the Northumbrian, bent to take a spoil:
No sportive war, no tournament essay

Of some young knight resolved to break a spear,
And stain with hostile blood his maiden arms.
The Danes are landed: we must beat them back,
Or live the slaves of Denmark.

Lady Rand. Dreadful times!

Lord Rand. The fenceless villages are all for

saken;

The trembling mothers, and their children, lodged
In wall-girt towers and castles; whilst the men
Retire indignant. Yet, like broken waves,
They but retire more awful to return.

Lady Rand. Immense, as fame reports, the Danish host!

An

Lord Rand. Were it as numerous as loud fame

: reports,

army knit like ours would pierce it through: Brothers, that shrink not from each other's side, And fond companions, fill our warlike files: For his dear offspring, and the wife he loves, The husband and the fearless father arm. In vulgar breasts heroic ardour burns,

And the poor peasant mates his daring lord.

Lady Rand. Men's minds are temper'd, like their swords, for war;

Lovers of danger, on destruction's brink

They joy to rear erect their daring forms.

Hence, early graves; hence, the lone widow's life; And the sad mother's grief-embitter'd age.Where is our gallant guest?

Lord Rand. Down in the vale

I left him, managing a fiery steed,

Whose stubbornness had foil'd the strength and
skill

Of every rider. But behold he comes,
In earnest conversation with Glenalvon.-

Enter NORVAL and GLENALVON.

Glenalvon! with the lark arise; go forth,
And lead my troops that lie in yonder vale:
Private I travel to the royal camp:

Norval, thou goest with me. But say, young man!
Where didst thou learn so to discourse of war,
And in such terms, as I o'erheard to-day?
War is no village science, nor its phrase

A language taught amongst the shepherd swains.
Norv. Small is the skill my lord delights to

praise

In him he favours.-Hear from whence it came :

Beneath a mountain's brow, the most remote
And inaccessible by shepherds trod,

In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand,
A hermit lived; a melancholy man,

Who was the wonder of our wand'ring swains:
Austere and lonely, cruel to himself,

49

Did they report him; the cold earth his bed,
Water his drink, his food the shepherd's alms.
I went to see him, and my heart was touch'd
With rev'rence and with pity. Mild he spake,
And, entering on discourse, such stories told
As made me oft revisit his sad cell;
For he had been a soldier in his youth,
And fought in famous battles, when the peers
Of Europe, by the bold Godfredo led,
Against the usurping infidel display'd

The blessed cross, and won the Holy Land.
Pleased with my admiration, and the fire.
His speech struck from me, the old man would
shake

His years away, and act his young encounters:
Then, having shew'd his wounds, he'd sit him down,
And all the live long day discourse of war.
To help my fancy, in the smooth green turf
He cut the figures of the marshall'd hosts;
Described the motion, and explain'd the use
Of the deep column, and the lengthen'd line,
The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm.
For all that Saracen or Christian knew
Of war's vast art, was to this hermit known.

Lord Rand. Why did this soldier in a desert

hide

Those qualities that should have graced a camp? Norv. That too at last I learn'd. Unhappy

man!

Returning homeward by Messina's port,
Loaded with wealth and honours bravely won,
A rude and boist'rous captain of the sea
Fasten'd a quarrel on him. Fierce they fought :
The stranger fell, and with his dying breath
Declared his name and lineage. Mighty power!
The soldier cried, my brother! Oh my brother! A
Lady Rand. His brother!

Norv. Yes; of the same parents born;
His only brother. They exchanged forgiveness:
And happy, in my mind, was he that died;
For

many deaths has the survivor suffer'd.

In the wild desart on a rock he sits,

Or on some nameless stream's untrodden banks,
And ruminates all day his dreadful fate.
At times, alas! not in his perfect mind,
Holds dialogues with his loved brother's ghost:
And oft each night forsakes his sullen couch,
To make sad orisons for him he slew..