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: Of some young knight resolved to break a spear, Lady Rand. Dreadful times! Lord Rand. The fenceless villages are all for saken; The trembling mothers, and their children, lodged 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 Of every rider. But behold he comes, Enter NORVAL and GLENALVON. Glenalvon! with the lark arise; go forth, Norval, thou goest with me. But say, young man! A language taught amongst the shepherd swains. praise In him he favours.-Hear from whence it came : Beneath a mountain's brow, the most remote In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand, Who was the wonder of our wand'ring swains: 49 Did they report him; the cold earth his bed, The blessed cross, and won the Holy Land. His years away, and act his young encounters: 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, Norv. Yes; of the same parents born; many deaths has the survivor suffer'd. In the wild desart on a rock he sits, Or on some nameless stream's untrodden banks, |