The place of common-councilman. All nations have their omens drear, Their legends wild of woe and fear. To Cambria look—the peasant see Bethink him of Glendowerdy, And shun “the spirit’s blasted tree.” The Highlander, whose red claymore The battle turned on Maida’s shore, Will, on a Friday morn, look pale, If asked to tell a fairy tale: He fears the vengeful elfin king, Who leaves that day his grassy ring: Invisible to human ken, He walks among the sons of men. Did’st e’er, dear Heber, pass along Beneath the towers of Franchèmont, Which, like an eagle’s nest in air, Hang o’er the stream and hamlet fair; Deep in their vaults, the peasants say, A mighty treasure buried lay, Amassed through rapine and through wrong, By the last Lord of Franchèmont. The iron chest is bolted hard, A huntsman sits, its constant guard; Around his neck his horn is hung, His hanger in his belt is slung; Before his feet his blood-hounds lie: And ’twere not for his gloomy eye, Whose withering glance no heart can brook, As true a huntsman doth he look, As bugle e’er in brake did sound, Or ever hallooed to a hound. To chase the fiend, and win the prize, In that same dungeon ever tries An aged necromantic priest: It is an hundred years at least, Since ’twixt them first the strife begun, And neither yet has lost nor won. And oft the conjuror’s words will make The stubborn demon groan and quake; And oft the bands of iron break, Or bursts one lock, that still amain, Fast as ’tis opened, shuts again. That magic strife within the tomb May last until the day of doom, Unless the adept shall learn to tell The very word that clenched the spell, When Franchèmont locked the treasure cell. A hundred years are past and gone, And scarce three letters has he won. Such general superstition may Excuse for old Pitscottie say; Whose gossip history has given My song the messenger from heaven, That warned, in Lithgow, Scotland’s king, Nor less the infernal summoning; May pass the monk of Durham’s tale, Whose demon fought in Gothic mail; May pardon plead for Fordun grave, Who told of Gifford’s goblin-cave. But why such instances to you, Who in an instant can renew Your treasured hoards of various lore, And furnish twenty thousand more? Hoards, not like theirs whose volumes rest Like treasures in the Franchèmont chest, While gripple owners still refuse To others what they cannot use; Give them the priest’s whole century, They shall not spell you letters three; Their pleasure in the books the same The magpie takes in pilfered gem. Thy volumes, open as thy heart, Delight, amusement, science, art, To every ear and eye impart; Yet who, of all who thus employ them, Can like the owner’s self enjoy them? But, hark! I hear the distant drum!