But these pleasures of childhood have lost all their zest; It is warfare and carnage that now I love best: The sounds that I wish to awaken and hear Are the cheers raised by courage, the shrieks due to fear; When the riot of flames, ruin, smoke, steel and blood, Announces an army rolls along as a flood, Which I follow, to harry the clamorous ranks, Sharp-goading the laggards and pressing the flanks, Till, a thresher 'mid ripest of corn, up I stand With an oak for a flail in my unflagging hand. Rise the groans! rise the screams! on my feet fall vain tears As the roar of my laughter redoubles their fears. I am naked. At armor of steel I should joke-- True, I'm helmed--a brass pot you could draw with ten yoke. I look for no ladder to invade the king's hall-- I stride o'er the ramparts, and down the walls fall, Till choked are the ditches with the stones, dead and quick, Whilst the flagstaff I use 'midst my teeth as a pick. Oh, when cometh my turn to succumb like my prey, May brave men my body snatch away from th' array Of the crows--may they heap on the rocks till they loom Like a mountain, befitting a colossus' tomb! _Foreign Quarterly Review (adapted)_ THE CYMBALEER'S BRIDE. _("Monseigneur le Duc de Bretagne.")_ [VI., October, 1825.] My lord the Duke of Brittany Has summoned his barons bold-- Their names make a fearful litany! Among them you will not meet any But men of giant mould. Proud earls, who dwell in donjon keep, And steel-clad knight and peer, Whose forts are girt with a moat cut deep-- But none excel in soldiership My own loved cymbaleer. Clashing his cymbals, forth he went, With a bold and gallant bearing; Sure for a captain he was meant, To judge his pride with courage blent, And the cloth of gold he's wearing. But in my soul since then I feel A fear in secret creeping; And to my patron saint I kneel, That she may recommend his weal To his guardian-angel's keeping. I've begged our abbot Bernardine His prayers not to relax; And to procure him aid divine I've burnt upon Saint Gilda's shrine Three pounds of virgin wax. Our Lady of Loretto knows The pilgrimage I've vowed: "To wear the scallop I propose, If health and safety from the foes My lover be allowed." No letter (fond affection's gage!) From him could I require, The pain of absence to assuage-- A vassal-maid can have no page, A liegeman has no squire. This day will witness, with the duke's, My cymbaleer's return: Gladness and pride beam in my looks, Delay my heart impatient brooks, All meaner thoughts I spurn.