The savage, starting from his bleeding prey, Rush'd to his haunt, and briefly fled away; Approaching steps declared swift danger nigh, And forc'd--too late! the unglutted beast to fly. Those steps were Henry's!--he first reached the spot, For him to reach it, was the dreadful lot! He saw her marble bosom torn--her mangled head; He saw--mysterious fate! Edwina dead! Those eyes were closed, whose rich and beamy light, Would shed a lustre on pale Sorrow's night-- Dumb was that honied mouth, whose graceful speech, Beyond the schoolman's eloquence would reach! The snowy arms which lately clasped her lord, Now streaked with flowing blood--O! thought abhorred! Before his starting eyes, all lifeless hang, And give him more than death's last, rending pang. His cries of agony spread o'er the plain, And reached the distant undulating main; His screams of anguish struck with terror more Than the lank wolf's most desolating roar. Vain his attendants sooth--in vain they pray, In stormy grief he wearied down the day. A furious maniac now he raged around, And tore the bushes from the embracing ground, Then spent, all prone upon the earth he fell, And from his eyes the gushing torrents swell; When sorrow could articulate its grief, When words allowed a transient short relief, "Woe to thee, Bank!" were the first sounds that burst, "And be thy soil with bitter offspring curst! "Woe to thee, Bank, for thou art drunk with gore, "The purest heart of woman ever bore!" "Woe to thee, Bank!" the attendants echoed round, And pitying shepherds caught the grief-fraught sound. Thus, to this hour, through every changing age, Through ev'ry year's still ever-varying stage, The name remains; and Wo-to-Bank is seen, From ev'ry mountain bleak, and valley green-- Dim Skiddaw views it from his monstrous height, And eagles mark it in their dizzy flight; The Bassenthwaite's soft murmurs sorrow round, And rocks of Buttermere protect the ground, Rills of Helvellyn raging in their fall, Seem on Lodore's rough sympathy to call-- From peak to peak they wildly burst away, And form, with rushing tone, a hollow, dirge-like lay. Not rocks, and cataracts and alps alone, Paint out the spot, and make its horrors known. For faithful lads ne'er pass, nor tender maid, But the soft rite of tears is duly paid; Each can the story to the traveller tell, And on the sad disaster, pitying dwell-- Thus Wo-to-Bank, thou'rt known thy swains among, And now thou liv'st within an humble stranger's song!" LADY EVA AND THE GIANT. A LEGEND OF YEWDALE.