Like prey-beasts they hide on the Teivy’s banks In the covert of thick-leaved bushes; The youth, he dashes across the river, And ardent to meet his fond receiver He seeks her fair form in the rushes.— He deems she plays him at hide and seek, Her heart he knew was gayful— “Oh come from thy covert my Ellen dear! Oh come forth and meet thy lover here!” He cries in soft accents playful. No Ellen appears—rustling steps he hears— Perhaps some perfidious stranger;— He stops in the rushes, and steals to a copse, But there not an instant for breathing stops Peril’s presentiment suddenly drops, And he flies for his life from danger. He knew not his foes, up the hill he goes, With the speed of a hart that’s hunted; The brothers pursue, till fatigued they grew, To Maes-y-velin his course they knew, And eager revenge is blunted.— They saw him enter—“the foe is snared!” Exclaim’d then the elder brother; “To kill him surely be firmly prepared Accurst be the arm by which he is spared! Let’s stab him, or drown, or smother.” “Let’s do him dead and no matter how, And our sister’s fortune is ours; No brats of her’s shall supplant our hope: Prepare we a dagger, a sack, and rope, For brief are the stripling’s hours.” Now rush’d the youth through the mansion door. And fell at the feet of Ellen; Ere he could speak the brothers appear, The maiden shrieks with terrific fear, The heiress of Maes-y-velin.— She fell in a swoon, the brothers soon Gag his mouth and proceed to bind him, His hands they fasten’d behind his back, And over his head they drew a sack, They jump on his body—his rib bones crack, Till a corse on the ground they find him. Oh God! ’twas a barbarous bloody deed; ’Twas piteous to hear his groaning: A demon’s heart might relent to hear The sobs of death and convulsions drear— Oh Christ! is no merciful angel near, Call’d down by this woeful moaning?— Oh murderous fiends! the eye of God Hath flamed on this heartless murther! They grasp at his throat to check his breath— With knees on his breast—oh merciful death! Thou sav’st him from anguish further. And dead in the sack his body they bore, And sunk in a pool of Teivy; After many days when the body was found, No tongue could tell was he smother’d or drown’d, Or crush’d by men’s buffets heavy. Thus fell in his bloom the blameless youth;— Insanity seized on poor Ellen, The lovely maniac! with bosom bare, And eyes of wildness, and streaming hair, Roved frantic o’er Maes-y-velin.