"Son of an honoured line, I grieve," Outspake the reverend seer, "That I no guerdon thee can give But words of woe and fear!-- Thy sun is setting!--and thy race, In thee, their goodly heir, Shall perish, nor a feeble trace Their fated name declare!-- Thy love is fatal: fatal, too, This act of rescue brave-- For, him who from destruction drew My life, no arm can save!" He said,--and took his lonely way Far from Romara's towers.-- His fateful end from that sad day O'er Torksey's chieftain lowers:-- Yet, vainly, in his heart a shrine Hope builds for love,--with faith;-- Alas! for him with frown malign Waiteth the grim king Death! FYTTE THE THYRDE. Plantagenet hath dungeons deep Beneath his castled halls;-- Plantagenet awakes from sleep To count his dungeoned thralls. Alone, with the torch of blood-red flame, The man of blood descends; And the fettered captives curse his name, As through the vaults he wends.-- His caverns are visited, all, save one, The deepest, and direst in gloom,-- Where his father, doomed by a demon son, Abode in a living tomb.-- "I bring thee bread and water, sire! Brave usury for thy gold! I fear my filial zeal will tire To visit, soon, thy hold!" Thus spake the fiendish-hearted lord, And wildly laughed, in scorn: Like thunder round the cell each word By echoing fiends is borne,-- But not a human heart is there The baron's scorn or hate to fear! And the captives tell, as he passeth again,-- That tyrant, in his rage,-- How an angel hath led the aged man To his heavenly heritage! The wrathful baron little recked That angel was his darling child; Or knew his dark ambition checked By her who oft his rage beguiled,-- By her on whom he ever smiled:-- This had he known, from that dread hour, His darling's smile had lost its power,-- And his own hand, without remorse, Had laid her at his feet a corse!-- Plantagenet's banners in pride are borne To the sound of pipe and drum! And his mailëd bands, with the dawn of morn, To Romara's walls are come. "We come not as foes," the herald saith,-- "But we bring Plantagenet's shriven faith That thou, Romara, in thine arms Shall soon enfold thy true love's charms: Let no delay thy joy betide!-- Thy Agnes soon shall be thy bride!" The raven croaks as Torksey's lord Attends that bannered host; But the lover is deaf to the omen-bird-- The fatal moat is crossed! "Ride, ride;" saith the baron,--"thy ladye fain And the priest--by the altar wait!"-- And the spearmen seize his bridle-rein, And hurry him to his fate. "A marriage by torchlight!" the baron said; "This stair to the altar leads! We patter our prayers, 'mong the mouldering dead,-- And there we tell our beads!"