With the bulk of half a tower,
Headless Fawdon stood.

Wide he held a burning beam,
And blackly fill'd the light;
His body seem'd, by some black art,
To look at Wallace, heart to heart,
Threatening through the night.

Wallace that day week arose
From a feeble bed;

And gentle though he was before,
Yet now to orphans evermore
He gentlier bow'd his head.

KILSPINDIE.26

KING JAMES to royal Stirling town
Was riding from the chase,
When he was ware of a banish'd man
Return'd without his grace.

The man stood forward from the crowd
In act to make appeal;

Said James, but in no pleasant tone, "Yonder is my Grey-steel."

He knew him not by his attire,

Which was but poor

in plight;

He knew him not by his brown curls, For they were turned to white;

He knew him not by followers,

For want had made them strange; He knew him by his honest look, Which time could never change.

Kilspindie was a Douglas bold,
Who, when the king was young,
Had pleas'd him like the grim Grey-steel,
Of whom sweet verse is sung: 27

Had pleas'd him by his sword that cropp'd
The knights of their renown,
And by a foot so fleet and firm,
No horse could tire it down.

But James hath sworn an angry oath,
That as he was King crown'd,
No Douglas evermore should set
His foot on Scottish ground.

Too bold had been the Douglas race,

Too haughty and too strong;

Only Kilspindie of them all

Had never done him wrong.

"A boon! a boon!" Kilspindie cried;
"Pardon that here am I:

In France I have grown old and sad,
In Scotland I would die."

Kilspindie knelt, Kilspindie bent,
His Douglas pride was gone;
The King he neither spoke nor look'd,
But sternly rode straight on.

Kilspindie rose, and pace for pace
Held on beside the train,

His cap in hand, his looks in hope,
His heart in doubt and pain.

Before them lay proud Stirling hill,
The way grew steep and strong; ·
The King shook bridle suddenly,
And up swept all the throng.

Kilspindie said within himself,
“He thinks of Auld Lang Syne,
And wishes pleasantly to see

What strength may. still be mine."

On rode the court, Kilspindie ran,
His smile grew half distress'd;
There wasn't a man in that company,
Save one, but wish'd him rest.

Still on they rode, and still ran he,
His breath he scarce could get;
There wasn't a man in that company,
Save one, with eyes unwet.

The King has enter'd Stirling town,
Nor ever graced him first;
Kilspindie sat him down, and ask'd
Some water for his thirst.

But they had mark'd the monarch's face,
And how he kept his pride;
And old Kilspindie in his need
Is water's self denied.

Ten weeks thereafter, sever'd still
From Scotland's dear embrace,
Kilspindie died of broken heart,
Sped by that cruel race.

Ten years thereafter, his last breath
King James as sadly drew;

And though he died of many thoughts,
Kilspindie cross'd him too.

THE TRUMPETS OF DOOLKARNEIN.

IN Eastern history are two Iskanders, or Alexanders, who are sometimes confounded, and both of whom are called Doolkarnein, or the Two-Horned, in allusion to their subjugation of East and West, horns being an oriental symbol of power.

One of these heroes is Alexander of Macedon, the other a conqueror of more ancient times, who built the marvellous series of ramparts on Mount Caucasus, known in fable as the wall of Gog and Magog, that is to say, of the people of the North. It reached from the Euxine Sea to the Caspian, where its flanks originated the subsequent appellation of the Caspian Gates. See (among other passages in the same work) the article entitled "Jagioug et Magioug," in D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale.

The story of the Trumpets, on which the present poem is founded, is quoted by Major Price, in his History of the Arabs before the Time of Mahomet, from the old Italian collection of tales entitled The Pecorone, the work of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino.

WITH awful walls, far glooming, that possess'd

The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains, Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West, Shut up the northern nations in their mountains; And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew, Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder, Craftily purpos'd, when his arms withdrew,

To make him thought still hous'd there, like the thunder:

And it so fell; for when the winds blew right, They woke their trumpets to their calls of might.

Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew, Ringing the granite rocks, their only bearers, Till the long fear into religion grew,

And never more those heights had human darers. Dreadful Doolkarncin was an earthly god;

His walls but shadow'd forth his mightier frown

ing;

Armies of giants at his bidding trod

From realm to realm, king after king discrowning.

When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake

stirr❜d,

Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard.

But when the winters marr'd the mountain shelves, And softer changes came with vernal mornings, Something had touch'd the trumpets' lofty selves, And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings:

Fewer and feebler; as when silence spreads

In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs, left dying,

Fail by degrees upon their angry beds,

Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing. One by one, thus, their breath the trumpets drew, Till now no more the imperious music blew.

Is he then dead? Can great Doolkarnein die ?
Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed?
Were the great breaths that blew his minstrelsy
Phantoms, that faded as himself receded?
Or is he anger'd? Surely he still comes;

This silence ushers the dread visitation;
Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums,

And then will follow bloody desolation.

So did fear dream; though now, with not a sound To scare good hope, summer had twice crept round.

Then gather'd in a band, with lifted eyes,

The neighbours, and those silent heights ascended.

Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprize, They met, though twice they halted, breath suspended;