With the bulk of half a tower, Wide he held a burning beam, Wallace that day week arose And gentle though he was before, KILSPINDIE.26 KING JAMES to royal Stirling town The man stood forward from the crowd 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, Had pleas'd him by his sword that cropp'd But James hath sworn an angry oath, 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; In France I have grown old and sad, Kilspindie knelt, Kilspindie bent, Kilspindie rose, and pace for pace His cap in hand, his looks in hope, Before them lay proud Stirling hill, Kilspindie said within himself, What strength may. still be mine." On rode the court, Kilspindie ran, Still on they rode, and still ran he, The King has enter'd Stirling town, But they had mark'd the monarch's face, Ten weeks thereafter, sever'd still Ten years thereafter, his last breath And though he died of many thoughts, 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 ? This silence ushers the dread visitation; 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; |