"Woe, the blessed children both Takest thou in the joy of youth; Take me, too, the joyless father!" Spake the grim Guest, From his hollow, cavernous breast, "Roses in the Spring I gather!" SONG OF THE SILENT LAND. FROM THE GERMAN OF SALIS. INTO the Silent land! Ah! who shall lead us thither? Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, Thither, oh, thither, Into the Silent Land? Into the Silent Land! To you, ye boundless regions Of all perfection! Tender morning visions Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band! Who in Life's battle firm doth stand, Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms Into the Silent Land! O Land! O Land! For all the broken-hearted The mildest herald by our fate allotted, Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us with a gentle hand Into the land of the great Departed, Into the Silent Land! L'ENVOI. YE voices, that arose After the Evening's close, And whispered to my restless heart repose; Go, breathe it in the ear, Of all who doubt and fear, And say to them, "Be of good cheer!" Ye sounds, so low and calm, That in the groves of balm Seemed to me like an angel's psalm! Go, mingle yet once more Of the pine forest, dark and hoar! Tongues of the dead, not lost, Glimmer, as funeral lamps, Of the vast plain where Death encamps! BALLADS. -00 THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. [THE following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the sea-shore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Wind-Mill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors. Professor Rafn, in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, for 1838-1839, says:— "There is no mistaking in this instance the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the North were constructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or Ante-Gothic architecture, and which, especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued to predominate until the close of the 12th Century; that style, which some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristics, called the round-arch style, the same which in England is denominated Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture. "On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining, which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier rather than of a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all, who are familiar with Old-Northern Architecture, will concur, THAT THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE 12TH CENTURY. This remark applies, of course, to the original building only, and not to the alterations that it subsequently received; for there are several such alterations in the upper part of the building which cannot be mistaken, and which were most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern times to various uses, for example, as the substructure of a wind-mill, and latterly as a hay magazine. To the same times may be referred the windows, the fire-place, and the apertures made above the columns. That this building could not have been erected for a wind-mill, is what an architect will easily discern." I will not enter into a discussion of the point. It is sufficiently well established for the purpose of a ballad; though doubtless many an honest citizen of Newport, who has passed his days in sight of the Round Tower, will be ready to exclaim with Sancho; "God bless me! did I not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that it was nothing but a windmill; and nobody could mistake it, but one who had the like in his head."] "SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest! Comest to daunt me! Why dost thou haunt me ?" Then, from those cavernous eyes And, like the water's flow From the heart's chamber. "I was a Viking old! "Far in the Northern Land, "Oft to his frozen lair Sang from the meadow. "Once as I told in glee And as the white stars shine 66 Fell their soft splendour. I wooed the blue-eyed maid, Our vows were plighted "Bright in her father's hall When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand, "While the brown ale he quaffed, So the loud laugh of scorn, "She was a Prince's child, And though she blushed and smiled, I was discarded! Should not the dove so white Follow the sea-mew's flight, Why did they leave that night Her nest unguarded? Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me,- Fairest of all was she Among the Norsemen ! When on the white-sea-strand, Waving his armed hand, With twenty horsemen. |