THE FIRE KING. "The blessings of the evil genii, which are curses, were upon him.' Eastern Tale. This ballad was written at the request of Mr. Lewis, to be inserted in his Tales of Wonder. It is the third in a series of four ballads, on the subject of Elementary Spirits. The story is, however, partly historical; for it is recorded, that, during the struggles of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, a knight templar, called Saint Alban, deserted to the Saracens, and defeated the Christians in many combats, till he was finally routed and slain, in a conflict with King Baldwin, under the walls of Jerusalem. BOLD knights and fair dames, to my harp give an ear, O see you that castle, so strong and so high? "Now, palmer, gray palmer, O tell unto me, "O well goes the warfare by Galilee's wave, A fair chain of gold mid her ringlets there hung: O'er the palmer's gray locks the fair chain has she flung; "O palmer, gray palmer, this chain be thy fee, For the news thou hast brought from the Holy Countrie. O saw ye him foremost on Mount Lebanon ?" "O lady, fair lady, the tree green it grows; O lady, fair lady, the stream pure it flows: Your castle stands strong, and your hopes soar on high; But lady, fair lady, all blossoms to die. "The green boughs they wither, the thunderbolt falls, It leaves of your castle but levin-scorch'd walls; The pure stream runs muddy; the gay hope is gone; Count Albert is prisoner on Mount Lebanon." And she has ta'en shipping for Palestine's land, To ransom Count Albert from Soldanrie's hand. Small thought had Count Albert on fair Rosalie, Three things must thou do ere I hearken to thee; "And, last, thou shalt aid us with counsel and hand, To drive the Frank robber from Palestine's land; For my lord and my love then Count Albert I'll take, When all this is accomplish'd for Zulema's sake," He has thrown by his helmet and cross-handled sword, Renouncing his knighthood, denying his Lord; He has ta'en the green caftan, and turban put on, For the love of the maiden of fair Lebanon. They search'd Albert's body, and, lo! on his breast The priests they erase it with care and with pain, High bristled his hair, his heart flutter'd and beat, And he turn'd him five steps, half resolved to retreat; O she's ta'en a horse, should be fleet at her speed; But his heart it was harden'd, his purpose was And she's ta'en a sword, should be sharp at her need; gone, When he thought of the maid of fair Lebanon. Scarce pass'd he the archway, the threshold scarce trod, But true men have said, that the lightning's red wing When the winds from the four points of heaven Did waft back the brand to the dread Fire-King. were abroad; They made each steel portal to rattle and ring, Unmeasured in height, undistinguish'd in form, In his hand a broad falchion blue glimmer'd through The Saracens, Kurdmans, and Ishmaelites yield and no more, Till thou bend to the cross, and the virgin adore." see! The recreant receives the charm'd gift on his knee: The thunders grow distant, and faint gleam the As, borne on his whirlwind, the phantom retires. From Bethsaida's fountains to Napthali's head. O! who is yon Paynim lies stretched 'mid the And who is yon page lying cold at his knee? The count he was left to the vulture and hound: Her soul to high mercy our lady did bring; And the red-cross wax'd faint, and the crescent At the tale of Count Albert and fair Rosalie. came on, From the day he commanded on Mount Lebanon. From Lebanon's forest to Galilee's wave, With Salem's king Baldwin, against him came on. The war-cymbals clatter'd, the trumpets replied, The lances were couch'd, and they closed on each side; THE WILD HUNTSMEN. THIS is a translation, or rather an imitation, of the Wilde Jager of the German poet Bürger. The tradition upon which it is founded bears, that formerly a wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, named Falkenburg, was so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and cruel, that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but accompaAgainst the charm'd blade which Count Albert did nied it with the most unheard-of oppression upon And horsemen and horses Count Albert o'erthrew, unto. wield, The fence had been vain of the king's red-cross shield; the poor peasants who were under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, the people adopted a superstition, founded probably on the many But a page thrust him forward the monarch be- various uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a fore, And cleft the proud turban the renegade wore. German forest, during the silence of the night. They conceived they still heard the cry of the wildgrave's hounds; and the well-known cheer of the deceased hunter, the sound of his horse's feet, and the rustling of the branches before the game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also distinctly discriminated; but the phantoms are rarely, if ever, visible. Once, as a benighted chasseur heard this infernal chase pass by him, at the sound of the It sprung from his grasp, and was never seen more: halloo, with which the spectre huntsman cheered his hounds, he could not refrain from crying, "Gluck zu, Falkenburg!" (Good sport to ye, Falkenburg!) "Dost thou wish me good sport?" answered a hoarse voice; "thou shalt share the game;" and there was thrown at him what seemed to be a huge piece of foul carrion. The daring chasseur lost two of his best horses soon after, and never perfectly recovered the personal effects of this ghostly greeting. This tale, though told with some variation, is universally believed all over Germany. The French had a similar tradition concerning an aërial hunter, who infested the forest of Fontainebleau. He was sometimes visible; when he appeared as a huntsman, surrounded with dogs, a tall grisly figure. Some account of him may be found in "Sully's Memoirs," who says he was called Le Grande Veneur. At one time he chose to hunt so near the palace, that the attendants, and, if I mistake not, Sully himself, came out into the court, supposing it was the sound of the king returning from the chase. This phantom is elsewhere called Saint Hubert. The superstition seems to have been very general, as appears from the following fine poetical description of this phantom chase, as it was heard in the wilds of Ross-shire. "Ere since, of old, the haughty thanes of Ross- Scottish Descriptive Poems, pp. 167, 168. A posthumous miracle of father Lesly, a Scottish Capuchin, related to his being buried on a hill haunted by these unearthly cries of hounds and huntsmen. After his sainted relics had been deposited there, the noise was never heard more. The reader will find this, and other miracles, recorded in the life of father Bonaventura, which is written in the choicest Italian. THE wildgrave winds his bugle horn, The eager pack, from couples freed, Dash through the bush, the brier, the brake; While answering hound, and horn, and steed, The mountain echoes startling wake. The beams of God's own hallow'd day But still the wildgrave onward rides ; Two stranger horsemen join the train. Who was each stranger, left and right, Well may I guess, but dare not tell; The right hand steed was silver white, The left, the swarthy hue of hell. The right hand horseman, young and fair, He waved his huntsman's cap on high, "Cease thy loud bugle's clanging knell," "To-day the ill-omen'd chase forbear, Yon bell yet summons to the fane; To-day the warning spirit hear, To-morrow thou mayst mourn in vain." "Away, and sweep the glades along!" The sable hunter hoarse replies; "To muttering monks leave matin song, And bells, and books, and mysteries." The wildgrave spurr'd his ardent steed, And, lanching forward with a bound, "Who, for thy drowsy priest-like rede, Would leave the jovial horn and hound? "Hence, if our manly sport offend! With pious fools go chant and pray: The wildgrave spurr'd his courser light, A stag more white than mountain snow: A heedless wretch had cross'd the way; A field with autumn's blessings crown'd; "O mercy, mercy, noble lord! Spare the poor's pittance," was his cry, "Earn'd by the sweat these brows have pour'd, In scorching hour of fierce July?" Earnest the right hand stranger pleads, "Away, thou hound so basely born, Or dread the scourge's echoing blow!" Then loudly rung his bugle horn, Hark forward, forward, holla, ho!" So said, so done: a single bound And man, and horse, and hound, and horn, Fell famine marks the maddening throng. Again uproused, the timorous prey Scours moss, and moor, and holt, and hill; Hard run, he feels his strength decay, And trusts for life his simple skill. Too dangerous solitude appear'd; He seeks the shelter of the crowd; Amid the flock's domestic herd His harmless head he hopes to shroud. O'er moss, and moor, and holt, and hill, His track the steady bloodhounds trace; O'er moss and moor, unwearied still, The furious earl pursues the chase. Full lowly did the herdsman fall; "O spare, thou noble baron, spare These herds, a widow's little all; These flocks an orphan's fleecy care?" Earnest the right hand stranger pleads, The left still cheering to the prey; The earl nor prayer nor pity heeds, But furious keeps the onward way. "Unmanner'd dog! to stop my sport Vain were thy cant and beggar whine, Though human spirits, of thy sort, Were tenants of these carrion kine!" Again he winds his bugle horn, "Hark forward, forward, holla, ho!" And through the herd, in ruthless scorn, He cheers his furious hounds to go. In heaps the throttled victims fall; Down sinks their mangled herdsman near. The murderous cries the stag appal Again he starts, new nerved by fear. With blood besmear'd, and white with foam, While big the tears of anguish pour He seeks, amid the forest's gloom, The humble hermit's hallow'd bower. But man and horse, and horn and hound, With, "Hark away! and, holla, ho!" All mild, amid the route profane, The holy hermit pour'd his prayer; "Forbear with blood God's house to stain; Revere his altar, and forbear! "The meanest brute has rights to plead, Which wrong'd by cruelty or pride, Draw vengeance on the ruthless head: Be warn'd at length, and turn aside.” Still the fair horseman anxious pleads; But frantic keeps the forward way. "Holy or not, or right or wrong, Thy altar, and its rites, I spurn; Not sainted martyr's sacred song, Not God himself, shall make me turn!" He spurs his horse, he winds his horn, "Hark forward, forward, holla, ho!" But off, on wirlwind's pinions borne, The stag, the hut, the hermit, go. And horse, and man, and horn, and hound, Wild gazed th' affrighted earl around; High o'er the sinner's humbled head At length the solemn silence broke; And from a cloud of swarthy red, The awful voice of, thunder spoke. "Oppressor of creation fair! Apostate spirits' harden'd tool! Scorner of God! Scourge of the poor! The measure of thy cup is full. "Be chased forever through the wood; Forever roam th' affrighted wild; And let thy fate instruct the proud, God's meanest creature is his child." "Twas hush'd: one flash, of sombre glare, With yellow ting'd the forest brown; Up rose the wildgrave's bristling hair, And horror chill'd each nerve and bone. Cold pour'd the sweat in freezing rill; A rising wind began to sing; And louder, louder, louder still, Brought storm and tempest on its wing. Earth heard the call! Her entrails rend; From yawning rifts, with many a yell, Mix'd with sulphureous flames, ascend The misbegotten dogs of hell. What ghastly huntsman next arose, The wildgrave flies o'er bush and thorn, With wild despair's reverted eye, Close, close behind, he marks the throng, With bloody fangs, and eager cry, In frantic fear he scours along. Still, still shall last the dreadful chase, That oft the lated peasant hears; The wakeful priest oft drops a tear THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH. THESE Verses are a literal translation of an ancient Swiss ballad upon the battle of Sempach, fougat 9th July, 1386, being the victory by which the Swiss cantons established their independence. The author is Albert Tehudi, denominated the Souter, from his profession of a shoemaker. He was a citizen of Lucerne, esteemed highly among his countrymen, both for his powers as a Meistersinger, or minstrel, and his courage as a soldier; so that he might share the praise conferred by Collins on Eschylus, that -Not alone he nursed the poet's flame, But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot steel. The circumstance of their being written by a poet returning from a well-fought field he describes, and in which his country's fortune was secured, may confer on Tehudi's verses an interest which they are not entitled to claim from their poetical merit. But ballad poetry, the more literally it is translated, the more it loses its simplicity, without acquiring either grace or strength; and therefore some of the faults of the verses must be imputed to the translator's feeling it a duty to keep as closely as possible to his original. The various puns, rude attempts at pleasantry, and disproportioned episodes, must be set down to Tehudi's account, or to the taste of his age. The military antiquary will derive some amusement from the minute particulars which the martial poet has recorded. The mode in which the Austrian men-at-arms received the charge of the Swiss was by forming a phalanx, which they defended with their long lances. The gallant Winkelried, who sacrificed his own life by rushing among the spears, clasping in his arms as many as he could grasp, and thus opening a gap in these iron battalions, is celebrated in Swiss history. When fairly mingled together, the unwieldy length of their weapons, and cumbrous weight of their defensive armour, rendered the Austrian men-at-arms a very unequal match for the light-armed mountaineers. The victories obtained by the Swiss over the German chivalry, hitherto deemed as formidable on foot as on horseback, led to important changes in the art of war. The poet describes the Austrian knights and squires as cutting the peaks from their boots ere they could act upon foot, in allusion to an inconvenient piece of foppery, often mentioned in the middle ages. Leopold III., Archduke of Austria, called "The handsome man-atarms," was slain in the battle of Sempach, with the flower of his chivalry. 'TWAS when among our linden trees Then look'd we down to Willisow, The Austrian nobles made their vow, With clarion loud, and banner proud, Their onward march they make. "Now list ye, lowland nobles all Ye seek the mountain strand, Nor wot ye what shall be your lot In such a dangerous land. "I rede ye, shrive you of your sins A skirmish in Helvetian hills "But where now shall we find a priest, * All the Swiss clergy who were able to bear arms fought in this patriotic war. |