THE FALL OF D'ASSAS.

Yet on his vigil's midnight round

The youth all cheerly pass'd;
Uncheck'd by aught of boding sound
That mutter'd in the blast.

Where were his thoughts that lonely hour?
-In his far home, perchance;
His father's hall, his mother's bower,
'Midst the gay vines of France:

Wandering from battles lost and won,
To hear and bless again
The rolling of the wide Garonne,
Or murmur of the Seine.

-Hush! hark!-did stealing steps go by,
Came not faint whispers near?
No! the wild wind hath many a sigh,
Amidst the foliage sere.

Hark, yet again!-and from his hand
What grasp hath wrench'd the blade?
-Oh! single 'midst a hostile band,
Young soldier! thou'rt betray'd!

"Silence!" in under-tones they cry-
"No whisper-not a breath!
The sound that warns thy comrades nigh
Shall sentence thee to death."

-Still, at the bayonet's point he stood,
And strong to meet the blow;
And shouted, 'midst his rushing blood,
"Arm, arm, Auvergne! the foe!"

337

The stir, the tramp, the bugle-call

He heard their tumults grow;

And sent his dying voice through all"Auvergne, Auvergne! the foe!"

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,

AT CAEN IN NORMANDY — 1087.

"At the day appointed for the king's interment, Prince Henry, his third son, the Norman prelates, and a multitude of clergy and people, assembled in the Church of St. Stephen, which the Conqueror had founded. The mass had been performed, the corpse was placed on the bier, and the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric on the deceased, when a voice from the crowd exclaimed,' He whom you have praised was a robber. The very land on which you stand is mine. By violence he took it from my father; and, in the name of God, I forbid you to bury him in it.' The speaker was Asceline Fitz Arthur, who had often, but fruitlessly, sought reparation from the justice of William. After some debate, the prelates called him to them, paid him sixty shillings for the grave, and promised that he should receive the full value of his land. The ceremony was then continued, and the body of the king deposited in a coffin of stone."

LOWLY upon his bier

Lingard, vol. ii. p. 98.

The royal conqueror lay;
Baron and chief stood near,

Silent in war-array.

Down the long minster's aisle

Crowds mutely gazing stream'd,

Altar and tomb the while

Through mists of incense gleam'd.

BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 339

And, by the torches' blaze,

The stately priest had said
High words of power and praise
To the glory of the dead.

They lower'd him, with the sound
Of requiems, to repose;
When from the throngs around
A solemn voice arose:

"Forbear! forbear!" it cried,

"In the holiest name forbear! He hath conquer'd regions wide, But he shall not slumber there!

"By the violated hearth

Which made way for yon proud shrine; By the harvests which this earth

Hath borne for me and mine;

"By the house e'en here o'erthrown,
On my brethren's native spot;
Hence! with his dark renown,
Cumber our birthplace not!

"Will my sire's unransom'd field,
O'er which your censers wave,

To the buried spoiler yield
Soft slumbers in the grave?

"The tree before him fell

Which we cherish'd many a year,

But its deep root yet shall swell,

And heave against his bier.

"The land that I have till'd

Hath yet its brooding breast With my home's white ashes fill'd, And it shall not give him rest!

"Each pillar's massy bed

Hath been wet by weeping eyes— Away! bestow your dead

Where no wrong against him cries."

-Shame glow'd on each dark face
Of those proud and steel-girt men,
And they bought with gold a place
For their leader's dust e'en then.

A little earth for him

Whose banner flew so far! And a peasant's tale could dim The name, a nation's star!

One deep voice thus arose

From a heart which wrongs had driven;

Oh! who shall number those

That were but heard in heaven?

END OF VOLUME SIXTH.