14.

In ancient wise, with measur'd gait,
Sweeps the wild dance in grisly state,
Forth from the Orchestra's hindmost ground,
Pacing the spacious Circle round.

No foot of earth-born woman treads
That awful maze; no earthly roof
Hous'd those huge limbs-so high their heads
Tower above human form aloof!

15.

Their loins a sable mantle shrouds,
Their fleshless hands, in lurid clouds
Whirl the red torch; a wrinkled streak
Furrows each wan and haggard cheek:
And where, from mortal brows, the hair
In love-alluring tresses hangs,

There, bloated snakes and adders glare
With gloating eyes and baneful fangs.

16.

Now hand in hand, in circle grim,

Sternly they chant the solemn hymn ;
Coiling around, and to the core

Piercing the guilt-struck heart, with lore
That spurns the feebly warbling lyre,

And to the marrow strikes amain.
Hark! 'tis Erinnys leads the quire,
Withering with fear the frenzied brain.

17.

"O fair befall the spirit pure,

Whose child-like innocence, secure
From our immitigable wrath,

Glides on through life's bewilder'd path:
But woe the while to him, who feels
The dire remorse, the guilty fright
Wherewith we dog the murderer's heels-
WE, the gaunt hounds of ghastly Night.

18.

"Thinks he to scape-anon we wing
The restless chace; anon we fling
The tangling noose, which so inthrals
His foot, that staggering, down he falls.
No prayer averts the coming woe,
No pity soothes his fell despair:

Down to the groundless pit below

We track-and hunt him even there."

19.

Thus choiring still, they weave the dance;
By turns retreat, by turns advance :
At length a silence, deep and drear,
As if the God himself drew near,
Lulls all the air-In grisly state

They pace the spacious circle round,
In ancient wise, with measur'd gait,

And vanish in the hindmost ground.

20.

"Twixt truth and fiction, doubt and fear,
Throbs every pulse, and thrills each ear;
And every sense submissive cowers
Beneath the inexorable Powers-
Inscrutable!-whose hands the thread
Of Fate unravel, and display
Horrors that haunt the midnight bed,
But fly before the broad-eyed day.

21.

'Twas then, that from the farthest row
A voice came wafted down below,
"Lo there! lo there! Timotheus !
The fatal Cranes of Ibycus!"

Whereon a sudden darkness veils

The massive pile and listening throng:

Aloft the winged Squadron sails,

And slowly wheeling sweeps along.

22.

"Of Ibycus !"-that cherish'd name
Home to each heart responsive came
From mouth to mouth, as bursts the roar
Of wave on wave along the shore.

Say what of Ibycus? the source Of all our tears, untimely slain ! What mean yon ominous birds, that course Athwart the air in sullen train ?"

23.

Loud and more loud the question grew,
As thought foreboding flash'd anew,
Like lightning, on each troubled breast:
"The murderous wrong shall be redrest,
The sacred Bard aveng'd-Lay hands
On him that spoke, and him who near
The speaker, pale and trembling stands-
Take note-th' avenging Fiends are here!"

24.

In vain the felon would retract

The damning words: the treacherous act
Wan lips and quivering limbs betray,
And Justice seizes on her prey.

The scene a dread Tribunal grown,
The Prytanes* in pomp array'd,
With blood for blood the deed atone,
And vindicate the Poet's shade.

E. B. IMPEY.

* Corinthian Magistrates.

Ritter Toggenburg.

THIS singularly beautiful Poem, which has been considered as belonging rather to the Pastoral Elegy or Idyll than to the Romantic Ballad or Legend, was a production, in point of date, almost simultaneous with the "Cranes of Ibycus." Its origin may be sought in vain, either in History or Romance. Dr. Simrock, in his "Rheinsagen," has appended it, as a second part or sequel, to the legend of a certain canonized Lady, Ida of Toggenburg, but without the least thread of necessary or even, probable connection. The Knight, as well as the Lady, in Schiller, is a mere imaginary personage, having, however, a distant affinity to the Roland of Rolandseck, whose legend has furnished our own poet, Campbell, with the subject of one of his most pleasing and popular Ballads.

The poem now before us has been styled by a recent Critic (Franz Horn-" Geschichte, &c. der Deutschen Poesie, &c.) "the purest, brightest, and in its inmost essence the most perfect, of all Schiller's poetical productions-a poem which belongs to no particular species of composition, but to Poetry itself, with whose pure and warm breath it is most thoroughly and deeply imbued. As a work of Art, it is one which will endure, in perpetual youth, even to the latest times, so long as truth is acknowledged in the holiness of Love and the ceaseless pangs of unrequited affection."

1.

"KNIGHT! to thee true Sister love

Freely I impart.

If thou other seek to prove,

Think it grieves my heart.