"To slay a man this world deems felony;
"To slay a priest is treason, worse in sort:
"But he who view'th with special clemency

"The lowest menial of his holy court,

"Hath curs'd earl Conan for the fell cross-bow "Wherewith he laid an abbot's mastiff low.

"These eyes beheld him when the prince of ill "Three demons summon'd from their dens ab

horr'd,

"Beheld the demons hasten to fulfil

"The direful mandate of their sov'reign lord; "Beheld them with their wretched victim fly "Thro' the dark regions of the nether sky.

"I saw them tear his precious sight away, "And cast his bleeding eye-balls on the ground; "I saw them all his writhing visage flay

"And with sharp fangs imprint the deadly wound; "Then on Saint Michael's* rock his corpse they threw,

"Where mangled members all the ground did strew.

* Mont St. Michel, an island between the coasts of Normandy and Bretagne, celebrated for a monastery and church, founded by Duke Richard the Fearless, in 966. It was a place of superior sanctity.

"This was no idle vision of the brain,

"The blood upon my brow the truth declares, "The blood which sprinkled, like a show'r of rain, "Saint Michael's holy seat and rocky stairs!"

The wond'ring friars heard, with silent dread,
This tale of vengeance on the impious head.

Earl Conan on that day to hunt had gone,

And never from the hunting came again;
But thro' the country round the tale when known
Was well believed by each simple swain.

They shunn'd the wood where Conan's restless sprite
Still follow'd up the ghostly chace all night.

But abbot Wulpho never from that day

Hath rais'd the cowl that shadows o'er his brows. When others tell their beads and loudly pray,

He trembling mutt'reth unheard oaths and vows: Nor ever since hath left his abbey-land, Nor joins in converse with the monkish band.

PART THE SECOND.

ALONE, on horseback, from the town of Dol,
Full of this tale, I journeyed at eve;
Much did it fill with doubt and fear my soul,

As not well knowing what I should believe: "Strange that the Count so foully should have died; "Yet stranger that an abbot should have lied!"

The night was overcast with murky clouds,

And rain began to pour, and winds to blow; This is the time, I thought, when ghosts in shrouds Walk in the shrieking church-yards to and fro.

An unwont tremor o'er my members stole
As on I travell'd thro' the wood of Dol.

When lo! I heard afar a bugle-horn

That faintly stole upon the mournful breeze; The sound, so cheering in the hour of morn, Now mingled horror with the waving trees. Methought no human huntsman ere could blow

So strange a strain, so solemn, and so slow.

་

And therewithal I heard the howl of hounds,
The huntsman's hoarse halloo, the tramp of steeds;
The forest groan'd in cadence with its sounds
Of clashing trunks, fall'n leaves, and rustling reeds.
My senses shrunk aghast with new affright—
"No human hunters chase so late at night!"

Nearer and nearer drew the distant rout,

And seem'd more fearful as it drew more near; The hounds more harshly howl, more loudly shout The dreadful Huntsmen thund'ring in the rear. The storm, the rustling reeds and leaves, were drown'd, My horse stood motionless as if astound.

I whip, I spur, I kick, but all in vain,
And soon to spur and kick unable grow;

My trembling hand no more commands the rein,
My feet hang quiv'ring from the saddle-bow.
So horribly increas'd the earthly thunder,
I thought the universe was burst asunder.

As the wild hurricano sweeps along,

Roots up

the trees, the palaces o'erturns,

And lifts, with force immeasurably strong,

The mighty deeps, and bares old Neptune's urns;

So loud, so wild, the tempest hurried by,

Like heav'n, earth, hell, in one o'erwhelming cry.

No sight I saw-a moment's crash it was,
And then the hurrying tempest's noise was still;
But as the thunder, when it rumbled has,
Still faintly echoes round each neighb'ring hill,
So when the soul-appalling noise was past,
The mournful bugle swell'd upon the blast.

At length, as in the rear of that wild train.

A white plume swiftly pass'd my eyes before, My steed, awaken'd from his stound again,

Following the floating form, his rider bore (All pow'rless to restrain) thro' brake and brier, The mountain's rough rocks and the valley's mire.

And ever was that snow-white plume our guide,
Like northern bear to wand'ring mariner,

Or that blest star that led thro' deserts wide
The Eastern wise men to our master dear,
Till darker yet the road before us lay;
Then vanish'd from our gaze like light away.

I rais'd my eyes, and saw that we were brought
Under an antient arch, my horse and I.
I stopp'd and listen'd; but no sound I caught,

Saving, at intervals, the screech-owl's cry ; But thro' the gloom a trembling light appear'd, At sight whereof, that way my course I steer'd.