And lands and livings, many a rood,

Had gifted the shrine for their souls' repose.

III.

Bold Deloraine his errand said;
The porter bent his humble head;
With torch in hand, and feet unshod,
And noiseless step, the path he trod;
The arched cloisters, far and wide,
Rang to the warrior's clanking stride;
Till, stooping low his lofty crest,
He entered the cell of the ancient priest,
And lifted his barred aventayle,t
To hail the Monk of St Mary's aisle.

IV.

"The Ladye of Branksome greets thee by me;
Says, that the fated hour is come,

And that to-night I shall watch with thee,
To win the treasure of the tomb."
From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,
With toil his stiffened limbs he reared;
A hundred years had flung their snows
On his thin locks and floating beard.

And strangely on the Knight looked he,

And his blue eyes gleamed wild and wide;

"And, dar'st thou, warrior! seek to see

What heaven and hell alike would hide?

My breast, in belt of iron pent,

With shirt of hair and scourge of thorn; For threescore years, in penance spent,

My knees those flinty stones have worn;
Yet all too little to atone

For knowing what should ne'er be known.
Would'st thou thy every future year

In ceaseless prayer and penance drie,
Yet wait thy latter end with fear-
Then, daring warrior, follow me!"

The Buccleuch family were great benefactors to the abbey Melrose. + Aventayle, visor of the helmet.

VI.

"Penance, father, will I none;

Prayer know I hardly one;

For mass or prayer can I rarely tarry,
Save to patter an Ave Mary,

When I ride on a Border foray:*

Other prayer can I none;

So speed me my errand, and let me begone."

VII.

Again on the Knight looked the Churchman old,
And again he sighed heavily;

For he had himself been a warrior bold,

And fought in Spain and Italy.

And he thought on the days that were long since by, When his limbs were strong, and his courage was Now, slow and faint, he led the way,

Where, cloistered round, the garden lay;

The pillared arches were over their head,

[high:

And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead.†

VIII.

Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright,

Glistened with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor floweret, glistened there,

But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair.

The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon,
Then into the night he looked forth;

And red and bright the streamers light
Were dancing in the glowing north.
So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start;
Suddenly the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart.

The Borderers were very ignorant about religious matters, But however deficient in real religion, they regularly told their beads, and never with more zeal than when going on a plundering expedition.

The cloisters were frequently used as places of sepulchre.

The warlike pastime of throwing the jerreed, has prevailed in the east from time immemorial, and was imitated in the military game called Juego de las canas, which the Spaniards borrowed from their Moorish invaders,

He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light."

IX.

By a steel-clenched postern door,
They entered now the chancel tall;
The darkened roof rose high aloof

On pillars, lofty, and light, and small;
The key-stone, that locked each ribbed aisle.
Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille;
The corbells were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim,
With base and with capital flourished around,
Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven,
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,
Around the screened altar's pale;

And there the dying lamps did burn
Before thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant Chief of Otterburne,+

And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale!

O fading honours of the dead!

O high ambition, lowly laid!

XI.

The moon on the east oriel shone,§
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,

Corbells, the projections from which these arches spring, usually cut in a fantastic face, or mask.

+ The famous and desperate battle of Otterburne was fought 15th August, 138, betwixt Henry Percy, called Hotspur, and Jaines Earl of Douglas. The Scots won the day, dearly purchased by the death of their gallant general, the Earl of Douglas, who was slain in the action. He was buried at Melrose beneath the high

altar.

: William Douglas, called the knight of Liddesdale, flourished during the reign of David II.; and was so distinguished by bis valour, that he was called the Flower of Chivalry. He was slain while hunting in Ettrick Forest, by his own godson and chieftain, William Earl of Douglas, and was interred, with great pump in Meirose abbey, where his tomb is still shown.

§ It is impossible to conceive a more beautiful specimen of Gothic architecture, in its purity, than the eastern window of Melrose abbey. Sir James Hall, has traced the Gothic order

By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand,
'Twixt poplars straight, the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined;
Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow-wreaths to stone.
The silver light, so pale and faint,
Showed many a prophet, and many a saint,
Whose image on the glas was dyed;
Full in the midst, his Cross of Red
Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride.
The moon-beam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

XII.

They sate them down on a marble stone,
A Scottish monarch slept below;*
Thus spoke the Monk, in solemn tone:-
"I was not always a man of woe;
For Paynim countries I have trod,
And fought beneath the Cross of God;

Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear,

And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.

XIII.

"In these far climes, it was my lot

To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;+

A wizard of such dreaded fame,

That when, in Salamanca's cave,+

through its various forms, and seemingly eccentric ornaments, to an architectural imitation of wicker-work; and this ingenious system is alluded to in the romance.

A large marble stone, in the chancel of Melrose, is pointed out as the monument of Alexander II.

+ Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie flourished during the 13th century; but by a poetical anachronism, he is here placed in a later æra. He was a man of much learning, chiefly acquired in foreign countries, and he passed among his contemporaries for a skilful magician. Dempster informs us, that he remembers to have heard in his youth, that the magic books of Michael Scott were still in existence, but could not be opened without danger, on account the fends who were thereby invoked.

Spain, from the reliques, doubtless, of Arabian learning and superstition, was accounted a favourite residence of magicians, There were public schools, where magic, or rather the sciences supposed to involve its mysteries, were regularly taught, at Toledo.

Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame! Some of his skill he taught to me;

And, Warrior, I could say to thee

The words, that cleft Eildon hills in three,

And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:* But to speak them were a deadly sin;

And for having but thought them my heart within, A treble penance must be done.

XIV.

"When Michael lay on his dying bed,
His conscience was awakened;

He bethought him of his sinful deed,
And he gave me a sign to come with speed:
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.
The words may not again be said,

That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his

XV.

grave.

"I swore to bury his Mighty Book,
That never mortal might therein look;
And never to tell where it was hid,
Save at his chief of Branksome's need;
And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.

I buried him on St Michael's night,

When the bell tolled one, and the moon was bright;
And I dug his chamber among the dead,
When the floor of the chancel was stained red,

Seville, and Salamanca. In the latter city, they were held in a deep cavern; the mouth of which was walled up by Queen Isabella, wife of King Ferdinand.

Michael Scott was much embarrassed by a spirit, for whom he was under the necessity of finding constant employment, Hə commanded him to build a cauld, or dam-head, across the Tweed at Kelso; it was accomplished in one night. Michael next ordered, that Eildon hill, which was then a uniform cone, should be divided into three. Another night was sufficient to part its summit into three picturesque peaks. At length the enchanter conquered this indefatigable dæmon, by employing him in making ropes out of Dea-sand,