"And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my spouse!
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?"
So spake the rude chieftain. No answer is made,
But each mantle unfolding, a dagger display'd.
"I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud,"
Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud;
"And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem.
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream."
Oh! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed, and no lady was seen;
When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn--
'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn:
"I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief,
I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief;
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem.
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"
In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground,
And the desert reveal'd where his lady was found;
From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne--
Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn!
THE WOUNDED HUSSAR.
Alone to the banks of the dark-rolling Danube,
Fair Adelaide hied when the battle was o'er.
"O, whither," she cried, "hast thou wander'd, my lover,
Or here dost thou welter and bleed on the shore?
"What voice did I hear? 'twas my Henry that sigh'd!"
All mournful she hasten'd, nor wander'd she far,
When, bleeding and low, on the heath she descried,
By the light of the moon, her poor wounded hussar!
From his bosom, that heaved, the last torrent was streaming,
And pale was his visage, deep mark'd with a scar,
And dim was that eye, once expressively beaming,
That melted in love, and that kindled in war!
How smit was poor Adelaide's heart at the sight!
How bitter she wept o'er the victim of war!
"Hast thou come, my fond love, this last sorrowful night,
To cheer the lone heart of your wounded hussar?"
"Thou shalt live," she replied; "Heaven's mercy relieving
Each anguishing wound shall forbid me to mourn!"
"Ah, no! the last pang of my bosom is heaving;
No light of the morn shall to Henry return!
"Thou charmer of life, ever tender and true!
Ye babes of my love, that await me afar!"
His faltering tongue scarce could murmur adieu,
When he sank in her arms--the poor wounded hussar.
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