18.

"Scarce had I reach'd the level plain,
The dogs began to bark amain;

The horse to snort with sudden fear,
And prance and kick, and start and rear.
For near at hand, across the way,
Roll'd in a ball, the Monster lay.
Thus basking on the sunny ground
The dogs arous'd him, springing round;
But arrow-swift again they fly,

When from that dragon-throat exhaling The poison'd breath burst forth, with cry As of a jackal's horrid wailing.

66

19.

Swiftly their courage I restor'd;

Cheer'd by my voice, they seiz'd and gor'd;

While I against the Monster's hide

The keenness of my good lance tried.

But powerless as a wooden staff

From that hard mail it slanted off;
And ere I could the blow redouble
My charger swerv'd in fear and trouble;
Scar'd by the fascinating eye

And breath of poisonous odour reeking,
Back sprang he fast and furiously;

And Life with me seem'd past bespeaking.

20.

"Now leapt I from my saddle bow,
And drew my sword against the foe.
In vain his iron scales I batter'd ;
No dint of steel his armour shatter'd.
He with his long tail sweeping round
Soon dash'd me helpless on the ground.
Already gap'd his wide jaws o'er me,
Grinning with barbéd tusk to gore me;
When at the moment, fierce and staunch,
My hounds
upon the victor darted,
And gor'd with deadly gripe his paunch;
Till, mad with pain, upright he started.

21.

"Ere from their fangs he could retreat
I rais'd myself upon my feet;
Thus as he stood I just was able
To scan the one spot penetrable.
I thrust the steel: the boiling blood
Leapt upwards, flashing in a flood:
He fell, and buried in his fall

Me with his huge trunk's giant ball.

No more I knew-my senses fled;

But, when from that death-swoon I 'waken,

I see my squires attending round;

Hard by, the Dragon, life-forsaken."

22.

He spake, and forth burst, free and loud, The long-pent plaudits of the crowd:

In many a wave's deep music breaking,
And echoes of the vault awaking,
Rush'd far and wide the glorious noise,
That universal City's voice:

E'en the grave brethren of St. John
Call for the meed of battle won.
The crowd demands from town to town
To speed the pomp of triumph bravely:
But the stern Master with a frown

Bids silence, and pronounces gravely:

23.

"The Dragon that laid waste the land
Hast thou destroy'd with knightly hand;
The City holds thee for its Saviour :-
The Order brands thy misbehaviour.
For deadlier is the worm that gnaws
Thy vitals, than this Dragon was.
The serpent, poison inly breeding,
Licence and disobedience feeding,
Of evil spirits is the worst,

Unsettling holy Obligation.
'Tis he the primal bond hath burst;
'Tis he, the tempter of Creation.

S

24.

"Courage is common to the Turk :
Obedience is the Christian's work.

For here, where Heaven's great King forsook
His throne, and Man's frail nature took,
Ev'n here -our Fathers, grave and staid,
Their Order's deep foundations laid.
Self-conquest was their first command;
Self-will the foe they bade withstand.
'Twas lust of fame thy fealty broke:
Away-the law is peremptory:
Who cannot bear the Saviour's yoke,
He may not share the Saviour's glory."

25.

The people murmur deep and loud,
Anger and terror sway the crowd:
For pardon every Brother cries:
Silent the youth casts down his eyes.
With falling robe and loosen'd band
He meekly greets the Master's hand,
And goes. The Master views him going,
His eyes with Mercy's balm o'erflowing,
And cries aloud, "Embrace me, Son!

'Tis thine the meed of bitterest anguish. Take thou this Cross, the guerdon won By Meekness, which itself can vanquish."

C.

LYRICAL POEMS.

1797-1800.

As we approach the termination of the short but brilliant career of our Poet, it is in the first place observable how far more-to use the same phraseology that we have already on more than one occasion adopted from the German criticshis style of poetry partakes of the Objective character than of the Subjective, to which, in earlier periods, he had almost entirely surrendered himself. This change may be attributed, partly, to his intimate association, and, in many of their pursuits and performances, what may be called his literary partnership, with Goëthe, but still more to his own altered state of circumstances and feelings, his advancing years, and (probably) diminished susceptibility of internal impressions, and (above all) to his habits of dramatic Authorship, and his perception of the necessity of some more active stimulus than the philosophy of his Don Carlos, or the deep moral reflectiveness of his Wallenstein, to attract or excite an audience. Nor is this change of style more perceptible in his professedly narrative Poems, such as the Ballads, than in those of a shorter and more fugitive class, the greater part of which will be found to bear out the justice of these remarks, while others display a nearer resemblance to the style of Apothegms, of which we have given so many recent examples.