VIII.
The priest in robes of stainless white,
Does now beside the altar stand,
And now beneath the dazzling light,
The baron takes the ladye’s hand.
Jesu Maria! what muffled form,
Breaks through the crowd like a mighty storm?
His helm is gone, but a lifeless rose
On his steel-clad bosom finds repose.
’Tis wither’d and faded quite away,
Still lies it there; as, in former day,
It shone a terror to his foes.
The baron breathes convulsively,
He knows the stranger knight
That aims at him so manfully;
Oh, shield the luckless wight!
Now flash their falchions in mid air,
May “God defend the right!”
Oh, who had seen that man would swear
His was no mortal might.
But, ah! he’s down—it cannot be:
His mighty soul for aye has sped!
Draw near—oh, horrid sight to see
De Lopez number’d with the dead!
With idiot eye and childish stare,
Poor Mena bends before him there,
His bloody, wasted hand she takes;
The flower her sad remembrance wakes.
Her brain is fir’d; in vain she tries
To shed a tear!—so soon, alas!
The secret springs of feeling fail,
When wrongs the anguish’d heart assail,
And burning sorrows o’er it pass.