.
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be? —
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The Oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year;
And whistled and roar'd in the winter alone,
Is gone, — and the birch in its stead is grown. —
The Knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust; —
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
Poetical Works, Vol. ii. p. 64.
The late Mr. Sotheby informed me, that, at his house in a large party, Sir Walter made the following remark:
"I am indebted to Coleridge for the mode of telling a tale by question and answer. This was a new light to me, and I was greatly struck by it."
Yet when Sir Walter said this, he must surely have forgotten many of our ancient and most beautiful ballads, in which the questions are so significant, and are made to develope the progress of the fable more clearly than could be affected by the ordinary course of narration. In fact every lover of our old poetry will recollect a hundred pieces in which the same form of evolution is observed. Thus in
Johnie of Breadis Lee
:
"What news, what news, ye grey-headed carle,
What news bring ye to me?"
And in
Halbert the Grim