XXI.
[Blanche of Devan and Fitz-James]
Now wound the path its dizzy ledge
Around a precipice's edge,
When lo! a wasted female form,
Blighted by wrath of sun and storm,
In tattered weeds and wild array,
Stood on a cliff beside the way,
And glancing round her restless eye
Upon the wood, the rock, the sky,
Seemed nought to mark, yet all to spy.
Her brow was wreathed with gaudy broom;
With gesture wild she waved a plume
Of feathers, which the eagles fling
To crag and cliff from dusky wing;
* * * *
And loud she laughed when near they drew,
For then the lowland garb she knew:
And then her hands she wildly wrung,
And then she wept, and then she sung.
