"Now guard you well," said Hagan, "yeoman as well as knight,
And follow friendly counsel, for thus it seems me right;
News know I, sad to utter, and sad alike to learn;
Not one of us shall ever to Burgundy return.
III
"'Twas told me by two mermaids this morn without disguise,
That back should we come never; now hear what I advise.
Take to your arms, ye heroes, and wend your wary way
(Since here we have stout foemen) in battailous array.
IV
"I thought to prove the mermaids, and catch them in a lie,
Who said that we in Hungary were surely doom'd to die,
And that alone the chaplain should come to Rhenish ground,
So him in yonder river I gladly would have drown'd."
The woe-denouncing tidings flew quick from rank to rank;
With ashen cheeks the warriors astonied sat and blank,
As on their death they ponder'd by dismal doom decreed,
From that disastrous journey; each shudder'd on his steed.
VI
'Twas near the town of Mœring that they the stream had cross'd;
'Twas there that Elsy's boatman his luckless life had lost.
Then thus bespake them Hagan, "This morning by the flood
I made me certain enemies, so look for wounds and blood.