"The praise thou speakest," Guthrum said,
"With sweetness fills mine ear;
For Alfred swift before me fled,
And left me monarch here.
The royal coward never dared
Beneath mine eye to stand.
O, would that now this feast he shared,
And saw me rule his land!"
Then stern the minstrel rose, and spake,
And gazed upon the King,—
"Not now the golden cup I take,
Nor more to thee I sing.
Another day, a happier hour,
Shall bring me here again:
The cup shall stay in Guthrum's power,
Till I demand it then."
The Harper turned and left the shed,
Nor bent to Guthrum's crown;
And one who marked his visage said
It wore a ghastly frown.
The Danes ne'er saw that Harper more,
For soon as morning rose,
Upon their camp King Alfred bore,
And slew ten thousand foes.
JOHN STERLING.
* * * * *
CHEVY-CHACE.
[A modernized form of the old ballad of the "Hunting o' the Cheviot." Some circumstances of the battle of Olter-bourne (A.D. 1388) are woven into the ballad, and the affairs of the two events are confounded. The ballad preserved in the "Percy Reliques" is probably as old as 1574. The one following is not later than the time of Charles II]
God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all;
A woful hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall.
To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Piercy took his way;
The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day.
The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer days to take,—