For the Table Book.
TALES OF TINMOUTHE PRIORIE.
No. II.
THE WIZARD’S CAVE.
“Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.
And when they shewed me this abhorred pit,
They told me, here, at dead time of night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make such fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body, hearing it,
Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.”
Titus Andronicus.
Young Walter, the son of Sir Robert the Knight,
Far fam’d for his valour in border-fight,
Sat prattling so sweet on his mother’s knee,
As his arms twin’d her neck of pure ivory.
Now tell me, dear mother, young Walter said,
Some feat to be done by the bow or the blade,
Where foe may be quell’d or some charm be undone;
Or lady, or treasure, or fame may be won.
The lady, she gaz’d on her war-born child,
And smooth’d down his ringlets, and kiss’d him, and smil’d;
And she told him high deeds of the Percy brave,
Where the lance e’er could pierce, or the helm-plume wave.