selves in considerable bodies. They thought it safer to lie still in the towns and castles which they had garrisoned, and wait till the King of England should once more come to their assistance with a powerful army.

II. ALICE BRAND.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

I.

ERRY it is in the good greenwood,
When

MERI

Men the mavis and merle are singing,

When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter's horn is ringing.

"O Alice Brand! my native land
Is lost for love of you;

And we must hold by wood and wold,
As outlaws wont to do.

O Alice! 't was all for thy locks so bright,
And 't was all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight,
Thy brother bold I slew.

Now must I teach to hew the beech
The hand that held the glaive,
For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.

And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,

A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer,
To keep the cold away."

"O Richard! if my brother died,

'T was but a fatal chance;
For darkling was the battle tried,
And fortune sped the lance.
If pall and vair no more I wear,
Nor thou the crimson sheen,

As warm, we'll say, is the russet gray,
As gay the forest green.
And, Richard, if our lot be hard,
And lost thy native land,

Still Alice has her own Richard,
And he his Alice Brand."

II.

'Tis merry, 't is merry, in good greenwood, So blithe Lady Alice is singing;

On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side, Lord Richard's ax is ringing.

Up spoke the moody Elfin King,

Who woned within the hill,

Like wind in the porch of a ruined church, His voice was ghostly shrill.

"Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak Our moonlit circle's screen?

Or who comes here to chase the deer,
Beloved of our Elfin Queen?

Or who may dare on wold to wear
The fairies' fatal green?

Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie,
For thou wert christened man;
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly,
For muttered word or ban.

Lay on him the curse of the withered heart,
The curse of the sleepless eye;

Till he wish and pray that his life would part,
Nor yet find leave to die."

III.

'Tis merry, 't is merry, in good greenwood, Though the birds have stilled their singing; The evening blaze doth Alice raise,

And Richard his fagots bringing. Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf, Before Lord Richard stands,

And, as he crossed and blessed himself, "I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf, “That is made with bloody hands.”

But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
That woman void of fear,

"And if there's blood upon his hand,
'T is but the blood of deer."

"Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!
It cleaves unto his hand,

The stain of thine own kindly blood,
The blood of Ethert Brand."

Then forward stepped she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,

"And if there's blood on Richard's hand,
A spotless hand is mine.

And I conjure thee, Demon elf,

By Him whom Demons fear,

To show us whence thou art thyself,
And what thine errand here?"

IV.

"'T is merry, 't is merry in Fairyland, When fairy birds are singing,

When the court doth ride by their monarch's With bit and bridle ringing:

And gaily shines the Fairyland

But all is glistening show,

Like the idle gleam that December's beam
Can dart on ice and snow.

"And fading, like that varied gleam,
Is our inconstant shape,

Who now like knight and lady seem,
And now like dwarf and ape.
It was between the night and day,

When the Fairy king has power,
That I sunk down in a sinful fray,
And, 'twixt life and death, was snatched away
To the joyless Elfin bower.

But, wist I of a woman bold

Who thrice my brow durst sign,

I might regain my mortal mold,

As fair a form as thine."

She crossed him once she crossed him twice

That lady was so brave;

The fouler grew his goblin hue,

The darker grew the cave.

She crossed him thrice, that lady bold;

He rose beneath her hand

THE CHARGE AT WATERLOO.

Merry it is in good greenwood,

When the mavis and merle are singing But merrier were they in Dunfermline gray When all the bells were ringing.

From The Lady of the

III. THE CHARGE AT WATERLOO.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

N came the whirlwind I like the last
But ferest sweep of tempest blast;

ON

On came the whirlwind-steel-gleams bro Like lightning through the rolling smoke; The war was waked anew.

Three hundred cannon mouths roared loud
And from their throats, with flash and clo
Their showers of iron threw.

Beneath their fire, in full career,
Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier,
The lancer crouched his ruthless spear,
And, hurrying as to havoc near,

The cohorts' eagles flew.

In one dark torrent, broad and strong,
The advancing onset rolled along,

Forth harbinger'd by fierce acclaim,

That from the shroud of smoke and flame.
Pealed wildly the imperial name.

But on the British heart were lost
The terrors of the charging host;
For not an eye the storm that viewed
Changed its proud glance of fortitude,
Nor was one forward footstep stayed,