Approach, draw near, Proud cuirassier! Room for the men of steel! Through crest and plate, The broad-sword's weight Both head and heart shall feel. VI. Wheel the wild dance, While lightnings glance, And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave To bloody grave, To sleep without a shroud. Sons of the spear! You feel us near In many a ghastly dream; 18 With fancy's eye Our forms you spy, And hear our fatal scream. With clearer sight Ere falls the night, Just when to weal or woe Your disembodied souls take flight On trembling wing-each startled sprite Our choir of death shall know. VII. Wheel the wild dance, While lightnings glance, And thunders rattle loud, And call the brave To bloody grave, To sleep without a shroud. Burst, ye clouds, in tempest showers, Redder rain shall soon be ours See the east grows wan Yield we place to sterner game, Ere deadlier bolts and drearer flame Shall the welkin thunders shame; To the wrath of man. VIII. At morn, grey Allan's mates with awe Heard of the vision'd sights he saw, The legend heard him say; But the Seer's gifted eye was dim, Ere closed that bloody day He sleeps far from his Highland heath,— But often of the Dance of Death His comrades tell the tale On picquet-post, when ebbs the night, And waning watch-fires glow less bright, And dawn is glimmering pale. ROMANCE OF DUNOIS. FROM THE FRENCH. The original of this little Romance makes part of a manuscript collection of French Songs, probably compiled by some young officer, which was found on the Field of Waterloo, so much stained with clay and blood, as sufficiently to indicate what had been the fate of its late owner. The song is popular in France, and is rather a good specimen of the style of composition to which it belongs. The translation is strictly literal. Ir was Dunois, the young and brave, was bound for Pa lestine, But first he made his orisons before Saint Mary's shrine: "And grant, immortal Queen of Heaven," was still the Soldier's prayer, "That I may prove the bravest knight, and love the fairest fair." |