And the tall spears glancing on my sight,
And the trumpet in mine ear!
Cease awhile, clarion!" &c.1[1]
Aymer enters hurriedly.
Aym. Silence, thou minstrel! silence!
Her. Aymer, here!
And in that garb! Seize on the renegade!
Knights he must die!
Aym. (scornfully.) Die! die!—the fearful threat!
To be thrust out of this same blessed world,
Your world—all yours! (Fiercely.) But I will not be made
A thing to circle with your pomps of death,
Your chains, and guards, and scaffolds! Back! I'll die
As the free lion dies! [Drawing his sabre.
Her. What seek'st thou here?
Aym. Naught but to give your Christian swords a deed
Worthier than——Where's your chief? in the Paynim's bonds!
Made the wild Arabs' prize! Ay, heaven is just!
If ye will rescue him, then follow me:
I know the way they bore him!
Her. Follow thee!
Recreant! deserter of thy house and faith!
To think true knights would follow thee again!
Tis all some snare—away!
Aym. Some snare! Heaven! heaven!
Is my name sunk to this? Must men first crush
My soul, then spurn the ruin they have made?
—Why, let him perish!—blood for blood!—must earth
Cry out in vain? Wine, wine! well revel here!
On, minstrel, with thy song!
troubadour continues the song.
"They are gone—they have all pass'd by!
They in whose wars I had borne my part,
They that I loved with a brother's heart,
They have left me here to die!
Sound again, clarion! clarion, pour thy blast!
Sound, for the captive's dream of hope is past!"
Aym. (starting up.) That was the lay he loved in our boyish days—
And he must die forsaken! No, by heaven!
- ↑ 1 "She preferred in music whatever was national and melancholy; and her strains adapted for singing were, of course, framed to the tones most congenial to the temperament of her own mind. How successfully wed to the magic of sweet sound many of her verses have been by her sister, no lover of music need to be reminded. The 'Roman Girl’s Song' is full of a solemn classic beauty; and, in one of her letters, it is said that of 'The Captive Knight' Sir Walter Scott never was weary. Indeed, it seems in his mind to
