itvanian song."

Upon that Konrad rose. "Ye valiant knights!
To-day the Order, by a solemn custom,
Receiveth gifts from princes and from towns,
As homage from a conquered country due.
The beggar brings a song as offering
To you: forbid we not the old man's homage.
Take we the song; 'twill be the widow's mite.

"Among us we behold the Litwin prince;
His captains are the Order's guests: to him
Sweet will it be to list the memory
Of ancient deeds, recalled in native speech.
Who understands not, let him go from hence.
I love betimes to hear the gloomy groans
Of those Litvanian songs, not understood,
Even as I love the noise of warring waves,
Or the soft murmur of the rain in spring;--
Sweetly they charm to sleep. Sing, ancient bard!"

SONG OF THE WAJDELOTE.9

When over Litwa cometh plague and death,
The bard's prophetic eye beholds, afraid.
If to the Wajdelote's word be given faith,
On desert plains and churchyards, sayeth fame,
Stands visibly the pestilential maid,10
In white, upon her brow a wreath of flame,--
Her brow the trees of Bialowiez11 outbraves,--
And in her hand a blood-stained cloth she waves.

The castle guards in terror veil their eyes,
The peasants' dogs, deep burrowing in the ground,
Scent death approaching, howl with fearful cries

The maid's ill-boding step, o'er all is found;
O'er hamlets, castles, and rich towns she goes.
Oft as she waves the bloody cloth, no less
A palace changes to a wilderness;
Where treads her foot a recent grave up-grows.

O woeful sight! But yet a heavier doom
Foretold to Litwa from the German side,--
The shining helmet with the ostrich plume,
And the wide mantle with the black cross dyed.

For where that spectre's fearful step has passed,
Nought is a hamlet's ruin or a town,
But a whole country to the grave is cast
O thou to whom is Litwa's spirit dear!
Come, on the graves of nations sit we down;
We'll meditate, and sing, and shed the tear.

O native song! between the elder day,
Ark of the Covenant, and younger times,
Wherein their heroes' swords the people lay,
Their flowers of thought and web of native rhymes.

Thou ark! no stroke can break thee or subdue,
While thine own people hold thee not debased.
O native song! thou art as guardian placed,
Defending memories of a nation's word.
The Archangel's wings are thine, his voice thine too,
And often wieldest thou Archangel's sword.

The flame devoureth story's pictured words,
A