If eve return him not again,
Am I to hie, and make me known?
Alas! he goes to Scotland's throne,
Buys his friend's safety with his own; 235
He goes to do--what I had done,
Had Douglas' daughter been his son!"

XI

"Nay, lovely Ellen!--dearest, nay!
If aught should his return delay,
He only named yon holy fane 240
As fitting place to meet again.
Be sure he's safe; and for the Graeme--
Heaven's blessing on his gallant name!
My visioned sight may yet prove true,
Nor bode of ill to him or you. 245
When did my gifted dream beguile?
Think of the stranger at the isle,
And think upon the harpings slow,
That presaged this approaching woe!
Sooth was my prophecy of fear; 250
Believe it when it augurs cheer.
Would we had left this dismal spot!
Ill luck still haunts a fairy grot.
Of such a wondrous tale I know--
Dear lady, change that look of woe, 255
My harp was wont thy grief to cheer."

ELLEN

"Well, be it as thou wilt; I hear,
But cannot stop the bursting tear."
The minstrel tried his simple art,
But distant far was Ellen's heart. 260

XII

BALLAD--ALICE BRAND

Merry it is in the good greenwood,
When 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 265
Is lost for love of you;
And we must hold by wood and wold,
As outlaws wont to do.

"O Alice, 'twas all for thy locks so bright,
And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue, 270
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, 275
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." 280

"O Richard! if my brother died,
'Twas but a fatal chance;
For darkling was the battle tried,
And fortune sped the lance.

"If pall and vair no more I wear, 285
Nor thou the cr