Hark! the surgy shore resounds, As from the rocks the wave rebounds: Rocks, on whose o'er-hanging brows, The ragged surf-fed samphire grows.
Lo! the beacon's distant rays O'er the waste of water plays, Friendly to the port-bound bark, On his watch, the seaman's mark.
Mark! yon dreary Gothic pile, --Where murder oft did glut and smile,-- Dungeons dire of vanquish'd hosts, --Hark! the screams of wandering ghosts!--
Now a double gloom is spread O'er each turret's murky head, While from th' Owlet's dismal cry Intruding joys affrighted fly.
Ye vengeful walls for ruin built! Scenes accurs'd of hell-born guilt! Direful were your fierce alarms-- Hist! the sentry calls--"To arms!"
How many barons here were slain, In coats of armour lock'd in vain!-- How many feudal vassals dy'd, Ebbing here life's crimson tide!
What secret woes lay close immur'd! What anguish wretches erst endur'd! When in your sable cells confin'd Oppression's chosen victims pin'd.
How sullen stands yon rugged tow'r! Seems it not on the cot to low'r? As it looks, with proud disdain, O'er the wide-extended plain.
Here the feudal times I trace; The lordling's power--the poor's disgrace-- Here while it moulders, all may see "A Monument of Chivalry."
_Weekly Museum_, IX, Aug. 13, 1796, N. Y.
_Phila. Minerva_, III, Aug. 19, 1797, Phila.
[Also in _N. Y. Mag. or Lit. Repos._, III-443, July 1792, N. Y.]
[Same as _The Relaxation of War_ in _Amer. Mag. or Mo. Chron._, I-440, June 1758, Phila.]
A Danish Ballad. By the Author of Alonzo the Brave.
Since writing these stanzas, I have met with two old Scotch ballads which have some resemblance with "The Water King"; one is called "May Colvin," and relates the story of a king's daughter who was beguiled from her father's house by a false Sir John; the other, intitled "Clerk Colvil," treats of a young man who fell into the snares of a false mermaid; the latter, indeed, bears a still stranger resemblance to the Danish tradition of "The Erl-King's Daughter." The fragment of "The Water King" may be found in "Herder's Volkslieder."
Many inquiries have been made respecting the elementary monarchs mentioned a few pages back; I must inform my readers that all I know respecting the Water King (called in the German translation "Der Wasser-Mann") and the Erl-King (called in German Erlkönig) is gathered from the foregoing ballad and two others which I shall here insert. With respect to the Fire King and the Cloud King, they are entirely of my own creation; but if my readers choose to ascribe their birth to the "Comte de Gabalis," they are very welcome.