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THE LADY OF THE LAKE.
CANTO IV.
Yet, witness every quaking limb,
My sunken pulse, mine eye-balls dim,
My soul with harrowing anguish torn,
This for my Chieftain have I borne!—
The shapes that sought my fearful couch,
An human tongue may ne'er avouch;
No mortal man,—save he, who, bred
Between the living and the dead,
Is gifted beyond nature's law,—
Had e'er survived to say he saw.
At length the fateful answer came,
In characters of living flame!
Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll,
But borne and branded on my soul;—
Which spills the foremost foeman's life,
That party conquers in the strife."
My sunken pulse, mine eye-balls dim,
My soul with harrowing anguish torn,
This for my Chieftain have I borne!—
The shapes that sought my fearful couch,
An human tongue may ne'er avouch;
No mortal man,—save he, who, bred
Between the living and the dead,
Is gifted beyond nature's law,—
Had e'er survived to say he saw.
At length the fateful answer came,
In characters of living flame!
Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll,
But borne and branded on my soul;—
Which spills the foremost foeman's life,
That party conquers in the strife."
VII.
"Thanks, Brian, for thy zeal and care!
Good is thine augury, and fair.
"Thanks, Brian, for thy zeal and care!
Good is thine augury, and fair.
