Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1824.pdf/71

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THE KNIGHT'S TALE.
70
Literary Gazette, 31st July, 1824, Pages 492


    There are two words to tell the warrior's course,
Valour and Victory. But fortune changed,
And Arnold was a prisoner at last.
And there he lay and pined, till hope grew tired,
Even of its sweet self; and now despair
Reached its last stage, for it was grown familiar.
Change came, when there was not a thought of change
But in his dreams. Thanks to a pitying Slave
Whom he had spared in battle, he escaped!
And over sea and land the pilgrim went.
    It was a summer evening, when again
He stood before his castle, and he paused
In the excess of happiness. The sun
Had set behind the towers, whose square heights
Divided the red west; and on its verge,
Just where the crimson faded, was a star—
The twilight star—pale, like dew turned to light.
And on he went thro' his fair park, and past
The lake and its white swans: at length he came
To his sweet garden and its thousand flowers.
The roses were in blossom, and the air
Oppressed him with its fragrance. On a walk,
As if just fallen from some beauty's hair,
There lay a branch of myrtle—Arnold caught
Its leaves, and kiss'd them!—Sure, 'twas Adeline's!
He stood now by a little alcove, made