Page:Felicia Hemans in Friendship's Offering 1827.pdf/3

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From page 36




Taken from the review in The Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 20, page 903


THE BRIGAND LEADER AND HIS WIFE.

(From a picture by Eastlake.)

By Mrs Hemans.


Dark chieftain of the heath and height,
Wild feaster on the hills by night!
Seest thou the stormy sunset's glow,
Flung back by glancing spears below?
Now, for one strife of stern despair!
The foe hath track'd thee to thy lair.

Thou, against whom the voice of blood
Hath risen from track and lonely wood,
And in whose dreams a man should be,
Not of the water, nor the tree;
Haply, thine own last hour is nigh,
Yet, shalt thou not forsaken die.

There's one, that pale beside thee stands,
More than all thy mountain bands!
She will not shrink, in doubt and dread,
When the balls whistle round thy head;
Nor leave thee, though thy closing eye
No longer may to hers reply.