The bridal of Vaumond :: :: University of Virginia Library

When, as the eagle bears his prize,
Cleaving midway the startled skies,
The hungry vulture's pinions slope
Riding the light adown heaven's cope,
And the prey his iron talons pierce,
—That fight of horror is brief as fierce!
Their fluttering wings in terror bear
Afar each living thing in air,
As instant from his pride of place
Drops one dread tyrant of their race!

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—Too desperate is that struggle now—
Too swift resounds each furious blow—
The combat cannot last!
Where the knit corslet clad the breast
The furious blade of Lodowick prest;
On the broad concave's iron bound
The rigid steel resistance found,
And swift in sunder brast!
—Back sprung the knight in swift recoil,
And a wild cry went forth the while
From the encircling host;
Above his fenceless prey uprais'd
The Baron's temper'd faulchion blaz'd,
And smil'd he, as it swung suspended,
As if, ere yet the steel descended,
He mock'd his foeman lost.—
A hasty glance to the vanquish'd show'd
Where hid in dust lay the sacred wood,
In that evil tide by thousands spurn'd
Where'er the course of battle turn'd;—
Uprooted from the clotted mould
Around it swung in his iron hold;
And as it cleft the sounding air
At Vaumond's bright helm levell'd fair,
—The Baron bent him to the blow—
Ha!—where that harness'd champion now?—

This incident, the hinge of the fable, is borrowed from a tale of Lewis's.

An elf, all wrinkled, crook'd, and gray,
Crouching beneath the cross upstarted—
That mighty form hath past away,
And like unreal light departed!