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

A varying and a warring throng
Of thoughts and passions rush'd along,
But on the darkly gathering crowd
Flash'd, like the lightning on the cloud,
His country snatch'd from threaten'd harm,
Her vengeance—brandish'd by his arm;—
And wish'd the knight that he might be
The victim, when her plains were free,
In glory's lap that he might die—
For him hath earth no other tie!
And now thro' groves his footsteps tread,
Where the glossy beach its dark leaves spread,
The shapely fir, the light cork rose,
And from the ash the manna flows;

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He saw a bird on fluttering wing
From her wonted store in terror spring,
For round the roots did a serpent coil

This incident is related by Swinburne, vol. 1.

And his venom'd tongue was in the spoil.
“Ev'n so,”—thought Lodowick,—“must it be,
Ev'n so, fair Sicily, with thee!
Upon thy fatness live alike
The good, the pure, the foul in spirit,
And adders in thy bosom strike
To taint the store thy sons inherit.
But even so, yet, shall it be
With all thy peace, fair Sicily?—
Shall beauty, valour, honour, low
Before the dæmon-leaguer'd bow,
And innocence her pinions light
Spread for a long—eternal flight?—
God of my fathers! nerve my blade
Let me the sacrifice be made,
The cenotaph that tells of me
Telling of rescued Sicily!”