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The fairest flower of mortal frame
Pass'd from the Moril Glen;
And ne'er may such a deadly eye
Shine amongst Christian men!

In seven chariots, gilded bright,
The-train went o'er the fell,
All wrapt within a shower of hail;
Whither no man could tell;

But there was a ship in the Firth of Forth,
The like ne'er sail'd the faeme,
For no man of her country knew

Her colours or her name.

Her mast was made of beaten gold,
Her sails of the silken twine,

And a thousand pennons stream'd behind,
And trembled o'er the brine.

As she lay mirror'd in the main,
It was a comely view,

So many rainbows round her play'd

With every breeze that blew.

And the hailstone shroud it rattled loud,

Right over ford and fen,

And swathed the flower of the Moril Glen

From eyes of sinful men.

And the hailstone shroud it wheel'd and row'd,

As wan as death unshriven,

Like dead cloth of an angel grim,

Or winding sheet of heaven.

It was a fearsome sight to see

Toil through the morning gray,

And whenever it reached the comely ship,

She set sail and away.

She set her sail before the gale,

As it began to sing,

And she heaved and rocked down the tide,

Unlike an earthly thing.

The dolphins fled out of her way

Into the creeks of fife,

And the blackguard seals they yowlit for dread,

And swam for death and life.

But aye the ship, the bonnie ship,
Outowre the green wave flew,
Swift as the solan on the wing,
Or terrified sea-mew.

No billow breasted on her prow,
Nor levell'd on the lee;
She seem'd to sail upon the air
And never touch the sea.

And away, and away went the bonnie ship,
Which man never more did see;

But whether she went to heaven or hell,
Was ne'er made known to me.

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[This ballad was written by IIenry Kirke White; a name which it is impossible to pronounce or hear without feeling, with Lord Byron, (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," 'the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to talents, which would have dignified even the sacred functions they were destined to assume.' He was born at Nottingham, on the 21st March, 1785, and died at Cambridge on the 19th Oct. 1806, in his 22nd year; in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that,' in the eloquent language of the noble poct already quoted, would have matured a mind which discase and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued.' His Lordship's beautiful eulogy on Unhappy White,' in the work above-mentioned, is too well known to require insertion here. With regard to the ballad, it would appear from The Remains of Henry Kirke White,' edited by Robert Southey, whose generous assistance of the author while living, and tribute to his memory, after his death, are familiar to all readers, to have first appeared in what his biographer calls the little volume which Henry published in 1803.' It is here taken from Southey's edition of his works above-named, London, 1816--22.1

HE night it was still, and the moon it shone, Serenely on the sea,

And the waves at the foot of the rifted rock

When Gondoline roam'd along the shore,

A maiden full fair to the sight;

Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek, And turn'd it to deadly white.

Her thoughts they were drear, and the silent tear
It fill'd her faint blue eye,

As oft she heard, in fancy's ear,
Her Bertrand's dying sigh.

Her Bertrand was the bravest youth
Of all our good king's men,
And he was gone to the Holy Land
To fight the Saracen.

And many a month had past away,
And many a rolling year,
But nothing the maid from Palestine
Could of her lover hear.

Full oft she vainly tried to pierce
The ocean's misty face;

Full oft she thought her lover's bark
She on the wave could trace.

And every night she placed a light
In the high rock's lonely tower,
To guide her lover to the land,

Should the murky tempest lower.

But now despair had seized her breast,
And sunken in her eye;

"O tell me but if Bertrand live,

And I in peace will die."

She wander'd o'er the lonely shore,

The curlew scream'd above,

She heard the scream with a sickening heart,
Much boding of her love.

Yet still she kept her lonely way,

And this was all her cry,

"O! tell me but if Bertrand live,
And I in peace shall die."

And now she came to a horrible rift,
All in the rock's hard side,
A bleak and blasted oak o'erspread

And pendant from its dismal top
The deadly nightshade hung;
The hemlock and the aconite
Across the mouth were flung.

And all within was dark and drear,
And all without was calm;

Yet Gondoline enter'd, her soul upheld
By some deep-working charm.

And as she enter'd the cavern wide,
The moonbeam gleamed pale,

And she saw a snake on the craggy rock,
It clung by its slimy tail.

Her foot it slipt, and she stood aghast.
She trod on a bloated toad;

Yet, still upheld by the secret charm,
She kept upon her road.

And now upon her frozen ear
Mysterious sounds arose;
So, on the mountain's piny top
The blustering north wind blows.

Then furious peals of laughter loud
Were heard with thundering sound,
Till they died away in soft decay,
Low whispering o'er the ground.

Yet still the maiden onward went,
The charm yet onward led,
Though each big glaring ball of sight
Seem'd bursting from her head.

But now a pale blue light she saw,
It from a distance came;
She follow'd, till upon her sight
Burst full a flood of flame.

She stood appall'd; yet still the charm
Upheld her sinking soul;

Yet each bent knee the other smote,
And each wild eye did roll.

And such a sight as she saw there
No mortal saw before,

And such a sight as she saw there

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