When the weird and wizard bats were flitting round his dusky way,
Over a moorland, like a whirlwind, rushed the knight, Sir Roland Grey;
When the crimson sun was setting, as the yellow moon arose,
Far and faint, behind Sir Roland, sank the slogan of his foes—
Far and faint; and growing fainter as he reached the forest sward,
Spreading round for many an acre over the lands which owned him lord.
As he dashed along the woodland, fitfully, upon the breeze,
Swept the tu-who-o of the owlet through the naked forest trees;
And the loudly whirring black-cock through the creaking branches sprung,
Frightened by his horse's hoofs, that like the Cyclop's anvil rung—
Like a hurricane on he hurried, wood and valley gliding past,
While around him, o'er him, on him, burst the sudden autumn blast.
Down upon him, in a deluge, rushed the cold November rain;
But the wind about him whistled, and the tempest swept in vain.
What to him was wind or tempest, when his brain was seared with flame?
What to him was earth or heaven, when his soul was sick with shame?
In the dreary, desolate desert on his ears had burst a tale,
That, like falling thunder, stunned and left him terrified and pale;
How, while he was battling bravely, like a true and holy knight,
For the sacred tomb of Christ, against the swarthy Moslemite;
How, while round him lances shivered, armor rang, and arrows fell,
And the air was mad with noises—Arab shout and Paynim yell—
She, the partner of his heart, descended (so the legend said)
From the ancient Saxon monarchs, sank in shame her sunny head.
From his friends—his growing glory—over dark and dangerous seas—
From his red-cross banner proudly flowing, floating on the breeze—
Over field and flood he traveled, flinging fame and honor by,
With a heart as full of hell as full of glory was the sky.
All his mind became a chaos; but along its waste there stole
What his bloody purpose shook, and what was manna to his soul,—
Memories of his youthful moments, when through grassy glen and wood
He wandered with the Lady Gwineth, dreaming none so fair and good;
And he saw her sweetly smiling, as when at her feet he knelt,
And with bold but modest manner on his burning passion dwelt—
Felt her fall upon his bosom—felt her tears upon his cheek,
As he felt them when his tongue was all too full of joy to speak!
And his heart was slowly softening—when a hoarse voice bade him "yield!"
And a claymore clanked and clattered on the bosses of his shield;—
Rising round him, closing on him, sprang an ambush of his foe,
The despoiler of his honor! All his answer was a blow!
All his soul was in his arm; and, as his foemen closed around,
Vassal after vassal, wounded, yelling, fell and bit the ground;
But when through the wood there rushed an hundred thronging to the fight,
Charging through them, still defying, Roland safety sought in flight.
When the crimson sun descended, as the yellow moon arose,
Far and faint behind Sir Roland sank the slogan of his foes—
Far and faint, and waxing fainter, as he reached the forest sward,
Spreading round for many an acre, over the lands that owned him lord.
Like a whirlwind on he hurried, though the storm was raging sore:
In his heart he carried torture: there was music in its roar—
Like a hurricane on he hurried, spurring on with loosened rein,
Till he checked his jaded courser on his old paternal plain.
Clouds were scudding o'er the heavens; wild the tempest roared around;
And the very earth was shaking with the thunder's heavy sound;
But between the lightning flashes, frowning grimly, here and there,
Loomed his old ancestral castle, with its old ancestral air.
There, the barbican—the draw-bridge—there, the ancient donjon-keep,
With its iron-banded portals—there, the moat in sullen sleep!—
Galloping onward, lo! he halted, for they kept strict watch and ward,
And his courser's clanking hoofs had roused the ever-wary guard.
Loud above the increasing tempest rose the warder's threatening hail;
Louder rose the ringing answer from a lip that scorned to quail:
"Grey of Grey!" the warrior thundered, "he who fears nor bolt nor dart—
He who is your master, vassal—Roland of the Lion Heart!"
Clanking, clattering, grating, slowly up the huge portcullis went,
And the draw-bridge over the moat creaking, shrieking, downward bent;
On his armor flashed the torch-light, over helmet, cuirass, shield,
With its lion d' or couchant upon a stainless argent field.
Over rode he, frowning fiercely, throwing from him ruddy light,
Flashing, like a burning beacon, on his startled vassal's sight.
Rose the draw-bridge, fell the barrier, closed the oaken gates behind.
—All was silence save the roaring of the wild November wind.

In a lofty vaulted chamber, pillared, Gothic, full of gloom,
But that flashes of the fire-light fitfully fell athwart the room—
Ruddy gleams of fading fire-light, lighting many a bearded face,
On the fluted hangings woven—founders of her husband's race—
On a carven couch in slumber lay the Lady Gwineth Grey,
Traces of a smile yet lingering on a cheek of rosy May—
On the softest velvet slumbering, in a mist of golden hair,
Trembling on her heaving bosom, and along her neck as fair.
Seemed she like the Goddess Dian sleeping in some lonely wood,
Or a nun on convent pallet dreaming only what was good:
By her stood an outened flambeaux, from which, blue, and thin, and rare,
Stole a wave of trembling vapor, slowly melting into air.
But the tapestry was lifted, and a form in steel array
Suddenly entered, and his coming drove the waning mist away.
Treading softly o'er the rushes Roland stept beside his bride,
In the passing of a moment standing at her couch's side.
Like an angel seemed the lady, lying in her rosy rest;
Like a devil seemed the knight, with passion raging in his breast:
For within his bosom, gnawing all his heart with teeth of fire,
Reigned Revenge, and on his forehead burned the purple hue of ire.
Slowly bending o'er his wife, but making not a sound, he gazed
Upon her, while his glaring eye-balls, like twin torches, brightly blazed.
—Starting, feeling one was near her, Gwineth raised her golden head,
Looking round her—flashed his falchion, and she sank in silence—dead!
Roared the tempest; crashed the thunder; even the castle seemed to quail
And tremble, like a living thing, before the fury of the gale;
But the fierce and fearless murderer turned to where his child reclined,
Asleep, amid the thunder's crash, the rushing rain and roaring wind.
As he bent above his boy, dim memories of days long back
Came, like stars an instant seen amid the autumn tempest's rack;
But as swiftly over his spirit flashed the ruin of his name—
Flashed the withering thought that even that child might be the child of shame.
Wildly then he raised his glaive, but wilder, sterner, still, without,
Swelled the tempest, burst the thunder, yelled the winds with maniac shout;
While the lightning, red and vivid, quivered through the skies in ire,
Till the chamber with its flashes seemed a blazing hall of fire.
With this climax of the tempest—thunder, lightning, rain and wind—
Roland felt an awful doubt creep tremblingly athwart his mind;
Slowly, slowly, it arose, and grew gigantic; slowly, slowly,
Cloud-like, overshadowing him, darkening his spirit wholly.
Then, like Saul of Eld, he trembled, feeling his deed was one of guilt—
Believing heaven itself asserted it was innocent blood he spilt—
Feeling heaven was interfering, sank his heart, and fell his blade,
And the superstitious murderer tottered, wailing and dismayed.
"Be she spotless," groaned the warrior, "I have done a grievous crime—
Stained the snowiest shield that ever graced the temple-walls of Time.
—Thou, my noblest and my fairest! with thy mother's Saxon eye—
Shall my hand, too, strike thee lifeless? No! I cannot see thee die!"
Suddenly Roland saw the peril hanging over his guilty head—
Felt that he could never hide him from the vengeance of the dead—
Saw the heartless headsman smiling, and the axe, and heard the crowd
Shouting curses on the assassin—and the chieftain groaned aloud—
Groaned, for that his deed had robbed him of a home and of a name,
Hurling on his orphan son the damning heritage of shame:
Life and lands by law were forfeit; he had driven his offspring forth,
Rudely, ruthlessly, to wander, one of the Ishmaelites of earth.

But a sudden thought came o'er him, and his lofty eye again
Flashed with resolution, stern and strong as was his spirit's pain.
"Shall I rob thee of thy birthright—rob thee of thy noble name,
Of our old ancestral castle, and our fathers' deeds of fame?
"Shall I fling thee forth to struggle with a never-sparing world;
Knowing every eye will scorn thee, every lip at thee be curled?
Know thee, budding bloom of beauty, withering in thy youth away—
Feel thy infant promise fading—see thy falcon-eye decay?
"Did I give thee life to cloud it—life to poison every breath?
Better far the dreary dungeon, and the dark and iron death!
Never! Let them heap upon me rock on rock Olympus high;
None shall see a sinew quiver, none shall hear the slightest cry.
"'Blood for blood' is rightly written: I have slain a spotless wife,
And will dree a heavy penance—yield the law my forfeit life;
Come the judgment, I will meet it; and the torture shall not tear
Word from me to make a beggar of my rightful, righteous heir."
As the stricken knight was speaking, in the distance died the storm;
And the moonlight on the casement wandered sweetly, rested warm;
Through the golden glass it floated, fluttering over the lady's hair,
Till she seemed a mild Madonna, watched by angels, slumbering there.
Shaken by the storm of conscience, Roland sank upon his knee,
Sudden as before a hurricane falls some famous forest tree;
Sank beside pale, placid Gwineth, weeping, wailing, sorrow riven,
Feeling God had spoken, praying that his crime might be forgiven.
All that long and dreary night, Sir Roland watched beside the dead,
Humbly kneeling in the rushes strown around the carven bed.
Slowly, quietly approaching came the gray-eyed dreamy dawn,
Making every thing about him seem more desolate and wan.
One by one the stars went out, and slowly over the Orient came
Streaks of rose and tints of purple, flakes of gold and rays of flame,
And around the ancient castle Roland heard the hum of those
That from quiet sleep were waking, as they, one by one, arose.
Slowly through the painted casement, touching first the chamber crown
And the groined roof, the sunlight stole in lovely lustre down
Over the tapestry, that glistened, gleaming with its golden ray,
Till it kissed the russet rushes where in yellow sleep it lay.
Came the Lady Gwineth's maidens, starting at the sudden sight
Of their lord, Sir Roland, standing like a warrior for the fight;
But he waved them on; and, wondering, they unto the sleeper went—
Shrieking loudly, shrieking wildly as above her corpse they bent.
Startled by the sudden clamor, Roland's son in fright awoke,
As from all sides, madly rushing in the room, the vassals broke;
Gathering round him, gazing on him, looking on the bloody brand
And the lady, who, when living, was the loveliest in the land.
Not a word the warrior uttered, though his son implored him sore,
And they led him like an infant toward the oaken chamber-door;
There he turned and gazed on Gwineth, looking on her face his last;
Then between his guards in silence to the castle-prison passed.
There they left him; but at mid-day came, and, beckoning, bade him forth
To journey, not as he was wont to, from his ancient honored hearth:
To an armed guard they gave him, and amid their stern array,
Haughty, lofty-souled and silent Roland sternly rode away.

When the gathering gloom of night in swarthy shadows floated down
On the mountain and the forest, Roland saw the distant town:
O'er its walls, and round its towers, a dim and sickly lustre lay.
Like the gray and ghostly haze that heraldeth the dawning day.
While, behind those walls and turrets, standing blackly in her light,
Full and large the lurid moon rose ghastily upon the night;
Shrouded in a cloud of crimson, slowly, slowly as he came
Rising higher, higher, higher, till the east was full of flame.
As his guards approached the gates—did she sink or did they rise?
Behind the black gigantic towers the planet vanished from his eyes.
All without was solemn blackness, but within was drearier dark,
Save when from some grim old building stole a taper's trembling spark.
Slowly through the lengthy streets, between old houses, rising high,
Over which, dark, dusk, sepulchral, bent the purple pall-like sky,
Through the town they bore him on, until frowningly, at last,
Rose the castle-walls before them, huge and massy, broad and vast.

With a last look on the heavens, the knight rode on beneath the gate:
Stepping from his steed he bowed him, stately, to his fearful fate:
On his limbs they fastened fetters, cold! how cold! their chillness ran
Freezing through his blood, the spirit of the stern, unconquered man.
Through a gallery they led him to a dark and dismal cell.
Where they left him. Sad and solemn, heavy, awful as a knell,
Seemed the fading of their footsteps, as he heard them slowly glide
Through the long and vaulted corridor till their very echo died.
Days went by—days dark with anguish, for his conscience, like a spur,
Drove him o'er the wastes of memory which were never black before;
Weeks slid by, and months—such months! such bitter months of pungent pain,
That their very hours seemed serpents gnawing at his heart and brain.
Next they led him him forth to trial: like a child he bowed and went,
With his once black hair like snow, and his stalwart form so bent,
And his beard so long and white, and his cheek so thin and wan,
Even his very keepers thought it was a ghost they gazed upon!
When before his ermined judges, stately, silent, Roland came,
Over his cheek there flashed and faded, suddenly, a flash of flame:
Like a falling star it faded: lofty and erect he turned,
With the feeling that aroused it under his iron Will inurned.
"Roland, Baron Grey!" the crier, in the ancient Latin tongue,
Which, like some old bell in tolling, through the vaulted building rung:—
Cold and stern the prisoner answered—cold and stern—devoid of fear—
Looking haughtily around him:—"Roland, Baron Grey, is here!"
Muttering the solemn charge, they bade him answer; but he stood
Cold, and calm, and motionless, as though he were nor flesh nor blood,
But, rather, all a bronzed statue of the proud, primeval time—
In his silence self-devoted—in his very guilt sublime.
Thrice they prayed him: while he listened, not a quiver on his brow,
Not the movement of a hair upon his head or beard of snow,
Not the motion of a lip, nor even the flutter of an eye,
Betokening that he even heard them—he was there alone to die.
In the distant, dreary years, so run the legends even now—
Misty legends on whose summits slumber centuries of snow—
Lofty legends round whose summits clouds have lain for solemn ages—
Legends penned with iron pens in blood by Draco-minded sages—
It was written, they should bear him to a dungeon under ground,
Far beneath the castle moat, where came no single human sound,
And unto the earth should chain him, naked, on the icy ground—
Naked, like the sage Prometheus, on the mountain's summit bound.
Water—there was none for him, save that which flowed in the castle moat,
On whose green and slimy surface newts and mosses loved to float—
Bread—a crust a day—so, starving, freezing, there the Doomed was spread,
Pressed with weights of stone and iron till he answered or was dead.
Did he answer guiltless, lo! the trial; guilty, lo! the axe;
Death before the grinning thousand! worse than were a myriad racks!
While the trial were an evil quite as grievous, quite as great,
For the verdict of his peers would rend from him his proud estate:
But, if he died silent, then his lands would pass in quiet down
To bless his boy, his innocent boy, and not escheat unto the crown:
So he chose the darksome dungeon, rather there to die alone
Than by cowardly fear to steal the birthright of his orphan son.
But, beside this, came the thought that, by this penance he might win
Forgiveness from offended Heaven for his now-repented sin.
"Noble Roland," quoth his judges, "answer, ere it be too late;
Heavy, else, must be our judgment—heavier thine awful fate."
Then arose the ghostly knight, with his spectral eyes aflame,
While a more than mortal vigor coursed and circled through his frame;
And he gazed upon them smiling, and like hollow thunder broke
His accents on the swarthy silence:—thus and so the chieftain spoke:
"Lords! I answer not. If guilty, God will judge my sinful soul:
For my body—that is yours! I yield it to your stern control.
Would you have me—me, a warrior, like a coward plead for life?
Death and I are old acquaintance! I have met him in the strife—
"I have met him when the air was swooning with a ghastly fear;
When the Moslem swept before us, driven like a herd of deer;
When our voices mocked the thunder, shouting 'England and Saint George!'
And the lightning of our falchions fell like flashes from a forge!
"There, amid the clash and clang of sword and shield, I strove with Death—
That I conquered, ye may see; and now I yield to him my breath—
Where there is no rescue, yield! and, as one would call a bride,
So I bid the grisly monarch smilingly unto my side.
"Shall I yield my broad estates, my castles and my manor lands,
To the harpies of the law, to hold them with unhallowed hands?
Shall I send my youthful heir forth with a stain upon his crest?
No! my eaglet yet shall reign an eagle in his parent nest.
"Lords and judges, I have done: no further words shall pass my lips,
Save prayers to Heaven, that my soul may, sun-like, rise from death's eclipse."
Silently, he braved them still; and, sighing, sad, and full of gloom,
His judges sent him forth to struggle with the sharp and lingering doom.
Did he tremble at their sentence? Not a muscle quivered, not
A sign to mark he heard, save on his cheek one purple spot:
Statelier yet than ever, firmer, with a long triumphant breath,
Roland, smiling on his judges, sternly walked to certain death.

In his cell the knight is lying, naked, fettered foot and hand;
Bound unto the rocky ground with many an iron link and band;
On him lie the piles of granite, pressing, pressing; yet he still
Looks on death with lofty eye—so giant is his mighty will.
Day by day, he lay and suffered, wrung with agony, but content—
Day by day, though hard to bear was his grievous punishment—
Never once, though, hour on hour, they piled the jagged granite higher
On his quivering limbs, he murmured; yet his very veins were fire.
Once, however, came his jailer, saying that his nephew sought
His presence; and the knight, consenting, in his brother's son was brought:
"Uncle Roland," quoth he, weeping, "what is this that I have done?
Curses, curses on my head! curse, uncle, curse thy brother's son!
Mine the tongue that wrought this evil—mine the false and slanderous tongue
That done to death the Lady Gwineth—O! my soul is sadly wrung!"
"Demon, devil!" groaned the warrior—"devil of the evil eye!
Look upon the awful horror wrought by thy atrocious lie.
Tell me? was it all a falsehood? Tell me, was it all—all—all?
Speak! and let these prison walls, oppressed with horror, on thee fall!"
"All was false! Mine, too the ambush; for I sought to grasp thy lands—
Sought to win the Lady Gwineth, with thy blood upon my hands.
But she drove me forth with scorn; and then I coined the lying tale—
O! forgive me, Uncle Roland! give me leave to weep and wail;
Give me leave to sit in sackcloth, heaping ashes on my head;
Mourning in some craggy cavern for the early lost and dead."
"Unexampled liar and traitor! first of all our noble name
Guilty of so black a treason! first to stain our shield with shame!
Hence! away! I—No! repent! begone! and pray for my repose:
Life on both of us too soon for our grievous crimes will close.
I forgive thee—now away—nay, do not touch me! I am wan—
Sick with suffering—mad with anguish—Go!" The penitent man is gone.
—Once again he lies alone, save his agony, alone;
Then they come and pile upon him heavier weights of iron and stone.
Still more pallid, at the even, Roland in his anguish lay,
Wrestling, for his soul was strong, with his body's slow decay;
And the sweat upon his forehead stood and rolled and fell like rain,
Cold, while pain and fire and fever battled in his heart and brain.
Now and then his senses wandered; now again his mind was calm,
And he wrung from out his suffering penitential draughts of balm;
Then again his senses left him, and he lay in phrenzy there,
Talking wildly in his madness with the dim, impalpable air.
Now, he saw the Lady Gwineth wandering in her maiden joy;
Now, he viewed her in her chamber frolic with her baby boy;
Now, he saw her sadly lying, all her bosom bathed with blood;
And beheld himself as o'er her on that fatal night he stood.
Was he dreaming? through his dungeon stole a pale purpureal light,
Flowing round him, floating round him, making daylight of its night;
In its midst, his gentle Gwineth, while around her brow there flowed,
Fluttering flame, a golden halo! that with heavenly glory glowed.
Did he hear her? Was it real? With an angel's voice she spoke:
How the words, like flakes of music, silver music! sweetly broke,
Round and round him! how they floated, ringing in his ravished ears,
Like the notes of Memnon's lyre, or chantings from the distant spheres!
"Coming, Roland, from that heaven where, though clad with light, I sigh
And languish for the softer lustre of thy gentle loving eye,
I await thee, singing, singing hymns to cheer thy dying hour
That the Cherubim sang in Eden when it first arose in flower.

Hearken! how my notes are mingling—one by one, and two by two,
Dropping on thy brain as falls on fading roses freshening dew;
Three by three, they upward circle: thou hast heard them in thy dreams,
When I came, a missioned spirit, from the four eternal streams.
I can see them, though thine eyes can only compass earthly vision:
Soon, O, Roland! soon, O, Roland! thou shalt see with eyes elysian:
Then the notes that now thou hearest thou shalt see, as on they flow,—
Angels that are rarest air! and view them through their dances go."
Still, entranced, the sufferer listened; and it seemed as from his pain
Sweeter music yet was born, for holier hymning lulled his brain;
Very wild his agony; very; but between its bars his eyes
Saw the angels as they wandered on the walls of Paradise.
Faint and fainter grew he, while the melody loud and louder rang,
Till it seemed not only Gwineth but a myriad angels sang;
And his soul seemed rising, rising, rising from his pallid clay,
Which, each moment, grew more feeble—faintlier wrestling with decay.
Burst upon his ears one swell! it seemed an anthem of the spheres,
Jubilant, divinely ringing; swam his eyes with happy tears—
"Come, forgiven one," the cadence, "chastened spirit, come, arise
From thine earthly prison-house to holy homes beyond the skies."
Fainter, fainter, still more feeble, grew the sufferer as he heard,
And a sigh swooned on the silence, soft as breathing of a bird,—
And all was over. In his trance his spirit's sparkling feet had trod
The realms of space, and gone from earth, through air, to judgment and to God.