d his wounds you would die his
death! He was crippled in a victory, yet he slew himself on the day of
his triumph; you are crippled in your treachery, and have forgotten
your boy's honour, and will live in the darkness of your shame! Have
you lost remembrance of that ancient song? You heard it from me in the
morning of your years; listen, and you shall hear it to the end; it is
the dirge for your approaching death!'

She continued--

"SIONA, mourn not!--where I go
The warriors feel nor pain nor woe;
They raise aloft the gleaming steel,
Their wounds, though warm, untended heal;
Their arrows bellow through the air
In showers, as they battle there;
In mighty cups their wine is pour'd,
Bright virgins throng their midnight board!

"Yet think not that I die unmov'd;
I mourn the doom that sets me free,
As I think, betroth'd--belov'd,
On all the joys I lose in thee!
To form my boys to meet the fray,
Where'er the Gothic banner streams;
To guard thy night, to glad thy day,
Made all the bliss of AGNAR'S dreams--
Dreams that must now be all forgot,
Earth's joys have passed from AGNAR'S lot!

"See, athwart the face of light
Float the clouds of sullen Night!
Odin's warriors watch for me
By the earth-encircling sea!
The water's dirges howl my knell;
'Tis time I die--Farewell-Farewell!"

'He rose with a smile to prepare for the spring,
He flew from the rock like a bird on the wing;
The sea met her prey with a leap and a roar,
And the maid stood alone by the wave-riven shore!

The winds mutter'd deep, with a woe-boding sound,
As she wept o'er the footsteps he'd left on the ground;
And the wild vultures shriek'd, for the chieftain who spread
Their battle-field banquets was laid with the dead!'

As, with a slow and measured emphasis, Goisvintha pronounced the last
lines of the poem she again approached Hermanric. But the eyes of the
Goth sought her no longer. She had calmed the emotions that she had
hoped to irritate. Of the latter divisions of her legend, those only
which were pathetic had arrested the lost chieftain's attention, and
the blunted faculties of his heart recovered their old refinement as he
listened to them. A solemn composure of love, grief, and pity appeared
in the glance of affection that he now directed on the girl's
despairing countenance. Years of good thoughts, an e