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 o