rd 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.

PART III.

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.

W