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The frith that glittered like a warrior's shield,
The sky, the gay green field,

Are vanished; - gladness ceases in the groves,
And trepidation strikes the blackened mountain

coves.

"But is that gloom dissolved? how passing clear
Seems the wide world - far brighter than before!
Even so thy latent worth will re-appear,
Gladdening the people's heart from shore to shore,
For youthful faults ripe virtues shall atone;
Re-seated on thy throne,

Proof shalt thou furnish that misfortune, pain,

And sorrow, have confirmed thy native right to reign.

"But, not to overlook what thou may'st know,

Thy enemies are neither weak nor few,

And circumspect must be our course, and slow,
Or from my purpose ruin may ensue.

Dismiss thy followers;- let them calmly wait
Such change in thy estate

As I already have in thought devised;

And which, with caution due, may soon be realised."

The Story tells what courses were pursued,
Until King Elidure, with full consent
Of all his Peers, before the multitude,

Rose, and, to consummate this just intent,
Did place upon his Brother's head the Crown,
Relinquished by his own;

Then to his people cried, "Receive your Lord,
Gorbonian's first-born Son, your rightful King re-

stored!"

The People answered with a loud acclaim:

Yet more ;-heart-smitten by the heroic deed,

The reinstated Artegal became

Earth's noblest penitent; from bondage freed
Of vice,- of vice unable to subvert

Or shake his high desert.

Long did he reign; and, when he died, the tear
Of universal grief bedewed his honoured bier.

Thus was a Brother by a Brother saved;
With whom a Crown (temptation that hath set
Discord in hearts of men till they have braved
Their nearest kin with deadly purpose met)
'Gainst duty weighed, and faithful love, did seem

A thing of no esteem

And, from this triumph of affection pure,

He bore the lasting name of “pious Elidure !”

VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA.

The following Tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.

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