“Submitting to our wayward fate,
  I talk’d not of the treasures flown;
But still seem’d easy and sedate,
  While pressing verdure not my own.

“Then all I wish’d, and all I fear’d,
  Was by fraternal love inspir’d;
And one, by every tie endear’d,
  The only friend my soul desir’d.

“Yet soon that pleasing calmness fled,
  A Norman beauty won my heart,
Imperious love my footsteps led,
  And bade all secrecy depart.

“I own’d the splendour of my race,
  Altho’ a peasant’s form I bore;
I fancied silence was disgrace,
  And hid my sentiments no more.

“Her father’s tongue my fate decreed,
  And doom’d great Herbert’s son to shame;
For, tho’ by love from prison freed,
  I bear an outlaw’s hateful name.

“My sister no fond friend can shield,
  No relative allay her grief;
For tyranny all hearts hath steel’d,
  And nought can give her soul relief.

“With ev’ry quality to charm,
  A guardian will not heaven allow,
To screen thy artless youth from harm,
  And, fair deserted! help thee now!

“No aid, no comfort, can be nigh! 
  And shall thy brother here remain? 
Has he not fortitude to fly,
  And burst the heavy, servile chain?

“Why should I linger here alone,
  Unseen by every human eye? 
To live unfriended and unknown,
  And in this dreary desart die.

“For now the sun-beams gild the sky,
  And give the misty morning grace,
Far from the light I’m doom’d to fly,
  Abandon’d by the human race.

“But no!  I’ll bear suspense no more! 
  Too dear a price to purchase breath;
I’ll seek the scenes I yet deplore,
  And meet a welcome, wish’d-for, death.”

Tortur’d to frenzy, Alwin flew,
  And as he left his sad retreat,
He, turning, look’d a last adieu,
  And shook the dew-drops from his feet.

His hurried steps nor press’d the ground,
  Nor pointed out the path he came;
And, though so long the way he found,
  Despair buoy’d up his fainting frame.

The sun shot forth a feeble ray,
  But hid his glorious orb from sight,
And the pale evening’s modest grey,
  Had soften’d the too-glaring light,

When Alwin reach’d the humble cot,
  That once he did with Emma share,
And, weeping, hail’d the well-known spot,
  In vain, for Emma was not there.

Repuls’d, he turn’d his languid eye,
  Where Ranulph’s lofty turrets rose;
And, heaving disappointment’s sigh,
  He sought the mansion of his foes.

His faltering step, when there he came,
  A proud, disdainful air possest;
Memory recall’d his former shame,
  And indignation fill’d his breast.

He enter’d, in his wild attire,
  With hasty pace and haggard brow,
Scorn fill’d his azure eye with fire,
  And gave his cheeks a deeper glow.