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CANTO THE SECONDXXIV
Upon that night (a peasant`s is the tale)
A Serf that cross`d the intervening vale,
When Cynthia`s light almost gave way to morn,
And nearly veil`d in mist her waning horn;
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,
And hew the bough that bought his children`s food,
Pass`d by the river that divides the plain
Of Otho`s lands and Lara`s broad domain:
He heard a tramp — a horse and horseman broke
From out the wood — before him was a cloak
Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.
Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,
And some foreboding that it might be crime,
Himself unheeded watch`d the stranger`s course,
Who reach`d the river, bounded from his horse,
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,
Heaved up the bank, and dash`d it from the shore,
Then paused, and look`d, and turn`d, and seem`d to watch,
And still another hurried glance would snatch,
And follow with his step the stream that flow`d,
As if even yet too much its surface show`d:
At once he started, stoop`d, around him strewn
The winter floods had scatter`d heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gather`d there,
And slung them with a more than common care.
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean.
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glitter`d starlike on the vest,
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:
It rose again, but indistinct to view,
And left the waters of a purple hue,
Then deeply disappear`d: the horseman gazed
Till ebb`d the latest eddy it had raised;
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant spurr`d him into panting speed.
His face was mask`d — the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escaped the observer`s dread;
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such `tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.
If thus he perish`d, Heaven receive his soul!
His undiscover`d limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell
It was not Lara`s hand by which he fell.
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