There a haughty king was seated,
    In lands and conquests great;
  Pale and awful was his countenance,
    As on his throne he sate;
  For what he thinks, is terror,
    And what he looks, is wrath,
  And what he speaks, is torture,
    And what he writes, is death. 
  And ’gainst a marble pillar
    He shiver’d it in twain;
  And thus his curse he shouted,
    Till the castle rang again: 

  “Woe, woe, thou haughty castle,
    With all thy gorgeous halls! 
  Sweet string or song be sounded
    No more within thy walls. 
  No, sighs alone, and wailing,
    And the coward steps of slaves! 
  Already round thy towers
    The avenging spirit raves!

  “Woe, woe, ye fragrant gardens,
    With all your fair May light! 
  Look on this ghastly countenance,
    And wither at the sight! 
  Let all your flowers perish! 
    Be all your fountains dry! 
  Henceforth a horrid wilderness,
    Deserted, wasted, lie!

  “Woe, woe, thou wretched murderer,
    Thou curse of minstrelsy! 
  Thy struggles for a bloody fame,
    All fruitless shall they be. 
  Thy name shall be forgotten,
    Lost in eternal death,
  Dissolving into empty air
    Like a dying man’s last breath!”

  The old man’s curse is utter’d,
    And Heaven above hath heard. 
  Those walls have fallen prostrate
    At the minstrel’s mighty word. 
  Of all that vanish’d splendor
    Stands but one column tall;
  And that, already shatter’d,
    Ere another night may fall.

  Around, instead of gardens,
    In a desert heathen land,
  No tree its shade dispenses,
    No fountains cool the sand. 
  The king’s name, it has vanish’d;
    His deeds no songs rehearse;
  Departed and forgotten—­
    This is the minstrel’s curse.

* * * * *

  THE LUCK OF EDENHALL[33] (1834)

  Of Edenhall the youthful lord
    Bids sound the festal trumpets’ call;
  He rises at the banquet board,
    And cries, ’mid the drunken revelers all,
  “Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall!”

  The butler hears the words with pain—­
    The house’s oldest seneschal—­
  Takes slow from its silken cloth again
    The drinking glass of crystal tall;
  They call it the Luck of Edenhall.

  Then said the lord, “This glass to praise,
    Fill with red wine from Portugal!”
  The graybeard with trembling hand obeys;
    A purple light shines over all;
  It beams from the Luck of Edenhall.

  Then speaks the lord, and waves it light—­
    “This glass of flashing crystal tall
  Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite;
    She wrote in it, ’If this glass doth fall,
  Farewell then, O Luck of Edenhall!’”

  “’Twas right a goblet the fate should be
    Of the joyous race of Edenhall! 
  We drink deep draughts right willingly;
    And willingly ring, with merry call,
  Kling! klang! to the Luck of Edenhall!”