Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HALBERT THE GRIM. There is blood on that brow, There is blood on that hand; There is blood on that hauberk, And blood on that brand. Oh! bloody all o'er is His war-cloak, I weet; He is wrapped in the cover Of murder’s red sheet. There is pity in man? Is there any in him ? No! ruth were a strange guest To Halbert the Grim. The hardest may soften, The fiercest repent; But the heart of Grim Halbert May never relent. Death doing on earth is For ever his cry; And pillage and plunder His hope in the sky ! ‘Tis midnight, deep midnight, And dark is the heaven; Sir Halbert, in mockery, Wends to be shriven. He kneels not to stone, And he bends not to wood; But he swung round his brown blade, And hewed down the Rood! He stuck his long sword, with Its point in the earth; And he prayed to its cross hilt, In mockery and mirth. Thus lowly he louteth, And mumbles his beads; Then lightly he riseth, And homeward he speeds. His steed hurries homewards, Darkling and dim; Right fearful it prances With Halbert the Grim. Still fiercer it tramples, The spur gores its side; Now downward and downward Grim Halbert doth ride. The brown wood is threaded, The grey flood is past, Yet hoarser and wilder Moans ever the blast. No star lends its taper, No moon sheds her glow; For dark is the dull path That Baron must go. Though starless the sky, and No moon shines abroad, Yet, flashing with fire, all At once gleams the road. And his black steed, I trow, As it galloped on, With a hot sulphur halo, And flame-flash all shone. From eye and from nostril, Out gushed the pale flame, And from its chafed mouth, the Churned fire-froth came. They are two! they are two!? They are coal-bl…