Chapter XXXII: Book III: , Ode XVIII

Faunus! who lovest the flying nymphs to chase,
Oh, let thy steps with genial influence tread
My sunny fields, and be thy fostering grace
Soft on my nursling groves and borders shed;

If, at the mellow closing of the year,
A tender kid in sacrifice be thine,
Nor fail the liberal bowls to Venus dear,
Nor clouds of incense to thine antique shrine.

Joyous each flock in meadow herbage plays,
When the December feast returns to thee;
Calmly the ox along the pasture strays,
With festal villagers from toil set free.

Then from the wolf no more the lambs retreat,
Then shower the woods to thee their foliage round;
And the glad labourer triumphs that his feet
In triple dance have struck the hated ground.

DE CHATILLON; OR, THE CRUSADERS.

A TRAGEDY.[288]

[“About this time, Mrs Hemans was engaged in the composition of another tragedy, entitled ‘_De Chatillon, or, The Crusaders_;’ in which, with that deference to _fair_ criticism which she was always ready to avow, and to act upon, she made it her purpose to attempt a more compressed style of writing, avoiding that redundancy of poetic diction which had been censured as the prevailing fault of ‘The Vespers.’ It may possibly be thought that in the composition in question she has fallen into the opposite extreme of want of elaboration; yet, in its present state, it is, perhaps, scarcely amenable to criticism--for, by some strange accident, the fair copy transcribed by herself was either destroyed or mislaid in some of her subsequent removals, and the piece was long considered as utterly lost. Nearly two years after her death, the original rough MS., with all its hieroglyphical blots and erasures, was discovered amongst a mass of forgotten papers; and it has been a task of no small difficulty to decipher it, and complete the copy now first given to the world. Allowances must, therefore, be made for the disadvantages under which it appears,--thus deprived of her own finishing touches, and with no means of ascertaining how far it may differ from the copy so unaccountably missing.”--_Memoir_, p. 80-1.]

[288] First published in Edition of Collected Works, vol. iv. 1840.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Rainier de Chatillon, _A French Baron_.
Aymer, _His Brother_.
Melech, _A Saracen Emir_.
Herman, } _Knights_.
Du Mornay,}
Gaston, _A Vassal of Rainier’s_.
Urban, _A Priest_.
Sadi.

Moraima, _Daughter of Melech_.

_Knights_, _Arabs_, _Citizens_, _&c._