CANTO I,

117

XX.

There is a festival, where knights and dames.And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claimsAppear — a highborn and a welcome guestTo Otho's hall came Lara with the rest.

The long carousal shakes the illumin’d hall}Wall speeds alike the banquet, and the hall}And the gay dance of hounding Beauty’s trainLinks grace and harmony in happiest chain : 3 g<>lilest are the early hearts and gentle handsThat mingle there in well according hands;

It is a sight the careful brow might smoothe,And make Age smile, and dream itself to youth,And Youth forget such hour was past on earth,So springs the exulting bosom to that mirth!

XXI.

And Lara gaz'd on these, sedately glad,llis brow belied him if his soul wa9 sad;

And his glance followed fast each fluttering fair.Whose stops of lightness woke no echo there : 400lie loaued against the lofty pillar nigh.

With folded arms and long attentive eye.

Nor mark’d a glance so sternly fixed on his,III brook’d high Lara scrutiny like this:

At length he caught it, ’tis a face unknown,Hut seems as searching his, and his alone;drying and dark, a stranger’s by his mien,