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No mortal hand was near when so it seem'd To shake the midnight streets.

Too well I know The sound of coming fate!—'Tis ever thus When Death is on his way to make it night In the Cid's ancient house5 .—Oh! there are things In this strange world of which we have all to learn When its dark bounds are pass'd.—Yon bell, untouch'd, (Save by the hands we see not) still doth speak— —When of that line some stately head is mark'd,— With a wild hollow peal, at dead of night, Rocking Valencia's towers. I have heard it oft, Nor known its warning false.

And will our chief Buy with the price of his fair children's blood A few more days of pining wretchedness For this forsaken city?

Doubt it not! —But with that ransom he may purchase still Deliverance for the land!—And yet 'tis sad To think that such a race, with all its fame,