10t THE TEMPLARS IX CYPRUS. [ACT III. Tho fellow had a sword, by Mahomet ! Tho Dey of Tunis strikes not better blows !— The rest thou know'st. Dismiss mo now and thrust Mo into narrowest cell, if only there I may scent out no savour of the Cross. Foul is its wood and shines but in tho dark. (Shuddering.) Ugh !—At its very mention 1 am seized As with an ague— MOLAY. Silence, thou blasphemer ! And who art thou, old man ? TROUBADOUR. A minstrel, Sir, Who many a lay to Knights and lordly Counts Havo sung in Burgundy and Flanders, till Old ago approaching, my poetic gift Began, alas ! to dwindlo ; then to Spain I wandered, to tho homo of noble song, To warm myself amidst her wreathing vines, To sun myself beneath her lucid sky. Thero smiled on me onco more the tuneful Muse, But folly moved me, and I chose myself A little youthful wife in nuptial bonds, Beauteous as day, but shrewish as tho fiend. TUNISIAN. The old tune— MOLAT. Interrupt him not. TROUBADOUR. Alas ! Dear Master, what a bitter change ! Before, I had through fifty swiftly fleeting years Rejoiced me in the golden gift of song, Glad as a child on holy Christmas evo ; Before, I seemed to reign o'er earth and heaven ; When I in forest chase, on vine-clad slope, Did hail the rosy dawn, the twinkling star,—