Blinded and mad with pain he ran
Toward the precipice,
Unheeding till he headlong fell
Adown the dread abyss.
Just where old Betzko's blood had dyed
With red the old rocks gray,
Quivering and bleeding and dumb and dead
Old Stibor's body lay.
WESSELENYI
A HUNGARIAN TALE
When madly raged religious war
O'er all the Magyar land
And royal archer and hussar
Met foemen hand to hand,
A princess fair in castle strong
The royal troops defied
And bravely held her fortress long
Though help was all denied.
Princess Maria was her name--
Brave daughter nobly sired;
She caught her father's trusty sword
When bleeding he expired,
And bravely rallied warders all
To meet the storming foe,
And hurled them from the rampart-wall
Upon the crags below.
Prince Casimir--her father--built
Murana high and wide;
It sat among the mountain cliffs--
The Magyars' boast and pride.
Bold Wesselenyi--stalwart knight,
Young, famed and wondrous fair,
With a thousand men besieged the height,
And led the bravest there.
And long he tried the arts of war
To take that castle-hold,
Till many a proud and plumed hussar
Was lying stiff and cold;
And still the frowning castle stood
A grim, unbroken wall,
Like some lone rock in stormy seas
That braves the billows all.
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