Lovely, and gentle, and distress'd--
These charms might tame the fiercest breast:
Harpers have sung, and poets told, 115
That he, in fury uncontroll'd,
The shaggy monarch of the wood,
Before a virgin, fair and good,
Hath pacified his savage mood.
But passions in the human frame, 120
Oft put the lion's rage to shame:
And jealousy, by dark intrigue,
With sordid avarice in league,
Had practised with their bowl and knife,
Against the mourner's harmless life. 125
This crime was charged 'gainst those who lay
Prison'd in Cuthbert's islet grey.