110 THE RAVEN IN POETRY AND FOLK-LORE 



When Alexander the Great entered Babylon, in 

 triumph, on his return from the remoter East, the 

 gathering of ravens there was believed, by Greeks 

 and Orientals alike, to portend his death ; and so in 

 the remoter West, when Guinevere, her guilt dis- 

 covered, had parted, for the last time, from her lover, 

 Lancelot, and was making her way alone to the 

 sanctuary at Almesbury, 



"She heard the spirits of the waste and weald 

 Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan : 

 And in herself she moaned, ' Too late ! too late ! ' 

 Till, in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, 

 A blot in heaven, the raven, flying high, 

 Croaked ; and she thought ' He spies a field of death.' " 



In more modern times, the legend is well known 

 which, for centuries past, has connected every 

 misfortune and their name is legion that has 

 happened to the great House of Hapsburg, with the 

 appearance of a raven ; and never, I suppose, have 

 the coincidences, or whatever we may call them, 

 been more numerous than in the long reign of the 

 present Emperor. The accession of Francis Joseph 

 to the throne with all its weight of sorrow ; the 

 departure of his brother Maximilian to an Empire 

 and to his murder in Mexico ; the departure of the 

 Archduchess, Maria Christina, for a throne in Spain 



