XXVIII

630

What 'vailed it him that brightly played
The morning sun on Mortham's glade?
All seems in giddy round to ride,
Like objects on a stormy tide
Seen eddying by the moonlight dim,
Imperfectly to sink and swim.
What 'vailed it that the fair domain,
Its battled mansion, hill, and plain,
On which the sun so brightly shone,
Envied so long, was now his own?
The lowest dungeon, in that hour,
Of Brackenbury's dismal tower,
Had been his choice, could such a doom
Have opened Mortham's bloody tomb!
Forced, too, to turn unwilling ear
To each surmise of hope or fear,
Murmured among the rustics round,
Who gathered at the larum sound,
He dare not turn his head away,
Even to look up to heaven to pray,
Or call on hell in bitter mood
For one sharp death-shot from the wood!

XXIX

640

At length o'erpast that dreadful space,
Back straggling came the scattered chase;
Jaded and weary, horse and man,
Returned the troopers one by one.
Wilfrid the last arrived to say
All trace was lost of Bertram's way,
Though Redmond still up Brignall wood
The hopeless quest in vain pursued.
O, fatal doom of human race!
What tyrant passions passions chase!
Remorse from Oswald's brow is gone,
Avarice and pride resume their throne;
The pang of instant terror by,
They dictate thus their slave's reply:

XXX

'Ay let him range like hasty hound!
And if the grim wolf's lair be found,
Small is my care how goes the game
With Redmond or with Risingham. -
Nay, answer not, thou simple boy!
Thy fair Matilda, all so coy
To thee, is of another mood
To that bold youth of Erin's blood.
Thy ditties will she freely praise,
And pay thy pains with courtly phrase;
In a rough path will oft command
Accept at least-thy friendly hand;
His she avoids, or, urged and prayed,
Unwilling takes his proffered aid,

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'Scarce wert thou gone, when peep of light

Brought genuine news of Marston's fight.
Brave Cromwell turned the doubtful tide,
And conquest blessed the rightful side;
Three thousand cavaliers lie dead,
Rupert and that bold Marquis fled;
Nobles and knights, so proud of late,
Must fine for freedom and estate.
Of these committed to my charge
Is Rokeby, prisoner at large;
Redmond his page arrived to say
He reaches Barnard's towers to-day.
Right heavy shall his ransom be
Unless that maid compound with thee!
Go to her now be bold of cheer

690

While her soul floats 'twixt hope and fear;
It is the very change of tide,
When best the female heart is tried
Pride, prejudice, and modesty,
Are in the current swept to sea,
And the bold swain who plies his oar
May lightly row his bark to shore.'

CANTO THIRD

I

THE hunting tribes of air and earth
Respect the brethren of their birth;
Nature, who loves the claim of kind,
Less cruel chase to each assigned.
The falcon, poised on soaring wing,
Watches the wild-duck by the spring;
The slow-hound wakes the fox's lair;
The greyhound presses on the hare;
The eagle pounces on the lamb;
The wolf devours the fleecy dam:
Even tiger fell and sullen bear
Their likeness and their lineage spare;
Man only mars kind Nature's plan,
And turns the fierce pursuit on man,

700

Oft had he shown in climes afar Each attribute of roving war; The sharpened ear, the piercing eye, The quick resolve in danger nigh; The speed that in the flight or chase Outstripped the Charib's rapid race; The steady brain, the sinewy limb, To leap, to climb, to dive, to swim; The iron frame, inured to bear Each dire inclemency of air, Nor less confirmed to undergo Fatigue's faint chill and famine's throe. These arts he proved, his life to save, In peril oft by land and wave, On Arawaca's desert shore, Or where La Plata's billows roar, When oft the sons of vengeful Spain Tracked the marauder's steps in vain. These arts, in Indian warfare tried, Must save him now by Greta's side.

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There trample steeds, and glimmer spears;
If deeper down the copse he drew,
He heard the rangers' loud halloo,
Beating each cover while they came,
As if to start the sylvan game.

'T was then

like tiger close beset At every pass with toil and net, 'Countered where'er he turns his glare By clashing arms and torches' flare, Who meditates with furious bound To burst on hunter, horse and hound 'T was then that Bertram's soul arose, Prompting to rush upon his foes: But as that crouching tiger, cowed By brandished steel and shouting crowd, Retreats beneath the jungle's shroud, Bertram suspends his purpose stern, And crouches in the brake and fern, Hiding his face lest foemen spy The sparkle of his swarthy eye.

V

130

140

Well Risingham young Redmond knew,
And much he marvelled that the crew
Roused to revenge bold Mortham dead
Were by that Mortham's foeman led;
For never felt his soul the woe
That wails a generous foeman low,
Far less that sense of justice strong
That wreaks a generous foeman's wrong.
But small his leisure now to pause;
Redmond is first, whate'er the cause:
And twice that Redmond came so near
Where Bertram couched like hunted deer,
The very boughs his steps displace
Rustled against the ruffian's face,
Who desperate twice prepared to start,
And plunge his dagger in his heart!
But Redmond turned a different way,
And the bent boughs resumed their sway,
And Bertram held it wise, unseen,
Deeper to plunge in coppice green.
Thus, circled in his coil, the snake,
When roving hunters beat the brake,
Watches with red and glistening eye,
Prepared, if heedless step draw nigh,
With forked tongue and venomed fang
Instant to dart the deadly pang;
But if the intruders turn aside,
Away his coils unfolded glide,
And through the deep savannah wind,
Some undisturbed retreat to find.

VII

But Bertram, as he backward drew,
And heard the loud pursuit renew,
And Redmond's hollo on the wind,
Oft muttered in his savage mind -
'Redmond O'Neale! were thou and I
Alone this day's event to try,

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With not a second here to see

But the gray cliff and oaken tree,
That voice of thine that shouts so loud
Should ne'er repeat its summons proud!
No! nor e'er try its melting power
Again in maiden's summer bower.'
Eluded, now behind him die
Faint and more faint each hostile cry;
He stands in Scargill wood alone,
Nor hears he now a harsher tone
Than the hoarse cushat's plaintive cry,
Or Greta's sound that murmurs by;
And on the dale, so lone and wild,
The summer sun in quiet smiled.

VIII

He listened long with anxious heart,
Ear bent to hear and foot to start,
And, while his stretched attention glows, 180
Refused his weary frame repose.

'T was silence all he laid him down,
Where purple heath profusely strown,
And throatwort with its azure bell,
And moss and thyme his cushion swell.
There, spent with toil, he listless eyed
The course of Greta's playful tide;
Beneath her banks now eddying dun,
Now brightly gleaming to the sun,
As, dancing over rock and stone,
In yellow light her currents shone,
Matching in hue the favorite gem
Of Albin's mountain-diadem.
Then, tired to watch the currents play,
He turned his weary eyes away

190

To where the bank opposing showed
Its huge, square cliffs through shaggy
wood.

One, prominent above the rest,
Reared to the sun its pale gray breast;
Around its broken summit grew
The hazel rude and sable yew;
A thousand varied lichens dyed
Its waste and weather-beaten side,
And round its rugged basis lay,
By time or thunder rent away,
Fragments that from its frontlet torn
Were mantled now by verdant thorn.
Such was the scene's wild majesty
That filled stern Bertram's gazing eye.

IX

In sullen mood he lay reclined,
Revolving in his stormy mind
The felon deed, the fruitless guilt,
His patron's blood by treason spilt;

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X

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Oft, mingled with the direful theme,
Came Mortham's form
was it a dream?
Or had he seen in vision true
That very Mortham whom he slew?
Or had in living flesh appeared
The only man on earth he feared?
To try the mystic cause intent,
His eyes that on the cliff were bent
'Countered at once a dazzling glance,
Like sunbeam flashed from sword or lance.
At once he started as for fight,
But not a foeman was in sight;

He heard the cushat's murmur hoarse, 250
He heard the river's sounding course;
The solitary woodlands lay,
As slumbering in the summer ray;
He gazed, like lion roused, around,
Then sunk again upon the ground.
'Twas but, he thought, some fitful beam,
Glanced sudden from the sparkling stream;
Then plunged him in his gloomy train
Of ill-connected thoughts again,
Until a voice behind him cried,
'Bertram ! well met on Greta side.'

260

From cant of sermon and of creed,
And Cavaliers, whose souls like mine
Spurn at the bonds of discipline.
Wiser, we judge, by dale and wold
A warfare of our own to hold
Than breathe our last on battle-down
For cloak or surplice, mace or crown.
Our schemes are laid, our purpose set,
A chief and leader lack we yet.
Thou art a wanderer, it is said,
For Mortham's death thy steps waylaid,
Thy head at price - -so say our spies,
Who ranged the valley in disguise.
Join then with us: though wild debate
And wrangling rend our infant state,
Each, to an equal loath to bow,
Will yield to chief renowned as thou.'-

XIII

290

300

330

With wonder Bertram heard within
The flinty rock a murmured din;
But when Guy pulled the wilding spray
And brambles from its base away,
He saw appearing to the air
A little entrance low and square,
Like opening cell of hermit lone,
Dark winding through the living stone.
Here entered Denzil, Bertram here;
And loud and louder on their ear,
As from the bowels of the earth,
Resounded shouts of boisterous mirth.
Of old the cavern strait and rude
In slaty rock the peasant hewed;
And Brignall's woods and Scargill's wave
E'en now o'er many a sister cave,
Where, far within the darksome rift,
The wedge and lever ply their thrift.
But war had silenced rural trade,
And the deserted mine was made
The banquet-hall and fortress too
Of Denzil and his desperate crew.
There Guilt his anxious revel kept,
There on his sordid pallet slept
Guilt-born Excess, the goblet drained
Still in his slumbering grasp retained;
Regret was there, his eye still cast
With vain repining on the past;
Among the feasters waited near
Sorrow and unrepentant Fear,
And Blasphemy, to frenzy driven,

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Behold the group by the pale lamp
That struggles with the earthy damp.
By what strange features Vice bath known
To single out and mark her own!
Yet some there are whose brows retain
Less deeply stamped her brand and stain.
See yon pale stripling! when a bey,
A mother's pride, a father's joy!
Now, 'gainst the vault's rude walls reclined,
An early image fills his mind:
The cottage once his sire's he sees,
Embowered upon the banks of Tees;
He views sweet Winston's woodland scene,
And shares the dance on Gainford-green.
A tear is springing-but the zest

Of some wild tale or brutal jest
Hath to loud laughter stirred the rest.
On him they call, the aptest mate
For jovial song and merry feat:

Fast flies his dream with dauntless air,

As one victorious o'er despair,

He bids the ruddy cup go round

Till sense and sorrow both are drowned;
And soon in merry wassail he,
The life of all their revelry,

380

Peals his loud song!-The muse has found

Her blossoms on the wildest ground,
Mid noxious weeds at random strewed,
Themselves all profitless and rude. —
With desperate merriment he sung,
The cavern to the chorus rung,
Yet mingled with his reckless glee
Remorse's bitter agony.

XVI

SONG

O, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.
And as I rode by Dalton-hall,
Beneath the turrets high,

A maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily,—

CHORUS

'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green; I'd rather rove with Edmund there Than reign our English queen.' 'If, maiden, thou wouldst wend with me, To leave both tower and town,

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