CHORUS

'Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, 450
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.'

When Edmund ceased his simple song,
Was silence on the sullen throng.
Till waked some ruder mate their glee
With note of coarser minstrelsy.
But far apart in dark divan,
Denzil and Bertram many a plan
Of import foul and fierce designed,
While still on Bertram's grasping mind
The wealth of murdered Mortham hung;
Though half he feared his daring tongue,
When it should give his wishes birth,
Might raise a spectre from the earth!

XIX

At length his wondrous tale he told; When scornful smiled his comrade bold, For, trained in license of a court, Religion's self was Denzil's sport;

460

Then judge in what contempt he held 470
The visionary tales of eld!

His awe for Bertram scarce repressed
The unbeliever's sneering jest,

"'T were hard,' he said, 'for sage or seer
To spell the subject of your fear;
Nor do I boast the art renowned
Vision and omen to expound.
Yet, faith if I must needs afford
To spectre watching treasured hoard,
As ban-dog keeps his master's roof,
Bidding the plunderer stand aloof,
This doubt remains thy goblin gaunt
Hath chosen ill his ghostly haunt;
For why his guard on Mortham hold,
When Rokeby castle hath the gold
Thy patron won 'on Indian soil
By stealth, by piracy and spoil? '.

480

489

Rather he would have seen the earth

Give to ten thousand spectres birth
Than venture to awake to flame
The deadly wrath of Risingham.
Submiss he answered, 'Mortham's mind,
Thou know'st, to joy was ill inclined.
In youth, 't is said, a gallant free,
A lusty reveller was he;

But since returned from over sea,
A sullen and a silent mood

Hath numbed the current of his blood.
Hence he refused each kindly call
To Rokeby's hospitable hall,

And our stout knight, at dawn or morn
Who loved to hear the bugle-horn,
Nor less, when eve his oaks embrowned,
To see the ruddy cup go round,
Took umbrage that a friend so near
Refused to share his chase and cheer;
Thus did the kindred barons jar
Ere they divided in the war.
Yet, trust me, friend, Matilda fair

Of Mortham's wealth is destined heir.'

XXII

520

530

· Destined to her! to yon slight maid!
The prize my life had wellnigh paid
When 'gainst Laroche by Cayo's wave
I fought my patron's wealth to save ! - 540
Denzil, I knew him long, yet ne'er
Knew him that joyous cavalier
Whom youthful friends and early fame
Called soul of gallantry and game.
A moody man he sought our crew,
Desperate and dark, whom no one knew,

And rose, as men with us must rise,
By scorning life and all its ties.
On each adventure rash he roved,
As danger for itself he loved;
On his sad brow nor mirth nor wine
Could e'er one wrinkled knot untwine;
Ill was the omen if he smiled,
For 't was in peril stern and wild;
But when he laughed each luckless mate
Might hold our fortune desperate.
Foremost he fought in every broil,
Then scornful turned him from the spoil,
Nay, often strove to bar the way
Between his comrades and their prey; 56
Preaching even then to such as we,
Hot with our dear-bought victory,
Of mercy and humanity.

XXIII

'I loved him well- - his fearless part,
His gallant leading, won my heart.
And after each victorious fight,
'Twas I that wrangled for his right,
Redeemed his portion of the prey
That greedier mates had torn away,
In field and storm thrice saved his life, 574
And once amid our comrades' strife. -
Yes, I have loved thee! Well hath proved
My toil, my danger, how I loved!
Yet will I mourn no more thy fate,
Ingrate in life, in death ingrate.
Rise if thou canst !' he looked around
And sternly stamped upon the ground-
Rise, with thy bearing proud and high,
Even as this morn it met mine eye,
And give me, if thou darest, the lie!' 580
He paused then, calm and passion-freed,
Bade Denzil with his tale proceed.

XXIV

'Bertram, to thee I need not tell,
What thou hast cause to wot so well,
How superstition's nets were twined
Around the Lord of Mortham's mind;
But since he drove thee from his tower,
A maid he found in Greta's bower
Whose speech, like David's harp, had sway
To charm his evil fiend away.

I know not if her features moved
Remembrance of the wife he loved,
But he would gaze upon her eye,
Till his mood softened to a sigh.
He, whom no living mortal sought
To question of his secret thought,

590

610

'Then Denzil, as I guess, lays train
These iron-banded chests to gain,
Else wherefore should he hover here
Where many a peril waits him near
For all his feats of war and peace,
For plundered boors, and harts of greese?
Since through the hamlets as he fared
What hearth has Guy's marauding spared,
Or where the chase that hath not rung
With Denzil's bow at midnight strung?'
'I hold my wont
my rangers go,
Even now to track a milk-white doe.
By Rokeby-hall she takes her lair,
In Greta wood she harbors fair,
And when my huntsman marks her way,
What think'st thou, Bertram, of the prey?
Were Rokeby's daughter in our power,
We rate her ransom at her dower.'

XXVI

620

''T is well!-there's vengeance in the thought,

Matilda is by Wilfrid sought;

And hot-brained Redmond too, 't is said, 630
Pays lover's homage to the maid.
Bertram she scorned- if met by chance
She turned from me her shuddering glance,
Like a nice dame that will not brook
On what she hates and loathes to look;
She told to Mortham she could ne'er
Behold me without secret fear,
Foreboding evil:- she may rue
To find her prophecy fall true!
The war has weeded Rokeby's train,
Few followers in his halls remain;

If thy scheme miss, then, brief and bold,
We are enow to storm the hold,

Bear off the plunder and the dame,

And leave the castle all in flame.'

640

The wall to scale -the moat to cross
The wicket-grate the inner fosse '-
Fool! if we blench for toys like these,
On what fair guerdon can we seize?
Our hardiest venture, to explore
Some wretched peasant's fenceless door,
And the best prize we bear away,
The earnings of his sordid day.'

650

A while thy hasty taunt forbear:
In sight of road more sure and fair
Thou wouldst not choose, in blindfold
wrath

Or wantonness a desperate path?
List, then; for vantage or assault,
From gilded vane to dungeon vault,
Each
pass of Rokeby-house I know:
There is one postern dark and low
That issues at a secret spot,
By most neglected or forgot.
Now, could a spial of our train
On fair pretext admittance gain,
That sally-port might be unbarred;
Then, vain were battlement and ward!

XXVIII

660

670

What youth is this The best for minstrelsy and song? In his wild notes seem aptly met A strain of pleasure and regret.'

Edmund of Winston is his name; The hamlet sounded with the fame Of early hopes his childhood gave,Now centred all in Brignall cave! I watch him well- his wayward course Shows oft a tincture of remorse. Some early love-shaft grazed his heart, And oft the scar will ache and smart. Yet is he useful; - of the rest By fits the darling and the jest, His harp, his story, and his lay, Oft aid the idle hours away: When unemployed, each fiery mate Is ripe for mutinous debate. He tuned his strings e'en now-again He wakes them with e. blither strain.'

XXX

SONG

ALLEN-A-DALE

700

710

The Baron of Ravensworth prances in pride,

He had laughed on the lass with his bonny black eye,

And she fled to the forest to hear a lovetale,

And the youth it was told by was Allen-aDale !

XXXI

'Thou see'st that, whether sad or gay,
Love mingles ever in his lay.
But when his boyish wayward fit
Is o'er, he hath address and wit;
O, 't is a brain of fire, can ape
Each dialect, each various shape ! ' —

side.

The mere for his net and the land for his

game,

The chase for the wild and the park for

the tame;

750

I watched her as she slowly strayed
From Egliston up Thorsgill glade,
But Wilfrid Wycliffe sought her side, 760
And then young Redmond in his pride
Shot down to meet them on their way;
Much, as it seemed, was theirs to say:
There's time to pitch both toil and net
Before their path be homeward set.'
A hurried and a whispered speech
Did Bertram's will to Denzil teach,
Who, turning to the robber band,
Bade four, the bravest, take the brand.

CANTO FOURTH

I

WHEN Denmark's raven soared on high,
Triumphant through Northumbrian sky,
The hovering near her fatal croak
Bade Reged's Britons dread the yoke,
And the broad shadow of her wing
Blackened each cataract and spring
Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,
Thundering o'er Caldron and High-Force;
Beneath the shade the Northmen came,
Fixed on each vale a Runic name,
Reared high their altar's rugged stone,
And gave their gods the land they won.
Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine
And one sweet brooklet's silver line,
And Woden's Croft did title gain
From the stern Father of the Slain;
But to the Monarch of the Mace,

ΤΟ

19

That held in fight the foremost place,
To Odin's son and Sifia's spouse,
Near Startforth high they paid their vows,
Remembered Thor's victorious fame,
And gave the dell the Thunderer's name.

50

Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade;
But, skirting every sunny glade,
In fair variety of green
The woodland lends its sylvan screen.
Hoary yet haughty, frowns the oak,
Its boughs by weight of ages broke;
And towers erect in sable spire
The pine-tree scathed by lightning-fire;
The drooping ash and birch between
Hang their fair tresses o'er the green,
And all beneath at random grow
Each coppice dwarf of varied show,
Or, round the stems profusely twined,
Fling summer odors on the wind.
Such varied group Urbino's hand
Round Him of Tarsus nobly planned,
What time he bade proud Athens own
On Mars's Mount the God Unknown!
Then gray Philosophy stood nigh,
Though bent by age, in spirit high:
There rose the scar-seamed veteran's spear,
There Grecian Beauty bent to hear,
While Childhood at her foot was placed,
Or clung delighted to her waist.

6c

70

Captive her sire, her house o'erthrown.' 8c
Wilfrid, with wonted kindness graced,
Beside her on the turf she placed;

Then paused with downcast look and eye,
Nor bade young Redmond seat him nigh.
Her conscious diffidence he saw,
Drew backward as in modest awe,