say,

"The mighty stag at noontide lay:
The wolf I've seen, a fiercer game,
(The neighbouring dingle bears his
name,,

With lurching step around me prowl,
And stop, against the moon to howl;
The mountain-boar, on battle set,
His tusks upon my stem would whet;
While doe, and roe, and red-deer good,
Have bounded by, through gay green-
wood.

Then oft, from Newark's riven tower,
Sallied a Scottish monarch's power:
A thousand vassals muster'd round
With horse, and hawk, and horn, and
hound;

And I might see the youth intent
Guard every pass with crossbow bent;
And through the brake the rangers
stalk,

And falc'ners hold the ready hawk;
And foresters, in greenwood trim,
Lead in the leash the gazehounds grim,
Attentive, as the bratchet's bay
From the dark covert drove the prey,
To slip them as he broke away.
The startled quarry bounds amain,
As fast the gallant greyhounds strain;
Whistles the arrow from the bow,
Answers the harquebuss below;
While all the rocking hills reply
To hoof-clang, hound,and hunters' cry,
And bugles ringing lightsomely.'

Nought living meets the eye or car, But well I ween the dead are near; For though, in feudal strife, a foe Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low, Yet still, beneath the hallow'd soil, The peasant rests him from his toil, And, dying, bids his bones be laid, Where erst his simple fathers pray'd.

If age had tamed the passions' strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,
Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to
dwell,

And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton long'd to spend his age.
'Twere sweet to mark the setting day
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died
On the broad lake, and mountain's
side,

To say 'Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;'
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruin'd tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower :
And when that mountain-sound I
heard,

Which bids us be for storm prepar'd, The distant rustling of his wings, As up his force the Tempest brings, 'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave, To sit upon the Wizard's grave, That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust

From company of holy dust,

On which no sunbeam ever shines (So superstition's creed divines), Thence view the lake with sullen roar Heave her broad billows to the shore; And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,

Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,

And ever stoop again to lave
Their bosoms on the surging wave:
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,

There eagles scream from isle to shore;
Down all the rocks the torrents roar;
O'er the black waves incessant driven,
Dark mists infect the summer heaven;
Through the rude barriers of the lake,
Away its hurrying waters break,
Faster and whiter dash and curl,
Till down yon dark abyss they hurl.
Rises the fog-smoke white as snow,
Thunders the viewless stream below,
Diving, as if condemn'd to lave
Some demon's subterranean cave,
Who, prison'd by enchanter's spell,
Shakes the dark rock with groan and
yell.

And well that Palmer's form and mien Had suited with the stormy scene, Just on the edge, straining his ken To view the bottom of the den,

Where, deep deep down, and far within,

Toils with the rocks the roaring linn ; Then, issuing forth one foamy wave, And wheeling round the Giant's Grave, White as the snowy charger's tail, Drives down the pass of Moffatdale.

Marriott, thy harp, on Isis strung, To many a Border theme has rung: Then list to me, and thou shalt know Of this mysterious man of woe.

Canto Second.

The Convent.

I.

THE breeze, which swept away the smoke

Round Norham Castle roll'd, When all the loud artillery spoke, With lightning-flash, and thunderstroke,

As Marmion left the Hold,-It curl'd not Tweed alone, that breeze, For, far upon Northumbrian seas,

It freshly blew, and strong, Where, from high Whitby's cloister'd pile,

Bound to Saint Cuthbert's Holy Isle,

It bore a bark along.

Upon the gale she stoop'd her side, And bounded o'er the swelling tide,

As she were dancing home: The merry seamen laugh'd to see Their gallant ship so lustily

Furrow the green sea-foam. Much joy'd they in their honour'd freight;

For, on the deck, in chair of state,

The Abbess of Saint Hilda plac'd, With five fair nuns, the galley grac'd.

II.

'Twas sweet to see these holy maids, Like birds escaped to greenwood shades,

Their first flight from the cage, How timid, and how curious too, For all to them was strange and new, And all the common sights they view

Their wonderment engage.
One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail,
With many a benedicite ;

One at the rippling surge grew pale,
And would for terror pray;
Then shriek'd, because the sea-dog,
nigh,

His round black head, and sparkling eye,

Rear'd o'er the foaming spray; And one would still adjust her veil, Disorder'd by the summer gale, Perchance lest some more worldly eye Her dedicated charms might spy; Perchance, because such action grac'd Her fair-turn'd arm and slender waist. Light was each simple bosom there, Save two, who ill might pleasure share, The Abbess and the Novice Clare.

III.

The Abbess was of noble blood,
But early took the veil and hood,
Ere upon life she cast a look,
Or knew the world that she forsook.
Fair too she was, and kind had been
As she was fair, but ne'er had seen
For her a timid lover sigh,

Nor knew the influence of her eye.
Love, to her ear, was but a name,
Combined with vanity and shame;
Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all
Bounded within the cloister wall:
The deadliest sin her mind could reach,
Was of monastic rule the breach ;
And her ambition's highest aim
To emulate Saint Hilda's fame.

For this she gave her ample dower,
To raise the convent's castern tower;
For this, with carving rare and quaint,
She deck'd the chapel of the saint,
And gave the relic-shrine of cost,
With ivory and gems emboss'd.
The poor her Convent's bounty blest,
The pilgrim in its halls found rest.

IV.

Black was her garb, her rigid rule
Reform'd on Benedictine school;
Her check was pale, her form was
spare ;

Vigils, and penitence austere,
Had early quench'd the light of youth,
But gentle was the dame, in sooth ;
Though, vain of her religious sway,
She loved to see her maids obey,
Yet nothing stern was she in cell,
And the nuns loved their Abbess well.
Sad was this voyage to the dame :
Summon'd to Lindisfarne, she came,
There, with Saint Cuthbert's Abbot old,
And Tynemouth's Prioress, to hold
A chapter of Saint Benedict
For inquisition stern and strict
On two apostates from the faith,
And, if need were, to doom to death.

V.

Nought say I here of Sister Clare,
Save this, that she was young and fair;
As yet a novice unprofess'd,
Lovely and gentle, but distress'd.
She was betroth'd to one now dead,
Or worse, who had dishonour'd fled.
Her kinsmen bade her give her hand
To one, who lov'd her for her land:
Herself, almost heart-broken now,
Was bent to take the vestal vow,
And shroud, within Saint Hilda's
gloom,

Her blasted hopes and wither'd bloom.

VI.

She sate upon the galley's prow,
And seem'd to mark the waves below;

Nay, seem'd, so fix'd her look and eye,
To count them as they glided by.
She saw them not-'twas seeming
all;

Far other scene her thoughts recall,-—
A sun-scorch'd desert, waste and bare,
Nor waves, nor breezes, murmur'd
there;

There saw she where some careless hand

O'er a dead corpse had heap'd the

sand

To hide it-till the jackals come
To tear it from the scanty tomb.
See what a woful look was given
As she raised up her eyes to heaven!

VII.

Lovely, and gentle, and distress'dThese charms might tame the fiercest breast:

Harpers have sung, and poets told,
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
Oft put the lion's rage to shame :
And jealousy, by dark intrigue,
With sordid avarice in league,
Had practis'd with their bowl and
knife

Against the mourner's harmless life. This crime was charg'd 'gainst those who lay

Prison'd in Cuthbert's islet grey.

VIII. And now the vessel skirts the strand Of mountainous Northumberland; Towns, towers, and halls, successive

rise,

And catch the nuns' delighted eyes. Monk-Wearmouth soon behind them

lay,

And Tynemouth's priory and bay; They mark'd, amid her trees, the hall Of lofty Seaton-Delaval;