1

No other maiden by my side

Shall ever rest De Vaux's bride!"1

VII.

The faithful Page he mounts his steed,
And soon he cross'd green Irthing's mead,
Dash'd o'er Kirkoswald's verdant plain,
And Eden barr'd his course in vain.
He pass'd red Penrith's Table Round, 2
For feats of chivalry renown'd,

Left Mayburgh's mound3 and stones of power,
By Druids raised in magic hour,

[" "This powerful Baron required in the fair one whom he should honour with his hand an assemblage of qualities, that appears to us rather unreasonable even in those high days, profuse as they are known to have been of perfections now unattainable. His resolution, however, was not more inflexible than that of any mere modern youth; for he decrees that his nightly visitant, of whom at this time he could know nothing, but that she looked and sung like an angel, if of mortal mould, shall be his bride."— Quarterly Review.]

A circular intrenchment, about half a mile from Penrith, is thus popularly termed. The circle within the ditch is about one hundred and sixty paces in circumference, with openings, or approaches, directly opposite to each other. As the ditch is on the

inner side, it could not be intended for the purpose of defence, and it has reasonably been conjectured, that the enclosure was designed for the solemn exercise of feats of chivalry; and the embankment around for the convenience of the spectators.

S Higher up the river Eamont than Arthur's Round Table, is a prodigious enclosure of great antiquity, formed by a collection of stones upon the top of a gently sloping hill, called Mayburgh. In

And traced the Eamont's winding way,
Till Ulfo's lake1 beneath him lay.

VIII.

Onward he rode, the pathway still
Winding betwixt the lake and hill;
Till, on the fragment of a rock,
Struck from its base by lightning shock,
He saw the hoary Sage:

The silver moss and lichen twined,
With fern and deer-hair check'd and lined,
A cushion fit for age;
And o'er him shook the aspin-tree,
A restless rustling canopy.

Then sprung young Henry from his selle,
And greeted Lyulph grave,

And then his master's tale did tell,

And then for counsel crave.

The Man of Years mused long and deep,
Of time's lost treasures taking keep,
And then, as rousing from a sleep,

His solemn answer gave.

the plain which it encloses there stands erect an unhewn stone of twelve feet in height. Two similar masses are said to have been destroyed during the memory of man. The whole appears to be

a monument of Druidical times.

IX.

"That maid is born of middle earth, And may of man be won,

Though there have glided since her birth and one.

Five hundred years

But where's the Knight in all the north,
That dare the adventure follow forth,
So perilous to knightly worth,
In the valley of St John?

Listen, youth, to what I tell,
And bind it on thy memory well ;
Nor muse that I commence the rhyme
Far distant mid the wrecks of time.
The mystic tale, by hard and sage,
Is handed down from Merlin's age.

X.

Lyulph's Tale.

"KING ARTHUR has ridden from merry Carlisle,

When Pentecost was o'er :

He journey'd like errant-knight the while,
And sweetly the summer sun did smile

On mountain, moss, and moor.

Above his solitary track

Rose Glaramara's ridgy back,

Amid whose yawning gulfs the sun
Cast umber'd radiance red and dun,

Though never sunbeam could discern
The surface of that sable tarn,1
In whose black mirror you may spy
The stars, while noontide lights the sky.
The gallant King he skirted still
The margin of that mighty hill;
Rock upon rocks incumbent hung,
And torrents, down the gullies flung,
Join'd the rude river that brawl'd on,
Recoiling now from crag and stone,
Now diving deep from human ken,
And raving down its darksome glen.
The Monarch judged this desert wild,
With such romantic ruin piled,
Was theatre by Nature's hand

For feat of high achievement plann’d.

XI.

"O rather he chose, that Monarch bold,
On vent'rous quest to ride,

In plate and mail, by wood and wold,
Than, with ermine trapp'd and cloth of gold,
In princely bower to bide;

The small lake called Scales-tarn lies so deeply embosomed in the recesses of the huge mountain called Saddleback, more poetically Glaramara, is of such great depth, and so completely hidden from the sun, that is said its beams never reach it, and that the reflection of the stars may be seen at mid-day.

The bursting crash of a foeman's spear,
As it shiver'd against his mail,

Was merrier music to his ear

Than courtier's whisper'd tale:

And the clash of Caliburn more dear,
When on the hostile casque it rung,
Than all the lays

To their monarch's praise

That the harpers of Reged sung.
He loved better to rest by wood or river,
Than in bower of his bride, Dame Guenever,
For he left that lady so lovely of cheer,

To follow adventures of danger and fear;

And the frank-hearted Monarch full little did wot, That she smiled, in his absence, on brave Lancelot.

XII.

"He rode, till over down and dell

The shade more broad and deeper fell;
And though around the mountain's head
Flow'd streams of purple, and gold, and red,
Dark at the base, unblest by beam,

Frown'd the black rocks, and roar'd the stream.
With toil the King his way pursued

By lonely Threlkeld's waste and wood,
Till on his course obliquely shone
The narrow valley of SAINT JOHN,
Down sloping to the western sky,
Where lingering sunbeams love to lie.