Nought of his sire's ungenerous part
Polluted Wilfrid's gentle heart;
A heart too soft from early life
To hold with fortune needful strife.
His sire, while yet a hardier race 1
Of numerous sons were Wycliffe's grace,
On Wilfrid set contemptuous brand,
For feeble heart and forceless hand;
But a fond mother's care and joy
Were centred in her sickly boy.
No touch of childhood's frolic mood
Show'd the elastic spring of blood;
Hour after hour he loved to pore
On Shakspeare's rich and varied lore,
But turn'd from martial scenes and light,
From Falstaff's feast and Percy's fight,
To ponder Jaques's moral strain,
And muse with Hamlet, wise in vain;
And weep himself to soft repose
O'er gentle Desdemona's woes.
In youth he sought not pleasures found
By youth in horse, and hawk, and hound,
But loved the quiet joys that wake
By lonely stream and silent lake;
In Deepdale's solitude to lie,
Where all is cliff and copse and sky;
To climb Catcastle's dizzy peak,
Or lone Pendragon's mound to seek.'
Such was his wont; and there his dream
· Soar'd on some wild fantastic theme,
Of faithful love, or ceaseless spring,
Till Contemplation's wearied wing
The enthusiast could no more sustain,
And sad he sunk to earth again.
He loved as many a lay can tell,
Preserved in Stanmore's lonely dell;
[MS.-"while yet around him stood
A numerous race of hardier mood."]
["And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb,
When all in mist the world below was lost,
What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwreckt mariner on desert coast."
Wilfrid must love and woo3 the bright
Matilda, heir of Rokeby's knight.
To love her was an easy hest,
The secret empress of his breast ;
To woo her was a harder task
To one that durst not hope or ask.
Yet all Matilda could, she gave
In pity to her gentle slave;
Friendship, esteem, and fair regard,
And praise, the poet's best reward!
She read the tales his taste approved,
And sung the lays he framed or loved;
Yet, loath to nurse the fatal flame
Of hopeless love in friendship's name,
In kind caprice she oft withdrew
The favouring glance to friendship due,"
Then grieved to see her victim's pain,
And gave the dangerous smiles again.
[MS." Was love, but friendship in his phrase."]'
"["The prototype of Wilfrid may perhaps be found in Beattie's Edwin; but in some essential respects it is made more true to nature than that which probably served for its original. The possibility may perhaps be questioned, (its great improbability is unquestionable,) of such excessive refinement, such over-strained, and even morbid sensibility, as are portrayed in the character of Edwin, existing in so rude a state of society as that which Beattie has represented, but these qualities, even when found in the most advanced and polished stages of life, are rarely, very rarely, united with a robust and healthy frame of body. In both these particulars, the character of Wilfrid is exempt from the objections to which we think that of the Minstrel liable. At the period of the Civil Wars, in the higher orders of society, intellectual refinement had advanced to a degree sufficient to give probability to its existence. The remainder of our argument will be best explained by the beautiful lines of the poet." (Stanzas xxv. and xxvi.)—Critical Review.]
[MS.-"And first must Wilfrid woo," etc.]
IMS." The fuel fond her favour threw."]
So did the suit of Wilfrid stand,
When war's loud summons waked the land.
Three banners, floating o'er the Tees,
The wo-foreboding peasant sees;
In concert oft they braved of old
The bordering Scot's incursion bold:
Frowning defiance in their pride, '
Their vassals now and lords divide.
From his fair hall on Greta banks,
The Knight of Rokeby led his ranks,
To aid the valiant northern Earls,
Who drew the sword for royal Charles.
Mortham, by marriage near allied,-
His sister had been Rokeby's bride,
Though long before the civil fray,
In peaceful grave the lady lay,-
Philip of Mortham raised his band,
And march'd at Fairfax's command;
While Wycliffe, bound by many a train
Of kindred art with wily Vane,
Less prompt to brave the bloody field,
Made Barnard's battlements his shield,
Secured them with his Lunedale powers,
And for the Commons held the towers.
The book, the pencil, or the muse;
Something to give, to sing, to say,
Some modern tale, some ancient lay.
Then, while the long'd-for minutes last,-
Ah! minutes quickly over-past!-'
Recording each expression free,
Of kind or careless courtesy,
Each friendly look, each softer tone,
As food for fancy when alone.
All this is o'er-but still, unseen,
Wilfrid may lurk in Eastwood green,
To watch Matilda's wonted round,
While springs his heart at every sound.
She comes!-'tis but a passing sight,
Yet serves to cheat his weary night;
She comes not-He will wait the hour,
When her lamp lightens in the tower;"
'Tis something yet, if, as she past,
Her shade is o'er the lattice cast.
"What is my life, my hope?" he said;
"Alas! a transitory shade."
Thus wore his life, though reason strove
For mastery in vain with love,
Forcing upon his thoughts the sum
Of present woe and ills to come,
While still he turn'd impatient ear
From Truth's intrusive voice severe.
Gentle, indifferent, and subdued,
In all but this, unmov'd he view'd
Each outward change of ill and good :
But Wilfrid, docile, soft, and mild,
Was Fancy's spoil'd and wayward child;
In her bright car she bade him ride,
With one fair form to grace his side,
Or, in some wild and lone retreat,'
Flung her high spells around his seat,
Bathed in her dews his languid head,
Her fairy mantle o'er him spread,
For him her opiates gave to flow,
Which he who tastes can ne'er forego,
And placed him in her circle, free
From every stern reality,
Till, to the Visionary, seem
Her day-dreams truth, and truth a dream.
Woe to the youth whom Fancy gains,
Winning from Reason's hand the reins,
Pity and woe! for such a mind
Is soft, contemplative, and kind;
And woe to those who train such youth,
And spare to press the rights of truth,
The mind to strengthen and anneal,
While on the stithy glows the steel!
O teach him, while your lessons last,
To judge the present by the past;
Remind him of each wish pursued,
How rich it glow'd with promised good:
Remind him of each wish enjoy'd,
How soon his hopes possession cloy'd!
Tell him, we play unequal game,
Whene'er we shoot by Fancy's aim,'
And, ere he strip him for her race,
Show the conditions of the chase.
Two sisters by the goal are set,
Cold Disappointment and Regret ;
One disenchants the winner's eyes,
And strips of all its worth the prize :
While one augments its gaudy show,
[In the MS., after this couplet, the following lines conclude the stanza :
"That all who on her visions press,
Find disappointment dog success;
But, miss'd their wish, lamenting hold
Her gilding false for sterling gold." ] ·
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