Fair Queen! I will not blame thee now,

As once by Greta's fairy side;
Each little cloud that dimm'd thy brow

Did then an angel's beauty hide.
And of the shades I then could chide,

Still are the thoughts to memory dear, For, while a softer strain I tried,

They hid my blush, and calm'd my fear.

The moon was cloudless now and clear,
But pale, and soon to disappear.
The thin grey clouds wax dimly light
On Brusleton and Houghton height;
And the rich dale, that eastward lay,
Waited the wakening touch of day,
To give its woods and cultured plain,
And towers and spires, to light again.
But, westward, Stanmore's shapeless swell,
And Lunedale wild, and Kelton-fell,
And rock-begirdled Gilmanscar,
And Arkingarth, lay dark afar;
While, as a livelier twilight falls,
Emerge proud Barnard's banner'd walls.
High crown'd he sits, in dawning pale,
The sovereign of the lovely vale.

Then did I swear thy ray serene

Was formn'd to light some lonely dell, By two fond lovers only seen,

Reflected from the crystal well, Or sleeping on their mossy cell,

Or quivering on the lattice bright, Or glancing on their couch, to tell

How swiftly wanes the summer night!

5

XXXIV.
He starts—a step at this lone hour!
A voice !-his father seeks the tower,
With haggard look and troubled sense,
Fresh from his dreadful conference.
“ Wilfrid !-what, not to sleep address’d ?
Thou hast no cares to chase thy rest.
Mortham has fall’n on Marston-moor;'
Bertram brings warrant to secure
His treasures, bought by spoil and blood,
For the State's use and public good.
The menials will thy voice obey;
Let his commission have its way,
In every point, in every word.”--
Then, in a whisper,—“ Take thy sword !
Bertram is—what I must not tell.
I hear his hasty step-farewell!"3

II.
What prospects, from his watch-tower high,
Gleam gradual on the warder's eye ! -
Far sweeping to the east, he sees
Down his deep woods the course of Tees, *
And tracks his wanderings by the steam
Of summer vapours from the stream;
And ere he paced his destined hour
By Brackenbury's dungeon-tower,
These silver mists shall melt away,
And dew the woods with glittering spray.'
Then in broad lustre shall be shown
That mighty trench of living stone,
And each huge trunk that, from the side,
Reclines him o'er the darksome tide,
Where Tees, full many a fathom low,
Wears with his rage no common foe;
For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career,
Condemn’d to mine a channellid way,
O'er solid sheets of marble grey.

a

Roke by.

CANTO SECOND.

I.
Far in the chambers of the west,
The gale had sigh'd itseif to rest;

III.
Nor Tees alone, in dawning bright,
Shall rush upon the ravish'd sight;
But many a tributary stream
Each from its own dark dell sball gleam:

9

I MS." Here's Risingham brings tidings sure,

“We cannot close the first Canto without bestowing the Mortham has fall'n on Marston-moor;

highest praise on it. The whole design of the picture is ex. And he hath warrant to secure," &c.

cellent; and the contrast presented to the gloomy and fearful

opening by the calm and innocent conclusion, is masterly, MS.-" See that they give his warrant way.'

Never were two characters more clearly and forcibly set in 3 With the MS. of stanzas xxviii. to xxxiv. Scott thus ad- opposition than those of Bertram and Wilfrid. Oswald comdresses his printer :-"I send you the whole of the canto. I pletes the group; and, for the moral purposes of the painter, wish Erskine and you would look it over together, and con- is perhaps superior to the others. He is admirably designed sider whether, upon the whole matter, it is likely to make an impression. If it does really come to good, I think there are

That middle course to steer no limits to the interest of that style of composition; for the

To cowardice and craft so dear.'" variety of life and character are boundless.

Monthly Reviero. " I don't know whether to give Matilda a mother or not. + See Appendix, Note L. Decency requires she could have one; but she is as likely to be in my way as the gudeman's mother, according to the

pro

5 MS.—“ Betwixt the gate and Baliol's tower." verb, is always in that of the gudewife. Yours truly, W. S."Abbotsford, (Oct. 1812.)

6 MS.-" Those deep-hewn banks of living stone."

Sinking mid Greta's thickets deep,

IX. A wild and darker course they keep,

Now from the stream the rocks recede, A stern and lone, yet lovely road,

But leave between no sunny mead, As e'er the foot of Minstrel trode !!

No, nor the spot of pebbly sand, Broad shadows o'er their passage fell,

Oft found by such a mountain strand ; Deeper and narrower grew the dell;

Forming such warm and dry retreat, It seem'd some mountain, rent and riven,

As fancy deems the lonely seat, A channel for the stream had given,

Where hermit, wandering from his cell, So high the cliffs of limestone grey

His rosary might love to tell. Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way,

But here, 'twixt rock and river, grew Yielding, along their rugged base,

A dismal grove of sable yew,
A finty footpath's niggard space,

With whose sad tints were mingled seen
Where he, who winds 'twixt rock and wave, The blighted fir's sepulchral green.
May hear the headlong torrent rave,

Seem'd that the trees their shadows cast,
And like a steed in frantic fit,

The earth that nourish'd them to blast; That flings the froth from curb and bit,

For never knew that swarthy grove May view her chafe her waves to spray,

The verdant hue that fairies love; O’er every rock that bars her way,

Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower, Till foam-globes on her eddies ride,

Arose within its baleful bower: Thick as the schemes of human pride

The dank and sable earth receives That down life's current drive amain,

Its only carpet from the leaves, As frail, as frothy, and as vain !

That, from the withering branches cast,

Bestrew'd the ground with every blast.
VIII.

Though now the sun was o'er the hill,
The cliffs that rear their haughty head

In this dark spot 'twas twilight still,8 High o'er the river's darksome bed,

Save that on Greta's farther side Were now all naked, wild, and grey,

Some straggling beams through copsewood glide; Now waving all with greenwood spray;

And wild and savage contrast made Here trees to every crevice clung,

That dingle's deep and funeral sbade, And o'er the dell their branches hung;

With the bright tints of early day, And there, all splinter'd and uneven,

Which, glimmering through the ivy spray,
The shiver'd rocks ascend to heaven;

On the opposing summit lay.
Oft, too, the ivy swath'd their breast,
And wreathed its garland round their crest,

X.
Or from the spires bade loosely flare

The lated peasant shunn'd the dell; Its tendrils in the middle air.

For Superstition wont to tell As pennons wont to wave of old

Of many a grisly sound and sight, O’er the high feast of Baron bold,

Scaring its path at dead of night. When revellid loud the feudal route,

When Christmas logs blaze high and wide, And the arch'd halls return'd their shout;

Such wonders speed the festal tide; Such and more wild is Greta's roar,

While Curiosity and Fear, And such the echoes from her shore.

Pleasure and Pain, sit crouching near, And so the ivied banners gleam,

Till childhood's cheek no longer glows, Waved wildly o’er the brawling stream.

And village maidens lose the rose.

{

7 MS." A darksome grove of funeral yew,

Where trees a baleful shadow cast,
The ground that nourish'd them to blast,
Mingled with whose sad tints were seen
The blighted fir's sepulchral green."

I See Appendix, Note P.
2 M$._“Yielding their rugged base beside

flinty
A{
niggard

}path by Greta's tide."
3 MS.-" That flings the foam from curb and bit,

tawny
Chafing her waves to whiten wrath,

spungy
O'er every rock that bars her path,

Till down her boiling eddies ride," &c. * MS.--" The frequent ivy swathed their breast,

And wreathed its tendrils round their crest,
Or from their summit bade them fall,

And tremble o'er the Greta's brawl." > M8. _" And so the ivy's banners

8 MS.-"In this dark grove 'twas twilight still,

Save that upon the rocks opposed
Some straggling beams of morn reposed,
And wild and savage contrast made
That bleak and dark funereal shade
With the bright tints of early day,
Which, struggling throngh the green wood spray.
Upon the rock's wild summit lay."

1

The thrilling interest rises higher,'
The circle closes nigh and nigher,
And shuddering glance is cast behind,
As louder moans the wintry wind.
Believe, that fitting scene was laid
For such wild tales in Mortham glade ;
For who had seen, on Greta's side,
By that dim light fierce Bertram stride,
In such a spot, at such an hour,-
If touch'd by Superstition's power,
Might well have deem'd that Hell had given
A murderer's ghost to upper Heaven,
While Wilfrid's form had seem'd to glide
Like his pale victim by his side.

And canvass, wove in earthly looms,
No more to brave the storm presumes !
Then, 'mid the war of sea and sky,
Top and top-gallant hoisted high,
Full spread and crowded every sail,
The Demon Frigate braves the gale ;*
And well the doom'd spectators know
The harbinger of wreck and woe.

XII.
Then, too, were told, in stifled tone,
Marvels and omens all their own;
How, by some desert isle or key,
Where Spaniards wrought their cruelty,
Or where the savage pirate's mood
Repaid it home in deeds of blood,
Strange nightly sounds of woe and fear
Appallid the listening Bucanier,
Whose light-arm'd shallop anchor'd lay
In ambush by the lonely bay.
The groan of grief, the shriek of pain,
Ring from the moonlight groves of cane;
The fierce adventurer's heart they scare,
Who wearies memory for a prayer,
Curses the road-stead, and with gale
Of early morning lifts the sail,
To give, in thirst of blood and prey,
A legend for another bay.

XI.
Nor think to village swains alone
Are these unearthly terrors known;
For not to rank nor sex confined
Is this vain ague of the mind:
Hearts firm as steel, as marble hard,
'Gainst faith, and love, and pity barr’d,
Have quaked, like aspen leaves in May,
Beneath its universal sway.
Bertrain had listed many a tale
Of wonder in his native dale,
That in his secret soul retain'd
The credence they in childhood gain'd:
Nor less his wild adventurous youth
Believed in every legend's truth;
Learn'd when, beneath the tropic gale,
Full swell’d the vessel's steady sail,
And the broad Indian moon her light
Pour'd on the watch of middle night,
When seamen love to hear and tell
Of portent, prodigy, and spell: 2
What gales are sold on Lapland's shore,
How whistle rash bids tempests roar,
Of witch, of mermaid, and of sprite,
Of Erick's cap and Elmo's light;5
Or of that Phantom Ship, whose form
Shoots like a meteor through the storm;
When the dark scud comes driving bard,
And lower'd is every topsail-yard,

a

XIII.
Thus, as a man, a youth, a child,
Train’d in the mystic and the wild,
With this on Bertram's soul at times
Rush'd a dark feeling of his crimes;
Such to his troubled soul their form,
As the pale Death-ship to the storm,
And such their omen dim and dread,
As shrieks and voices of the dead,
That pang, whose transitory force &
Hover'd 'twixt horror and remorse;
That pang, perchance, his bosom press'd,
As Wilfrid sudden he address'd :-
“Wilfrid, this glen is never trode
Until the sun rides high abroad;

I MS.-" The interest rises high and higher."

gave them unto the merchants ; observing that rule, that when 2 The MS. has not the two following couplets.

they unloosed the first, they should have a good gale of wind; 3 " Also I shall shew very briefly what force conjurers and when the second, a stronger wind; but when they untied the witches have in constraining the elements enchanted by them third, they should have such cruel tempests, that they should or others, that they may exceed or fall short of their natural not be able to look out of the forecastle to avoid the rocks, order: premising this, that the extream land of North Fin- nor move a foot to pull down the sails, nor stand at the helm land and Lapland was so taught witchcraft formerly in hea- to govern the ship; and they made an unhappy trial of the thenish times, as if they had learned this cursed art from truth of it who denied that there was any such power in those Zoroastres the Persian; though other inhabitants by the sea- knots."-OLAUS MAGNUS's History of the Goths, Swedes, and coasts are reported to be bewitched with the same madness; Vandals. Lond. 1658, fol. p. 47.-[See Note to The Pirato, for they exercise this devilish art, of all the arts of the world, “Sale of Winds," Waverley Novels, vol. xxiv. p. 136.] to admiration; and in this, or other such like mischief, they commonly agree. The Finlanders were wont formerly,

4 See Appendix, Note Q. 5 Ibid, Note R amongst their other errors of gentilisme, to sell winds to mer

6 See Appendix, Note S. 7 Ibid, Note T chants that were stopt on their coasts by contrary weather; and when they had their price, they knit three magical knots, 8 MS.--"Its fell, though transitory force, not like to the laws of Cassius, bound up with a thong, and they

Hovers, 'twixt pity and remorse."