From Mortham's vault, at midnight deep,
To her lone bower in Rokeby-Keep,
Ponderous with gold and plate of pride-
His gift, if he in battle died."-

XXV

"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 greece ?a
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
E'en now to track a milk-white doe.
By Rokeby-hall she takes her lair,
In Greta wood she harbours 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

""Tis well!-there's vengeance in the thought, Matilda is by Wilfrid sought;

And hot-brained Redmond, too, 'tis said,

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 schemes 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."-

XXVII

"Still art thou Valour's venturous son!

Yet ponder first the risk to run:

The menials of the castle, true,

And stubborn to their charge, though few;

The wall to scale-the moat to cross

The wicket-grate-the inner fosse"

Deer in season.

"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.'
"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

"Now speak'st thou well:-to me the same,
If force or art shall urge the game;

Indifferent, if like fox I wind,

Or spring like tiger on the hind.-
But, hark! our merry men so gay
Troll forth another roundelay.".

SONG.

"A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!

To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine!

A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,

A doublet of the Lincoln green,-
No more of me you knew,

My love!

No more of me you knew.

"This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;

But she shall bloom in winter snow,

Ere we two meet again."

He turned his charger as he spake,

Upon the river shore,

He gave his bridle-reins a shake,

Said, "Adieu for evermore,

My love!

And adieu for evermore.""

• The last verse of this song is taken from the fragment of an old Bcottish ballad, of which I have only heard the following verses,

XXIX

"What youth is this, your band among,
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 Brignal 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 a blither strain.

XXX

SONG.

Allen-a-Dale.

Allen-a-Dale has no faggot for burning,

Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning,
Allen-a-Dale has no fleece for the spinning,

Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning.
Come, read me my riddle! come, hearken my tale!
And tell me the craft of bold Allen-a-Dale.

The Baron of Ravensworth? prances in pride,
And he views his domains upon Arkindale side.

relating perhaps to some of the followers of James II., who joined him in Ireland previous to the battle of the Boyne :

P The ruins of Ravensworth Castle stand in the North Riding of Yorkshire, about three miles from the town of Richmond, and adjoining to the waste called the Forest of Arkingarth. It belonged originally to the powerful family of Fitzhugh, from whom it passed to the Lords Dacre of the South.

The mere for his net, and the land for his game,
The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame;
Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale,
Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale!

Allen-a-Dale was ne'er belted a knight,

Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright,
Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord,

Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word;
And the best of our nobles his bonnet will vail,
Who at Rere-cross on Stanmore meets Allen-a-Dale,

Allen-a-Dale to his wooing is come;

The mother, she asked of his household and home.
"Though the castle of Richmond stand fair on the hill,
My hall," quoth bold Allen, "shows gallanter still;
'Tis the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale,
And with all its bright spangles!" said Allen-a-Dale.
The father was steel, and the mother was stone;
They lifted the latch, and they bade him be gone;
But loud, on the morrow, their wail and their cry:
He had laughed on the lass with his bonny black eye,
And she fled to the forest to hear a love-tale,
And the youth it was told by was Allen-a-Dale'

XXXI

"Thou seest 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! 'tis a brain of fire, can ape

Each dialect, each various shape."

Nay, then, to aid thy project, Guy

Soft! who comes here ?"-" My trusty spy.

Speak, Hamlin ! hast thou lodged our deer ?".
"I have-but two fair stags are hear.
I watched her as she slowly strayed
From Eglistone up Thorsgill glade:
But Wilfrid Wycliffe sought her side,
And then young Redmond, in his pride,
Shot down to meet them on their way:
Much, as it seemed, was theirs to say:

This is the fragment of an old cross with its pediment, surrounded by an intrenchment upon the very summit of the waste ridge of Stanmore, near a small house of entertainment, called the Spittal. It is called Rere-cross, or Ree-cross. Its situation, and the pains taken to defend it, seem to indicate that it was intended for a landmark of importance.

The duty of the ranger or pricker, was first to lodge, or harbour, the deer, i. e. to discover his retreat, and then to make his report to uis prince or master.

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,
Till, 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,"

About the year 866, the Danes, under their celebrated leaders Inguar (more properly Agnar) and Hubba, sons, it is said, of the still more celebrated Regnar Lodbrog, invaded Northumberland, bringing with them the magical standard, so often mentioned in poetry, called REAFEN, or Raunfan, from its bearing the figure of a Raven.

The Danes renewed and extended their incursions, and began to colonize, establishing a kind of capital at York, from which they spread their conquests and incursions in every direction. Stanmore, which divides the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland, was probably the boundary of the Danish kingdom in that direction. The district to the west, known in ancient British history by the name of Reged, had never been conquered by the Saxons, and continued to maintain a precarious independence until it was ceded to Malcolm, king of Scots, by William the Conqueror, probably on account of its similarity in language and manners to the neighbouring British kingdom of Strath Clyde.

The Tees rises about the skirts of Crossfell, and falls over the cataracts named in the text before it leaves the mountains which divide the North Riding from Cumberland. High-Force is seventyfive feet in height.

u The heathen Danes have left several traces of their religion in the upper part of Teesdale. Balder-garth, which derives its name from the unfortunate son of Odin, is a tract of waste land on the very ridge of Stanmore; and a brook, which falls into the Tees near Barnard Castle, is named after the same deity. A field upon the banks of the Tees is also termed Woden Croft, from the supreme deity of the Edda. Thorsgill, of which a description is attempted in stanza ii., is a beautiful little brook and dell, running up behind the ruins of Eglistone Abbey. Thor was the Hercules of the Scandinavian mythology, a dreaded giant-queller, and in that capacity the champion of the gods and the defender of Asgard, the northern Olympus, against the frequent attacks of the inhabitants of Jotunheim.