4. "Hearken, my minstrels! Which of you all
Touched his harp with that dying fall,
So sweet, so soft, so faint,

It seemed an angel's whispered call
To an expiring saint?

And hearken, my merry-men! What time or where
Did she pass, that maid with her heavenly brow,
With her look so sweet and her eyes so fair,
And her graceful step and her angel air,
And the eagle plume on her dark-brown hair,
That passed from my bower e'en now?"

5. Answered him Richard de Brettville; he
Was chief of the baron's minstrelsy,-
"Silent, noble chieftain, we

Have sat since midnight close,

When such lulling sounds as the brooklet sings
Murmured from our melting strings,

And hushed you to repose.
Had a harp-note sounded here,
It had caught my watchful ear,

Although it fell as faint and shy
As bashful maiden's half-formed sigh,
When she thinks her lover near.'
Answered Philip of Fasthwaite tall,
He kept guard in the outer-hall,-
"Since at eve our watch took post,
Not a foot has thy portal crossed;

Else had I heard the steps, though low
And light they fell, as when earth receives,
In morn of frost, the withered leaves,

That drop when no winds blow."

6. "Then come thou hither, Henry, my page,
Whom I saved from the sack of Hermitage,
When that dark castle, tower, and spire,
Rose to the skies a pile of fire,

And reddened all the Nine-stane Hill,
And the shrieks of death, that wildly broke
Through devouring flame and smothering smoke,
Made the warrior's heart-blood chill!

The trustiest thou of all my train,

My fleetest courser thou must rein,
And ride to Lyulph's tower,

And from the baron of Triermain

Greet well that sage of power.
He is sprung from Druid sires,

And British bards that tuned their lyres
To Arthur's and Pendragon's praise,
And his who sleeps at Dunmailraise.
Gifted like his gifted race,

He the characters can trace,
Graven deep in elder time

Upon Helvellyn's cliffs sublime;
Sign and sigil well doth he know,
And can bode of weal and woe,
Of kingdoms' fall, and fate of wars,
From mystic dreams and course of stars.
He shall tell me if middle earth
To that enchanting shape gave birth,
Or if 'twas but an airy thing,
Such as fantastic slumbers bring,
Framed from the rainbow's varying dyes,
Or fading tints of western skies.
For, by the blessed rood I swear,
If that fair form breathe vital air,
No other maiden by my side

Shall ever rest De Vaux's bride!"

7. The faithful page he mounts his steed,
And soon he crossed green Irthing's mead,
Dashed o'er Kirkoswald's verdant plain,
And Eden barred his course in vain.
He passed red Penrith's Table Round,
For feats of chivalry renowned,

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

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

8. Onwards 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 checked and lined,

A cushion fit for age;

And o'er him shook the aspen-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.

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

Though there have glided since her birth
Five hundred years and one.

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 bard and sage,
Is handed down from Merlin's age.

LYULPH'S TALE.

10. "KING ARTHUR has ridden from merry Carlisle When Pentecost was o'er;

He journeyed 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 umbered radiance red and dun,
Though never sunbeam could discern
The surface of that sable tarn,

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
Rocks upon rocks incumbent hung,
And torrents, down the gullies flung,
Joined the rude river that brawled 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 planned.

"O rather he chose, that monarch bold,
On venturous quest to ride,

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

The bursting crash of a foeman's spear,

As it shivered against his mail,

Was merrier music to his ear

Than courtier's whispered 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. 2. "He rode, till over down and dell

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

Frowned the black rocks, and roared 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.
Right glad to feel those beams again,
The king drew up his charger's rein;
With gauntlet raised he screened his sight,
As dazzled with the level light,
And, from beneath his glove of mail,
Scanned at his ease the lovely vale,
While 'gainst the sun his armour bright
Gleamed ruddy like the beacon's light.
13. "Paled in by many a lofty hill,
The narrow dale lay smooth and still,
And, down its verdant bosom led,
A winding brooklet found its bed.
But, midmost of the vale, a mound
Arose, with airy turrets crowned,
Buttress, and rampire's circling bound,
And mighty keep and tower;
Seemed some primeval giant's hand
The castle's massive walls had planned,
A ponderous bulwark, to withstand
Ambitious Nimrod's power.
Above the moated entrance slung,
The balanced drawbridge trembling hung,
As jealous of a foe;

14.

Wicket of oak, as iron hard,

With iron studded, clenched, and barred,
And pronged portcullis, joined to guard
The gloomy pass below.

But the gray walls no banners crowned,
Upon the watch-tower's airy round
No warder stood his horn to sound,
No guard beside the bridge was found,
And, where the Gothic gateway frowned
Glanced neither bill nor bow.
"Beneath the castle's gloomy pride,
In ample round did Arthur ride
Three times; nor living thing he spied,
Nor heard a living sound,

Save that, awakening from her dream,
The owlet now began to scream,
In concert with the rushing stream,

That washed the battled mound.
He lighted from his goodly steed,

And he left him to graze on bank and mead ;
And slowly he climbed the narrow way,
That reached the entrance grim and gray,
And he stood the outward arch below,
And his bugle-horn prepared to blow,
In summons blithe and bold,
Deeming to rouse from iron sleep
The guardian of this dismal keep,
Which well he guessed the hold
Of wizard stern, or goblin grin
Or pagan of gigantic limb,
The tyrant of the wold.

15. “The ivory bugle's golden tip
Twice touched the monarch's manly lip,
And twice his hand withdrew.
Think not but Arthur's heart was good!
His shield was crossed by the blessed rood,
Had a pagan host before him stood,

He had charged them through and through !
Yet the silence of that ancient place
Sunk on his heart, and he paused a spacę
Ere yet his horn he blew.
But, instant as its 'larum rung,
The castle gate was open flung,
Portcullis rose with crashing groan
Full harshly up its groove of stone,
The balance-beams obeyed the blast,
And down the trembling drawbridge cast.
The vaulted arch before him lay,
With nought to bar the gloomy way,
And onward Arthur paced, with hand
On Caliburn's resistless brand.

16. "A hundred torches, flashing bright,
Dispelled at once the gloomy night
That loured along the walls,

And showed the king's astonished sight
The inmates of the halls.

Nor wizard stern, nor goblin grim,
Nor giant huge of form and limb,

Nor heathen knight, was there;
But the cressets, which odours flung aloft,
Showed, by their yellow light and soft,
A band of damsels fair!

Onward they came, like summer wave
That dances to the shore;

A hundred voices welcome gave