"Wilfrid !-what, not to sleep addressed?

Thou hast no cares to chase thy rest.

Mortham has fallen 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!"

END OF CANTO FIRST.

ROKEBY.

CANTO SECOND.

ROKEBY.

CANTO SECOND.

I.

FAR in the chambers of the west,

The gale had sighed itself to rest ;
The moon was cloudless now and clear,
But pale, and soon to disappear.

The thin grey clouds waxed 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 bannered walls.

High crowned he sits, in dawning pale,

The sovereign of the lovely vale.

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

pace his destined hour

By Brackenbury's dungeon-tower,

These silver mists shall melt away,

And dew the woods with glittering spray.