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!'

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,1
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. 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,
Condemned to mine a channelled way
O'er solid sheets of marble grey.

III

Nor Tees alone in dawning bright

Shall rush upon the ravished sight;

But many a tributary stream

Each from its own dark cell shall gleam: Staindrop, who from her sylvan bowers Salutes proud Raby's battled towers;

1 See Note II.

The rural brook of Eglistone,

And Balder, named from Odin's son;
And Greta, to whose banks ere long
We lead the lovers of the song;

And silver Lune from Stanmore wild,
And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child,
And last and least, but loveliest still,
Romantic Deepdale's slender rill.
Who in that dim-wood glen hath strayed,

Yet longed for Roslin's magic glade?

Who, wandering there, hath sought to change Even for that vale so stern and strange Where Cartland's crags, fantastic rent,

Through her green copse like spires are sent?

Yet, Albin, yet the praise be thine,

Thy scenes and story to combine!

Thou bid'st him who by Roslin strays

List to the deeds of other days;

'Mid Cartland's crags thou show'st the cave,

The refuge of thy champion brave;

.

Giving each rock its storied tale,
Pouring a lay for every dale,
Knitting, as with a moral band,
Thy native legends with thy land,
To lend each scene the interest high
Which genius beams from Beauty's eye.

IV

Bertram awaited not the sight

Which sunrise shows from Barnard's height,
But from the towers, preventing day,
With Wilfrid took his early way,

While misty dawn and moonbeam pale
Still mingled in the silent dale.

By Barnard's bridge of stately stone
The southern bank of Tees they won;

Their winding path then eastward cast,
And Eglistone's grey ruins past;1
Each on his own deep visions bent,
Silent and sad they onward went.
Well may you think that Bertram's mood
To Wilfrid savage seemed and rude;
Well may you think bold Risingham
Held Wilfrid trivial, poor, and tame;
And small the intercourse, I ween,
Such uncongenial souls between.

V

Stern Bertram shunned the nearer way Through Rokeby's park and chase that lay,

And, skirting high the valley's ridge,

They crossed by Greta's ancient bridge,

1 See Note 12.