On Dunstan borough's cavern'd shore;
Thy tower, proud Bamborough, mark'd they there,
King Ida's castle, huge and square,

In Saxon strength that Abbey frown'd,
With massive arches broad and round,

That rose alternate, row and row,
On ponderous columns, short and low,

Built ere the art was known,
By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,
The arcades of an alley'd walk

To emulate in stone.
On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
Had pour'd his impious rage in vain ;
And needful was such strength to these,
Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
Scourged by the winds' eternal sway,
Open to rovers fierce as they,
Which could twelve hundred years withstand
Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand.

Not but that portions of the pile,
Rebuilded in a later style,
Show'd where the spoiler's hand had been ;
Not but the wasting sea-breeze keen
Had worn the pillar's carving quaint,
And moulder'd in his niche the saint,
And rounded, with consuming power,
The pointed angles of each tower;
Yet still entire the Abbey stoor,
Like veteran, worn, but unsubdued.

XI.

Soon as they near'd his turrets strong,
The maidens raised Saint Hilda's song,
And with the sea-wave and the wind,
Their voices, sweetly shrill, combined,

And made harmonious close ;
Then, answering from the sandy shore,
Half-drown'd amid the breakers' roar,

According chorus rose :
Down to the haven of the Isle,
The monks and nuns in order file,

From Cuthbert's cloisters grim ;
Banner, and cross, and relics there,
To meet Saint Hilda's maids, they bare ;
And, as they caught the sounds on air,

They echo'd back the hymn.
The islanders, in joyous mood,
Rush'd emulously throngh the floor,

To hale the bark to land ;