Ever Renown blows a note of fame,

And a note of fear, when she sounds his name: Much of bloodshed and much of scathe

Have been their lot who have waked his wrath.

Leave him these lands and lordships still,
Heaven in its hour may change his will;

But if reft of gold, and of living bare,
An evil counsellor is despair."

More had he said, but the Prelate frown'd,

And murmur'd his brethren who sate around,

And with one consent have they given their doom, That the church should the lands of Saint Cuth

bert resume.

So will'd the Prelate; and canon and dean

Gave to his judgment their loud amen.

HAROLD THE DAUNTLESS.

CANTO SECOND.

I.

"Tis merry in greenwood, thus runs the old lay,-
In the gladsome month of lively May,
When the wild birds' song on stem and spray
Invites to forest bower;

Then rears the ash his airy crest,

Then shines the birch in silver vest,
And the beech in glistening leaves is drest,
And dark between shows the oak's proud breast,
Like a chieftain's frowning tower;

Though a thousand branches join their screen,
Yet the broken sunbeams glance between.

And tip the leaves with lighter green,

With brighter tints the flower:

Dull is the heart that loves not then

The deep recess of the wildwood glen,
Where roe and red-deer find sheltering den,
When the sun is in his power.

II.

Less merry, perchance, is the fading leaf
That follows so soon on the gather'd sheaf,
When the greenwood loses the name;

Silent is then the forest bound,

Save the redbreast's note, and the rustling sound
Of frost-nipt leaves that are dropping round,
Or the deep-mouth'd cry of the distant hound
That opens on his game:

Yet then, too, I love the forest wide,
Whether the sun in splendour ride,
And gild its many-colour'd side,

Or whether the soft and silvery haze,
In vapoury folds, o'er the landscape strays,
And half involves the woodland maze,
Like an early widow's veil,

Where wimpling tissue from the gaze
The form half hides, and half betrays,
Of beauty wan and pale.

III.

Fair Metelill was a woodland maid,
Her father a rover of greenwood shade,
By forest statutes undismay'd,

Who lived by bow and quiver;
Well known was Wulfstane's archery,
By merry Tyne both on moor and lea,
Through wooded Weardale's glens so free,
Well beside Stanhope's wildwood tree,

And well on Ganlesse river.

Yet free though he trespass'd on woodland game, More known and more fear'd was the wizard

fame

Of Jutta of Rookhope, the Outlaw's dame;
Fear'd when she frown'd was her eye of flame,
More fear'd when in wrath she laugh'd;
For then, 'twas said, more fatal true
To its dread aim her spell-glance flew,
Than when from Wulfstane's bended yew

Sprung forth the

grey-goose shaft.

IV.

Yet had this fierce and dreaded pair,
So Heaven decreed, a daughter fair;
None brighter crown'd the bed,
In Britain's bounds, of peer or prince,
Nor hath perchance a lovelier since
In this fair isle been bred.

And nought of fraud, or ire, or ill,
Was known to gentle Metelill,—
A simple maiden she;

The spells in dimpled smile that lie,

And a downcast blush, and the darts that fly With the sidelong glance of a hazel eye,

Were her arms and witchery.

So young, so simple was she yet,

She scarce could childhood's joys forget,
And still she loved, in secret set

Beneath the greenwood tree,

To plait the rushy coronet,

And braid with flowers her locks of jet,
As when in infancy ;—

Yet could that heart, so simple, prove
The early dawn of stealing love:

Ah! gentle maid, beware!
The power who, now so mild a guest,
Gives dangerous yet delicious zest
To the calm pleasures of thy breast,
Will soon, a tyrant o'er the rest,
Let none his empire share.

V.

One morn, in kirtle green array'd,
Deep in the wood the maiden stray'd,
And, where a fountain sprung,
She sate her down, unseen, to thread
The scarlet berry's mimic braid,

And while the beads she strung,
Like the blithe lark, whose carol gay
Gives a good-morrow to the day,
So lightsomely she sung.

VI.

SONG.

"LORD WILLIAM was born in gilded bower, The heir of Wilton's lofty tower;

Yet better loves Lord William now

To roam beneath wild Rookhope's brow;
And William has lived where ladies fair

With gawds and jewels deck their hair,