IV.

Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord;
That which moulders hemp and steel,
Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

Of the Danish band, whom Count Witikiad led,
Many wax'd aged, and many were dead:
Himself found his armor full weighty to bear,
Wrinkled his brows grew, and hoary his hair;
He lean'd on a staff, when his step went abroad,
And patient his palfrey, when steed he bestrode.
As he grew feebler, his wildness ceased,
He made himself peace with prelate and priest,-
Made his peace, and, stooping his head,
Patiently listed the counsel they said:
Saint Cuthbert's Bishop was holy and grave,
Wise and good was the counsel he gave.

Broad lands he gave him on Tyne and Wear,
To be held of the church by bridle and spear;
Part of Monkwearmouth, of Tynedale part,
To better his will, and to soften his heart:
Count Witikind was a joyful man,

Less for the faith than the lands that he wan.
The high church of Durham is dress'd for the day,
The clergy are rank'd in their solemn array:
There came the Count, in a bear-skin warm,
Leaning on Hilda his concubine's arm.
He kneel'd before Saint Cuthbert's shrine,
With patience unwonted at rites divine;
He abjured the gods of heathen race,
And he bent his head at the font of grace.
But such was the grisly old proselyte's look,
That the priest who baptized him grew pale and

shook;

And the old monks mutter'd beneath their hood, "Of a stem so stubborn can never spring good!"

VII.

Up then arose that grim convertite,
Homeward he hied him when ended the rite
The Prelate in honor will with him ride,
And feast in his castle on Tyne's fair side.

Banners and banderols danced in the wind,
Monks rode before them, and spearmen behind;
Cnward they pass'd, till fairly did shine
Pennon and cross on the bosom of Tyne;
And full in front did that fortress lower,

In darksome strength with its buttress and tower:
At the castle gate was young Harold there,
Count Witikind's only offspring and heir.

VIII.

Young Harold was fear'd for his hardihood,
His strength of frame, and his fury of mood.
Rude he was and wild to behold,
Wore neither collar nor bracelet of gold,
Cap of vair nor rich array,

Such as should grace that festal day:

His doublet of bull's hide was all unbraced,
Uncover'd his head, and his sandal unlaced:
His shaggy black locks on his brow hung low,
And his eyes glanced through them a swarthy glow;
A Danish club in his hand he bore,

The spikes were clotted with recent gore;
At his back a she-wolf, and her wolf-cubs twain,
In the dangerous chase that morning slain.
Rude was the greeting his father he made,
None to the Bishop,-while thus he said:-

IX.

"What priest-led hypocrite art thou,

With thy humbled look and thy monkish brow, Like a shaveling who studies to cheat his vow! Canst thou be Witikind the Waster known, Royal Eric's fearless son,

Haughty Gunhilda's haughtier lord,

Who won his bride by the axe and sword,
From the shrine of St. Peter the chalice who tore
And melted to bracelets for Freya and Thor;
With one blow of his gauntlet who burst the skull
Before Odin's stone, of the Mountain Bull ?
Then ye worshipp'd with rites that to war-gods
belong,
[strong;

With the deed of the brave, and the blow of the
And now, in thine age to dotage sunk,
Wilt thou patter thy crimes to a shaven monk,-
Lay down thy mail-shirt for clothing of hair,--
Fasting and scourge, like a slave, wilt thou bear
Or, at best, be admitted in slothful bower
To batten with priest and with paramour?
Oh! out upon thine endless shame!
Each Scald's high harp shall blast thy fame,
And thy son will refuse thee a father's name ľ

X.

Ireful wax'd old Witikind's look,
His faltering voice with fury shook:-
"Hear me, Harold of harden'd heart!
Stubborn and wilful ever thou wert.

Thine outrage insane I command thee to cease,

Fear my wrath and remain at peace:-
Just is the debt of repentance I've paid,
Richly the church has a recompense made,
And the truth of her doctrines I prove with my
blade,

But reckoning to none of my actions I owe,
And least to my son such accounting will show.
Why speak I to thee of repentance or truth,
Who ne'er from thy childhood knew reason or ruth?
Hence to the wolf and the bear in her den;
These are thy mates, and not rational men."
XI.

Grimly smiled Harold, and coldly replied,

Priest, monk, and prelate, stood aghast,
As through the pageant the heathen pass'd.
A cross-bearer out of his saddle he flung,
Laid his hand on the pommel, and into it sprung.
Loud was the shriek, and deep the groan,
When the holy sign on the earth was thrown!
The fierce old Count unsheathed his brand,
But the calmer Prelate stay'd his hand.
Let him pass free!-Heaven knows its hour,--
But he must own repentance's power,
Pray and weep, and penance bear,

Ere he hold land by the Tyne and the Wear."
Thus in scorn and in wrath from his father is gone
Young Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son.

XIII.

High was the feasting in Witikind's hall,
Revell'd priests, soldiers, and pagans, and all;
And e'en the good Bishop was fain to endure
The scandal, which time and instruction might cure:
It were dangerous, he deem'd, at the first to re-
strain,

in his wine and his wassail, a half-christen'd Dane. The mead flow'd around, and the ale was drain'd dry,

Wild was the laughter, the song, and the cry;

Unhoused and unfriended, an exile from home.
He heard the deep thunder, the plashing of rain,
He saw the red lightring through shot-hole and
pane;

"And oh!" said the Page, "on the shelterless wold
Lord Harold is wandering in darkness and cold!
What though he was stubborn, and wayward, and
wild,
[child,-
He endured me because I was Ermengarde's
And often from dawn till the set of the sun,
In the chase, by his stirrup, unbidde.. I run;
I would I were older, and knighthood could bear,
I would soon quit the banks of the Tyne and the
Wear:
[breath,
For my mother's command, with her last parting
Bade me follow her nursling in life and to death.

XVII.

Up he started, and thunder'd out, "Stand!"
And raised the club in his deadly hand.
The flaxen-hair'd Gunnar his purpose told,
Show'd the palfrey and proffer'd the gold.
“Back, back, and home, thou simple boy!
Thou canst not share my grief or joy:
Have I not mark'd thee wail and cry
When thou hast seen a sparrow die?
And canst thou, as my follower should,
Wade ankle-deep through foeman's blood,
Dare mortal and immortal foe,

The gods above, the fiends below,
And man on earth, more hateful still,
The very fountain-head of ill?
Desperate of life, and careless of death,
Lover of bloodshed, and slaughter, and scathe,
Such must thou be with me to roam,

And such thou canst not be-back, and home!"

XVIII.

Young Gunnar shook like an aspen bough, [brow,
As he heard the harsh voice and beheld the dark
And half he repented his purpose and vow.
But now to draw back were bootless shame,
And he loved his master, so urged his claim:
"Alas! if my arm and my courage be weak,
Bear with me a while for old Ermengarde's sake;
Nor deem so lightly of Gunnar's faith,
As to fear he would break it for peril of death.
Have I not risk'd it to fetch thee this gold,
This surcoat and mantle to fence thee from cold?
And, did I bear a baser mind,

What lot remains if I stay behind?

The priests' revenge, thy father's wrath,

A dungeon, and a shameful death."

XIX.

With gentler look Lord Harold eyed The Page, then turn'd his head aside;

"It may be worthy of notice, that in Harold the DauntPess there is a wise and good Eustace, as in the Monastery, and Prior of Jorvaux, who is robbed (ante, stanza xvi.) as in

XXI.

Answer'd good Eustace,' a canon old,— "Harold is tameless, and furious, and bold;

Ivanhoe."-ADOLPHUS' Letters on the Author of Waverley 1822, p. 281.

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.

UANTO 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 splendor ride,
And gild its many-color'd side;

Or whether the soft and silvery haze,

In vapory 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 gray-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 naught 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.