Stand forth to guard the rearward post,
The bulwark of the scatter'd host-
All this, and more, might Spenser say,
Yet waste in vain his magic lay,
While Wilfrid eyed the distant tower,
Whose lattice lights Matilda's bower.

VII.

The open vale is soon pass'd o'er,
Rokeby, though nigh, is seen no more ;1
Sinking mid Greta's thickets deep,
A wild and darker course they keep,
A stern and lone, yet lovely road,
As e'er the foot of Minstrel trode !2
Broad shadows o'er their passage fell,
Deeper and narrower grew the dell;
It seem'd some mountain, rent and riven,
A channel for the stream had given,
So high the cliffs of limestone gray
Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way,
Yielding, along their rugged base,3
A flinty footpath's niggard space,

Where he, who winds 'twixt rock and wave,
May hear the headlong torrent rave,
And like a steed in frantic fit,

That flings the froth from curb and bit,
May view her chafe her waves to spray,
O'er every rock that bars her way,
Till foam-globes on her eddies ride,
Thick as the schemes of human pride
That down life's current drive amain,
As frail, as frothy, and as vain♦

Oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast,
And wreathed its garland round their crest,
Or from the spires bade loosely flare
Its tendrils in the middle air.

As pennons wont to wave of old
O'er the high feast of Baron bold,
When revell'd loud the feudal rout,
And the arch'd halls return'd their shout;
Such and more wild is Greta's roar,
And such the echoes from her shore.
And so the ivied banners gleam,"
Waved wildly o'er the brawling stream.

IX.

Now from the stream the rocks recede,
But leave between no sunny mead,
No, nor the spot of pebbly sand,
Oft found by such a mountain strand;
Forming such warm and dry retreat,
As fancy deems the lonely seat,
Where hermit, wandering from his cell,
His rosary might love to tell.

But here, 'twixt rock and river, grew

A dismal grove of sable yew,*
With whose sad tints were mingled seen
The blighted fir's sepulchral green.
Seem'd that the trees their shadows cast,
The earth that nourish'd them to blast;
For never knew that swarthy grove
The verdant hue that fairies love;
Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower,
Arose within its baleful bower:
The dank and sable earth receives
Its only carpet from the leaves,
That, from the withering branches cast,
Bestrew'd the ground with every blast.
Though now the sun was o'er the hill,
In this dark spot 'twas twilight still,"
Save that on Greta's farther side
Some straggling beams through copsewood
glide;

And wild and savage contrast made

7 MS.

Waved wildly trembling o'er the scene, Waved wild above the clamorous stream." "a torrent's strand; Where in the warm and dry retreat, May fancy form some hermit's seat." MS." A darksome grove of funeral yew, Where trees a baleful shadow cast, The ground that nourish'd them to blast, Mingled with whose sad tints were seen The blighted fir's sepulchral green." MS.-"In this dark grove 'twas twilight still, Save that upon the rocks opposed Some straggling beams of morn reposed; And wild and savage contrast made That bleak and dark funereal shade

With the bright tints of early day,

Which, struggling through the greenwood spray,

Upon the rock's wild summit lay."

That dingle's deep and funeral shade,
With the bright tints of early day,
Which, glimmering through the ivy spray,
On the opposing summit lay.

X.

The lated peasant shunn'd the dell; For Superstition wont to tell

Of many a grisly sound and sight, Scaring its path at dead of night.

When Christmas logs blaze high and wide,
Such wonders speed the festal tide;
While Curiosity and Fear,
Pleasure and Pain, sit crouching near,
Till childhood's cheek no longer glows,
And village maidens lose the rose.
The thrilling interest rises higher,'
The circle closes nigh and nigher,
And shuddering glance is cast behind,
As louder moans the wintry wind.
Believe, that fitting scene was laid
For such wild tales in Mortham glade!
For who had seen, on Greta's side,
By that dim light fierce Bertram stride,
In such a spot, at such an hour,-
If touch'd by Superstition's power,
Might well have deem'd that Hell had given
A murderer's ghost to upper Heaven,
While Wilfrid's form had seem'd to glide
Like his pale victim by his side.

XI.

Nor think to village swains alone
Are these unearthly terrors known;
For not to rank nor sex confined

Is this vain ague of the mind:
Hearts firm as steel, as marble hard,
'Gainst faith and love, and pity barr'd,
Have quaked, like aspen leaves in May,
Beneath its universal sway.
Bertram had listed many a tale
Of wonder in his native dale,
That in his secret soul retain'd

The credence they in childhood gain'd:

1 MS.-"The interest rises high and higher."' * The MS. has not the two following couplets.

"Also I shall shew very briefly what force conjurers and witches have in constraining the elements enchanted by them or others, that they may exceed or fall short of their natural order: premising this, that the extream land of North Finland and Lapland was so taught witchcraft formerly in heathenish times, as if they had learned this cursed art from Zoroastres the Persian; though other inhabitants by the sea-coasts are reported to be bewitched with the same madness; for they exercise this devilish art, of all the arts of the world, to admiration; and in this, or other such like mischief, they commonly agree. The Finlanders were wont formerly, amongst their other errors of gentilisme, to sell winds to merchants that were stopt on their coasts by contrary weather; and when they had their price, they knit three magical knots, not like to the laws of Cassius,

Nor less his wild adventurous youth
Believed in every legend's truth;
Learn'd when, beneath the tropic gale,
Full swell'd the vessel's steady sail,
And the broad Indian moon her light
Pour'd on the watch of middle night,
When seamen love to hear and tell
Of portent, prodigy, and spell:2
What gales are sold on Lapland's shore,3
How whistle rash bids tempests roar,*
Of witch, of mermaid, and of sprite,
Of Erick's cap and Elmo's light ;
Or of that Phantom Ship, whose form
Shoots like a meteor through the storm;
When the dark scud comes driving hard,
And lower'd is every topsail-yard,
And canvas, wove in earthly looms,
No more to brave the storm presumes!
Then, 'mid the war of sea and sky,
Top and top-gallant hoisted high,
Full spread and crowded every sail,
The Demon Frigate braves the gale;*
And well the doom'd spectators know
The harbinger of wreck and woe.

XII.

Then, too, were told, in stifled tone,
Marvels and omens all their own;
How, by some desert isle or key,"
Where Spaniards wrought their cruelty,
Or where the savage pirate's mood
Repaid it home in deeds of blood,
Strange nightly sounds of woe and fear
Appall'd the listening Bucanier,
Whose light-arm'd shallop anchor'd lay
In ambush by the lonely bay.

The groan of grief, the shriek of pain,
Ring from the moonlight groves of cane;
The fierce adventurer's heart they scare,
Who wearies memory for a prayer,
Curses the road-stead, and with gale
Of early morning lifts the sail,

To give, in thirst of blood and prey,
A legend for another bay.

bound up with a thong, and they gave them unto the mer chants; observing that rule, that when they unloosed the first, they should have a good gale of wind; when the second, a stronger wind; but when they untied the third, they should have such cruel tempests, that they should not be able to look out of the forecastle to avoid the rocks, nor move a foot to pull down the sails, nor stand at the helm to govern the shin; and they made an unhappy trial of the truth of it who denied that there was any such power in those knots."-OLAUS MAGNUS'S History of the Goths, Swedes, and Vandals. Lond. 1658, fol p. 47.--[See Note to The Pirate, "Sale of Winds," Waver ley Novels, vol. xxiv. p. 136.]

XIII.

Thus, as a man, a youth, a child,
Train'd in the mystic and the wild,
With this on Bertram's soul at times
Rush'd a dark feeling of his crimes;
Such to his troubled soul their form,
As the pale Death-ship to the storm,
And such their omen dim and dread,
As shrieks and voices of the dead,-
That pang, whose transitory force1
Hover'd 'twixt horror and remorse;
That pang, perchance, his bosom press'd,

As Wilfrid sudden he address'd:

66

'Wilfrid, this glen is never trode

Until the sun rides high abroad;

Yet twice have I beheld to-day
A Form, that seem'd to dog our way;
Twice from my glance it seem'd to flee,
And shroud itself by cliff or tree.
How think'st thou ?-Is our path waylaid?
Or hath thy sire my trust betray'd?
If so"- -Ere, starting from his dream,
That turn'd upon a gentler theme,
Wilfrid had roused him to reply,
Bertram sprung forward, shouting high,
"Whate'er thou art, thou now shalt stand!".
And forth he darted, sword in hand.

XIV.

As bursts the levin in its wrath,"
He shot him down the sounding path;
Rock, wood, and stream, rang wildly out,
To his loud step and savage shout.
Seems that the object of his race
Hath scaled the cliffs; his frantic chase
Sidelong he turns, and now 'tis bent
Right up the rock's tall battlement;
Straining each sinew to ascend,

Foot, hand, and knee, their aid must lend.
Wilfrid, all dizzy with dismay,
Views from beneath his dreadful way:
Now to the oak's warp'd roots he clings
Now trusts his weight to ivy strings;
Now, like the wild-goat, must he dare
An unsupported leap in air;*

Hid in the shrubby rain-course now,

You mark him by the crashing bough,
And by his corselet's sullen clank,
And by the stones spurn'd from the bank,
And by the hawk scared from her nest,
And ravens croaking o'er their guest,
Who deem his forfeit limbs shall pay
The tribute of his bold essay.

XV.

See, he emerges!-desperate now
All farther course-Yon beetling brow,
In craggy nakedness sublime,

What heart or foot shall dare to climb?
It bears no tendril for his clasp,
Presents no angle to his grasp:
Sole stay his foot may rest upon,
Is yon earth-bedded jetting stone.
Balanced on such precarious prop,
He strains his grasp to reach the top.
Just as the dangerous stretch he makes,
By heaven, his faithless footstool shakes!
Beneath his tottering bulk it bends,
It sways, . . . it loosens, . . . it descends!
And downward holds its headlong way,
Crashing o'er rock and copsewood spray.
Loud thunders shake the echoing dell!—
Fell it alone?-alone it fell.

Just on the very verge of fate,
The hardy Bertram's falling weight
He trusted to his sinewy hands,

And on the top unharm'd he stands!

XVI.

Wilfrid a safer path pursued;
At intervals where, roughly hew'd,
Rude steps ascending from the dell
Render'd the cliffs accessible.
By circuit slow he thus attain'd
The height that Risingham had gain'd,
And when he issued from the wood,
Before the gate of Mortham stood."
'Twas a fair scene! the sunbeam lay
On battled tower and portal gray:
And from the grassy slope he sees
The Greta flow to meet the Tees;
Where, issuing from her darksome bed,

His progress-heart and foot must fail
Yon upmost crag's bare peak to scale."
MS.-" Perch'd like an eagle on its top,
Balanced on its uncertain prop.

Just as the perilous stretch he makes,
By heaven, his tottering footstool shakes,"

7 Opposite to this line, the MS. has this note, meant to amuse Mr. Ballantyne :-"If my readers will not allow that I have climbed Parnassus, they must grant that I have turned the Kittle Nine Steps."-See note to Redgauntlet.-Waverley Novels, vol. xxxv. p. 6.

See Appendix, Note U.

She caught the morning's eastern red,
And through the softening vale below
Roll'd her bright waves, in rosy glow,
All blushing to her bridal bed,'
Like some shy maid in convent bred;
While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay,
Sing forth her nuptial roundelay.

XVII.

'Twas sweetly sung that roundelay;
That summer morn shone blithe and gay;
But morning beam, and wild-bird's call,
Awaked not Mortham's silent hall."
No porter, by the low-brow'd gate,
Took in the wonted niche his seat;

To the paved court no peasant drew;
Waked to their toil no menial crew;
The maiden's carol was not heard,
As to her morning task she fared:
In the void offices around,

Rung not a hoof, nor bay'd a hound;
Nor eager steed, with shrilling neigh,
Accused the lagging groom's delay;
Untrimm'd, undress'd, neglected now,
Was alley'd walk and orchard bough:
All spoke the master's absent care,"
All spoke neglect and disrepair.
South of the gate, an arrow flight,
Two mighty elms their limbs unite,
As if a canopy to spread

O'er the lone dwelling of the dead;
For their huge boughs in arches bent
Above a massive monument,
Carved o'er in ancient Gothic wise,
With many a scutcheon and device:
There, spent with toil and sunk in gloom,
Bertram stood pondering by the tomb.

That none should on his steps intrude,
Whene'er he sought this solitude.--

An ancient mariner I knew,
What time I sail'd with Morgan's crew,
Who oft, 'mid our carousals, spake
Of Raleigh, Forbisher, and Drake;
Adventurous hearts! who barter'd, bold,
Their English steel for Spanish gold.
Trust not, would his experience say,
Captain or comrade with your prey;
But seek some charnel, when, at full.
The moon gilds skeleton and skull:
There dig, and tomb your precious heap;
And hid the dead your treasure keep;
Sure stewards they, if fitting spell
Their service to the task compel.
Lacks there such charnel?-kill a slave,"
Or prisoner, on the treasure-grave;
And bid his discontented ghost
Stalk nightly on his lonely post.-
Such was the tale. Its truth, I ween,
Is in my morning vision seen."

XIX.

Wilfrid, who scorn'd the legend wild,
In mingled mirth and pity smiled,
Much marvelling that a breast so bold
In such fond tale belief should hold;"
But yet of Bertram sought to know
The apparition's form and show.--
The power within the guilty breast,
Oft vanquish'd, never quite suppress'd,
That unsubdued and lurking lies
To take the felon by surprise,
And force him, as by magic spell,
In his despite his guilt to tell,-“
That power in Bertram's breast awoke.
Scarce conscious he was heard, he spoke;
""Twas Mortham's form, from foot to head!
His morion, with the plume of red,

His shape, his mien-'twas Mortham, right
As when I slew him in the fight."
"Thou slay him?-thou?"-With conscions start
He heard, then mann'd his haughty heart-

"I slew him?-I-I had forgot

Thou, stripling, knew'st not of the plot.
But it is spoken-nor will I

4 MS." Here lies the partner of his bed ;
But weightier reasons should appear
For all his moonlight wanderings here,
And for the sharp rebuke they got,
That pried around his favorite spot."

6 See Appendix, Note V.

6 MS." Lacks there such charnel-vault ?—a slave, Or prisoner, slaughter on the grave."

7 MS.-"Should faith in such a fable hold."

8 See Appendix, Note W

t

Deed done, or spoken word, deny. I slew him; I! for thankless pride; "Twas by this hand that Mortham died!"

XX.

Wilfrid, of gentle hand and heart,
Averse to every active part,

But most averse to martial broil,

From danger shrunk, and turn'd from toil;
Yet the meek lover of the lyre
Nursed one brave spark of noble fire,
Against injustice, fraud, or wrong,

His blood beat high, his hand wax'd strong.
Not his the nerves that could sustain,
Unshaken, danger, toil, and pain;

But, when that spark blazed forth to flame,' He rose superior to his frame.

And now it came, that generous mood;
And, in full current of his blood,
On Bertram he laid desperate hand,
Placed firm his foot, and drew his brand.
"Should every fiend, to whom thou'rt
sold,

Rise in thine aid, I keep my hold.—
Arouse there, ho! take spear and sword!
Attach the murderer of your Lord!"

XXI.

A moment, fix'd as by a spell,
Stood Bertram-It seem'd miracle,
That one so feeble, soft, and tame,
Set grasp on warlike Risingham.2
But when he felt a feeble stroke,"
The fiend within the ruffian woke!
To wrench the sword from Wilfrid's hand,
To dash him headlong on the sand,
Was but one moment's work,-one more
Had drench'd the blade in Wilfrid's gore:
But, in the instant it arose,

To end his life, his love, his woes,
A warlike form, that mark'd the scene,
Presents his rapier sheathed between,
Parries the fast-descending blow,
And steps 'twixt Wilfrid and his foe;
Nor then unscabbarded his brand,
But, sternly pointing with his hand,
With monarch's voice forbade the fight,
And motion'd Bertram from his sight.

1 MS." But, when blazed forth that noble flame." "The sudden impression made on the mind of Wilfrid by this avowal, is one of the happiest touches of moral poetry. The effect which the unexpected burst of indignation and valor produces on Bertram, is as finely imagined."-Critical Review. This most animating scene is a worthy companion to the rencounter of Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu, in the Lady of the Lake."-Monthly Review.

MS." At length, at slight and feeble stroke,

"Go, and repent," he said, " while time
Is given thee; add not crime to crime."
XXII.

Mute, and uncertain, and amazed,
As on a vision Bertram gazed!

"Twas Mortham's bearing, bold and high,*
His sinewy frame, his falcon eye,
His look and accent of command,
The martial gesture of his hand,

His stately form, spare-built and tall,
His war-bleach'd locks-'twas Mortham all.
Through Bertram's dizzy brain career
A thousand thoughts, and all of fear;
His wavering faith received not quite
The form he saw as Mortham's sprite,
But more he fear'd it, if it stood
His lord, in living flesh and blood.—
What spectre can the charnel send,
So dreadful as an injured friend?
Then, too, the habit of command,
Used by the leader of the band,
When Risingham, for many a day,
Had march'd and fought beneath his sway,
Tamed him-and, with reverted face,
Backwards he bore his sullen pace;
Oft stopp'd, and oft on Mortham stared,
And dark as rated mastiff glared;
But when the tramp of steeds was heard,
Plunged in the glen, and disappear'd;--
Nor longer there the Warrior stood,
Retiring eastward through the wood;"
But first to Wilfrid warning gives,
"Tell thou to none that Mortham lives

XXIII.

Still rung these words in Wilfrid's ear,
Hinting he knew not what of fear;
When nearer canie the coursers' tread,
And, with his father at their head,
Of horsemen arın'd a gallant power
Rein'd up their steeds before the tower.
"Whence these pale looks, my son?" he said:
Where's Bertram?-Why that naked blade?·
Wilfrid ambiguously replied

(For Mortham's charge his honor tied),
"Bertram is gone-the villain's word
Avouch'd him murderer of his lord!

4 MS.-"'Twas Mortham's spare and sinewy frame, His falcon eye, his glance of flame."

6 MS.-"A thousand thoughts, and all of fear,
Dizzied his brain in wild career;
Doubting, and not receiving quite,
The form he saw as Mortham's sprite,
Still more he fear'd it, if it stood
His living lord, in flesh and blood."
MS.-"Slow he retreats with sullen pace."

7 MS.-"Retiring through the thickest wood," MS.-" Rein'd up their steeds by Mortham tower.