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All in the castle must hold them still, Harpers must lull him to his rest With the slow soft tunes he loves the best Till sleep sink down upon his breast,

Like the dew on a summer hill.

V

Answered him Richard de Bretville; he Was chief of the baron's minstrelsy, 'Silent, noble chieftain, we

Have sat since midnight close,

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When such lulling sounds as the brooklet sings Murmured from our melting strings, And hushed you to repose. Had a harp-note sounded here, It had caught my watchful ear, Although it fell as faint and shy As bashful maiden's half-formed sigh When she thinks her lover near.' Answered Philip of Fasthwaite tall; He kept guard in the outer-hall, 'Since at eve our watch took post, Not a foot has thy portal crossed;

Else had I heard the steps, though low And light they fell as when earth receives In morn of frost the withered leaves That drop when no winds blow.'

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Then come thou hither, Henry, my page, Whom I saved from the sack of Hermitage, When that dark castle, tower, and spire, Rose to the skies a pile of fire,

And reddened all the Nine-stane Hill, 79 And the shrieks of death, that wildly broke Through devouring flame and smothering smoke,

Made the warrior's heart-blood chill.
The trustiest thou of all my train,
My fleetest courser thou must rein,

And ride to Lyulph's tower,
And from the Baron of Triermain
Greet well that sage of
power.
He is sprung from Druid sires
And British bards that tuned their lyres
To Arthur's and Pendragon's praise,
And his who sleeps at Dunmailraise.
Gifted like his gifted race,
He the characters can trace
Graven deep in elder time
Upon Hellvellyn's cliffs sublime;
Sign and sigil well doth he know,
And can bode of weal and woe,
Of kingdoms' fall and fate of wars,
From mystic dreams and course of stars.
He shall tell if middle earth
To that enchanting shape gave birth,
Or if it was but an airy thing
Such as fantastic slumbers bring,
Framed from the rainbow's varying dyes

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"That maid is born of middle earth And may of man be won,

Though there have glided since her birth
Five hundred years and one.

But where's the knight in all the north
That dare the adventure follow forth,
So perilous to knightly worth,
In the valley of Saint John?

Listen, youth, to what I tell,
And bind it on thy memory well;

Nor muse that I commence the rhyme
Far distant mid the wrecks of time.
The mystic tale by bard and sage
Is handed down from Merlin's age.

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X

LYULPH'S TALE

'King Arthur has ridden from merry Car

lisle

When Pentecost was o'er:

He journeyed like errant-knight the while And sweetly the summer sun did smile On mountain, moss, and moor. Above his solitary track Rose Glaramara's ridgy back, Amid whose yawning gulfs the sun Cast umbered radiance red and dun, Though never sunbeam could discern The surface of that sable tarn, In whose black mirror you may spy The stars while noontide lights the sky. The gallant king he skirted still The margin of that mighty hill; Rock upon rocks incumbent hung, And torrents, down the gullies flung, Joined the rude river that brawled on, Recoiling now from crag and stone, Now diving deep from human ken, And raving down its darksome glen. The monarch judged this desert wild, With such romantic ruin piled, Was theatre by Nature's hand For feat of high achievement planned.

For he left that lady so lovely of cheer To follow adventures of danger and fear; And the frank-hearted monarch full little

Dark at the base, unblest by beam,
Frowned the black rocks and roared the
stream.

With toil the king his way pursued
By lonely Threlkeld's waste and wood,
Till on his course obliquely shone
The narrow valley of SAINT JOHN,
Down sloping to the western sky
Where lingering sunbeams love to lie.
Right glad to feel those beams again,
The king drew up his charger's rein;
With gauntlet raised he screened his sight,
As dazzled with the level light,
And from beneath his glove of mail
Scanned at his ease the lovely vale,
While 'gainst the sun his armor bright
Gleamed ruddy like the beacon's light.

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'Paled in by many a lofty hill,
The narrow dale lay smooth and still,
And, down its verdant bosom led,
A winding brooklet found its bed.
But midmost of the vale a mound
Arose with airy turrets crowned,
Buttress, and rampire's circling bound,
And mighty keep and tower;
Seemed some primeval giant's hand
The castle's massive walls had planned,
A ponderous bulwark to withstand
Ambitious Nimrod's power.
Above the moated entrance slung,
The balanced drawbridge trembling
hung,

As jealous of a foe;
Wicket of oak, as iron hard,

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With iron studded, clenched, and barred, And pronged portcullis, joined to guard The gloomy pass below. But the gray walls no banners crowned, Upon the watchtower's airy round No warder stood his horn to sound, No guard beside the bridge was found, And where the Gothic gateway frowned 240 Glanced neither bill nor bow.

Three times; nor living thing he spied,
Nor heard a living sound,
Save that, awakening from her dream,
The owlet now began to scream

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In concert with the rushing stream
That washed the battled mound.
He lighted from his goodly steed,
And he left him to graze on bank and mead;
And slowly he climbed the narrow way
That reached the entrance grim and gray,
And he stood the outward arch below,
And his bugle-horn prepared to blow

In summons blithe and bold,
Deeming to rouse from iron sleep
The guardian of this dismal keep,
Which well he guessed the hold
Of wizard stern, or goblin grim,
Or pagan of gigantic limb,

The tyrant of the wold.

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