Bear off the plunder, and the dame.
And leave the castle all in flame."-

XXVII.

"Still art thou Valour's vent'rous son !
Yet ponder first the risk to run:
The menials of the castle, true,

And stubborn to their charge, though few;
The wall to scale-the moat to cross-
The wicket-grate-the inner fosse".
"Fool! if we blench for toys like these,
On what fair guerdon can we seize ?
Our hardiest venture, to explore
Some wretched peasant's fenceless door,
And the best prize we bear away,
The earnings of his sordid day."
"A while thy hasty taunt forbear:
In sight of road more sure and fair,

Thou wouldst not choose, in blindfold wrath,
Or wantonness, a desp'rate path?
List then ;-for vantage or assault,
From gilded vane to dungeon vault,
Each pass of Rokeby-house I know:
There is one postern, dark and low,
That issues at a secret spot,
By most neglected or forgot.
Now, could a spial of our train

On fair pretext admittance gain,

That sally-port might be unbarr'd:

Then, vain were battlement and ward !"

XXVIII.

"Now speak'st thou well-to me the same,

If force or art shall urge the game;

Indiff'rent, if like fox I wind,

Or spring like tiger on the hind.-
But, hark! our merry men so gay
Troll forth another roundelay."

SONG.

"A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!

To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine!
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,

A doublet of the Lincoln green,—
No more of me you knew,

My love!

No more of me you knew.

"This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow,
Ere we two meet again."

He turn'd his charger as he spake,
Upon the river shore,

He

gave his bridle-reins a shake, Said, "Adieu for evermore,

My love!

And adieu for evermore."

XXIX.

"What youth is this, your band among,
The best for minstrelsy and song?
In his wild notes seem aptly met
A strain of pleasure and regret."
"Edmond of Winston is his name;
The hamlet sounded with the fame
Of early hopes his childhood
gave,-
Now center'd all in Brignall cave!
I watch him well-his wayward course
Shows oft a tincture of remorse.
Some early love-shaft graz'd his heart,
And oft the scar will ache and smart,
Yet is he useful;-of the rest,
By fits, the darling and the jest,
His harp, his story, and his lay,
Oft aid the idle hours away:
When unemploy'd, each fiery mate
Is ripe for mutinous debate.

He tuned his strings e'en now-again
He wakes them, with a blither strain.

Allen-a-Dale has no fagot for burning,
Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning,
Allen-a-Dale has no fleece for the spinning,
Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning.
Come, read me my riddle! come, hearken my tale!
And tell me the craft of bold Allen-a-Dale.
The Baron of Ravensworth prances in pride,
And he views his domains upon Arkindale side.
The mere for his net, and the land for his game,
The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame;
Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale,
Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale!
Allen-a-Dale was ne'er belted a knight,

Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright;
Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord,

Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word;
And the best of our nobles his bonnet will vail,
Who at Rere-cross* on Stanmore meets Allen-a-Dale.
Allen-a-Dale to his wooing is come;

The mother, she ask'd of his household and home:
"Though the castle of Richmond stand fair on the hill,
My hall," quoth bold Allen, "shows gallanter still;
"Tis the blue vault of heav'n, with its crescent so pale,
And with all its bright spangles!" said Allen-a-Dale.
The father was steel, and the mother was stone:
They lifted the latch, and they bade him be gone:
But loud, on the morrow, their wail and their cry:
He had laugh'd on the lass with his bonny black eye,
And she fled to the forest to hear a love-tale,
And the youth it was told by was Allen-a-Dale!

XXXI.

"Thou see'st that, whether sad or gay, Love mingles ever in his lay.

This is a fragment of an old cross, with its pediment, sur rounded by an intrenchment, upon the very summit of the waste ridge of Stanmore, near a small house of entertainment called the Spittal

But when his boyish wayward fit
Is o'er, he hath address and wit;
O! 'tis a brain of fire, can ape
Each dialect, each various shape."-
"Nay, then, to aid thy project, Guy-
Soft! who comes here?" My trusty spy.
Speak, Hamlin! hast thou lodged our deer ?"-
"I have but two fair stags are near.
I watch'd her, as she slowly stray'd
From Eglistone up Thorsgill glade;
But Wilfrid Wycliffe sought her side,
And then young Redmond, in his pride,
Shot down to meet them on their way:
Much, as it seem'd, was theirs to say:
There's time to pitch both toil and net,
Before their path be homeward set.'
A hurried and a whisper'd speech
Did Bertram's will to Denzil teach;
Who, turning to the robber band,
Bade four, the bravest, take the brand.

CANTO FOURTH.

I.

WHEN Denmark's raven soar'd on high,
Triumphant through Northumbrian sky,
Till, hov'ring near, her fatal croak
Bade Reged's Britons dread the yoke,
And the broad shadow of her wing
Blacken'd each cataract and spring,
Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,
Thund'ring o'er Caldron and High-Force;
Beneath the shade the Northmen came,
Fix'd on each vale a Runic name,

About the year of God 866, the Danes, under their celebrated leaders Inguar (more properly Agnar) and Hubba, sons, it is said, of the still more celebrated Regnar Lodbrog, invaded Northumberland, bringing with them the magical standard, so often mentioned in poetry, called RATES, or Raunfan, from its bearing the figure of a raven They renewed and extended their incursions, and began to colonize, estauushing a kind of capital at York, from which they spread their conquests and incursions in every direotion.

Rear'd high their altars' rugged stone,
And gave their Gods the land they won.
Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine,
And one sweet brooklet's silver line,
And Woden's Croft did title gain
From the stern Father of the Slain;
But to the Monarch of the Mace,
That held in fight the foremost place,
To Odin's son, and Sifia's spouse,
Near Stratforth high they paid their vows,
Remember'd Thor's victorious fame,
And gave the dell the Thund'rer's name.

IL.

Yet Scald or Kemper err'd, I ween,
Who gave that soft and quiet scene,
With all its varied light and shade,
And every little sunny glade,
And the blithe brook that strolls along
Its pebbled bed with summer song,
To the grim God of blood and scar,
The grisly King of Northern War.
O, better were its banks assign'd
To spirits of a gentler kind!
For where the thicket-groups recede,
And the rath primrose decks the mead,
The velvet grass seems carpet meet
For the light fairies' lively feet.
Yon tufted knoll, with daisies strown
Might make proud Oberon a throne,
While, hidden in the thicket nigh,
Puck should brood o'er his frolic sly;
And where profuse the wood-vetch clings
Round ash and elm, in verdant rings,
Its pale and azure-pencill'd flower
Should canopy Titania's bower.

III.

Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade;
But, skirting ev'ry sunny glade,
In fair variety of green

The woodland lends its silvan screen