384

Poor wretch! the mother that him bare,
If she had been in presence there,
In his wan face, and sun-burned hair,
She had not known her child.
Danger, long travel, want, or wo,

Soon change the form that best we know—
For deadly fear can time outgo,

And blanch at once the hair;
Hard toil can roughen form and face,*

And want can quench the eye's bright grace;
Nor does old age a wrinkle trace,

More deeply than despair.
Happy whom none of these befall,t
But this poor Palmer knew them all.
XXIX.

Lord Marmion then his boon did ask;
The Palmer took on him the task,
So he would march with morning tide,+
To Scottish court to be his guide.
"But I have solemn vows to pay,
And may not linger by the way,

To fair Saint Andrews bound,
Within the ocean-cave to pray,
Where good Saint Rule his holy lay,
From midnight to the dawn of day,

Sung to the billows' sound;§
Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well,
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore :-ll
Saint Mary grant, that cave or spring
Could back to peace my bosom bring,
Or bid it throb no more !"-

* [MS.-" Hard toil can alter form and face, roughen youthful grace, quench the eyes of grace."] And want can (dim [MS.-"Happy whom none such woes befall."] MS.-" So he would ride with morning tide."] St. Regulus, (Scottice, St. Rule,) a monk of Patræ, in Achaia, warned by a vision, is said, A D. 370, to have sailed westward until he landed at St. Andrews, in Scotland, where he founded a chapel and tower. The latter is still standing; and, though we may doubt the precise date of its foundation, is certainly one of the most ancient edifices in Scotland. A cave, nearly fronting the ruinous castle of the Archbishops of St. Andrews, bears the name of this religious person. It is difficult of access; and the rock in which it is hewed is washed by the German ocean. It is nearly round, about ten feet in diameter, and the same in height, On one side is a sort of stone altar; on the other an aperture into an inner den, where the miserable ascetic, who inhabited this dwelling, probably slept. At full tide egress and regress are hardly practicable. As Regulus first colonized the metropolitan see of Scotland, and converted the inhabitants in the vicinity, he has some reason to complain, that the ancient name of Killrule, (Cella Reguli) should have been superseded, even in favour of the tutelar saint of Scotland. The reason of the change was, that St. Rule is said to have brought to Scotland the relics of St. Andrew.

St. Fillan was a Scottish saint of some reputation. Although popery is, with us, matter of abomination, yet the common people still retain some of the superstitions connected with it. There are, in Perthshire, several wells and springs dedicated to St. Fillan, which are still places of pilgrimage and offerings, even among the protestants. They are held powerful in cases of madness; and, in some of very late occurrence, lunatics have been left all night bound to the holy stone, in confidence that the saint would cure and unloose them before morning.

TIMS. The cup pass'd round among the rest."] **IMS." Soon died the merry wassel roar."]

"In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion, it was common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate mass, abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-mass, the brevity of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the audience."-Note to The Abbot." Neo Edit.j

IMS." Slow they roll'd forth upon the air."] $5 See a note to the Border Minstrelsy, ante. 234.] Ettrick Forest, now a range of mountainous sheep-walks, was anciently reserved for the pleasure of the royal chase. Since it was disparked, the wood has been, by degrees, almost totally de

The minstrels ceased to sound. Soon in the castle nought was heard, But the slow footstep of the guard, Pacing his sober round.

XXXI.

With early dawn Lord Marmion rose:
And first the chapel doors unclose;
Then, after morning rites were done,
(A hasty mass from Friar John,)tt
And knight and squire had broke their fast,
On rich substantial repast,

Lord Marmion's bugles blew to horse;
Then came the stirrup-cup in course:
Between the baron and his host,

No point of courtesy was lost;
High thanks were by Lord Marmion paid,
Solemn excuse the captain made,
Till, filing from the gate, had past
That noble train, their lord the last.
Then loudly rung the trumpet-call;
Thundered the cannon from the wall,
And shook the Scottish shore;
Around the castle eddied slow,
Volumes of smoke as white as snow

And hid its turrets hoar;
Till they rolled forth upon the air,‡‡
And met the river breezes there,
Which gave again the prospect fair.

INTRODUCTION TO CANTO II.
TO THE REV. JOHN MARRIOTT, A. M. §§
Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

THE Scenes are desert now, and bare,
Where flourished once a forest fair,lill
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.

Yon thorn-perchance whose prickly spears
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers-

Yon lonely thorn, would he could tell

stroyed, although, wherever protected from the sheep, copses soon arise without any planting. When the king hunted there, be often summoned the array of the country to meet and assist his sport. Thus, in 1528, James V. made proclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen, landwardmen, and freeholders. that they should compear at Edinburgh, with a month's victuals, to pass with the king where he pleased, to danton the thieves of Teviotdale, Annandale, Liddesdale, and other parts of that country; and also warned all gentlemen that had good dogs, to bring them, that he might hunt in the said country, as he pleased: The whilk the Earl of Argyle, the Earl of Huntley, the Earl of At hole, and so all the rest of the gentlemen of the highlands, did, and brought their hounds with them in like manner to hunt with the king, as he pleased.

The second day of June the king passed out of Edinburgh to the hunting, with many of the nobles and gentlemen of Scotland with him, to the number of twelve thousand men; and then passed to Meggitland, and hounded and hawked all the country and bounds: that is to say, Crammat. Pappert-law, St. Mary-laws, Carlavirick, Chapel, Ewindoores, and Longhope. I heard say, he slew, in these bounds, eighteen score of harts."*

These huntings had, of course, a military character, and attendance upon them was a part of the duty of a vassal. The act for abolishing ward, or military tenures, in Scotland, enumerates the services of hunting, hosting, watching, and warding, as those which were in future to be illegal.

Taylor, the water-poet, has given an account of the mode in which these huntings were conducted in the highlands of Scotland, in the seventeenth century, having been present at Bræmar upon such an occasion:

There did I find the truly noble and right honourable lords, John Erskine, Earl of Mar; James Stewart, Earl of Murray; George Gordon, Earl of Engye, son and heir to the Marquis of Huntley, James Erskine. Earl of Buchan; and John, Lord Ers kine, son and heir to the Earl of Mar, and their countesses, with my much honoured, and my last assured and approved friend, Sir William Murray, knight of Abercarney, and hundreds of others, knights, esquires, and their followers; all and every man, in general, in one habit, as if Lycurgus had been there, and made laws of equality: for once in the year, which is the whole month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobi lity and gentry of the kingdom (for their pleasure) do come into these highland countries to hunt: where they do conform themselves to the habit of the highland-men, who, for the most part, speak nothing but Irish: and, in former time, were those people which were called the Red-shanks. Their habit is-shoes, with but one sole a-piece; stockings, (which they call short hose,) • Pitscottie's History of Scotland, folio edition, p. 143.

The changes of his parent dell,*
Since he, so gray and stubborn now
Waved in each breeze a sappling bough;
Would he could tell how deep the shade,
A thousand mingled branches made;
How broad the shadows of the oak,
How clung the rowant to the rock.
And through the foliage showed his head,
With narrow leaves, and berries red;
What pines on every mountain sprung,
O'er every dell what birches hung,
In every breeze what aspens shook,
What alders shaded every brook!

"Here, in my shade," methinks he'd say,
"The mighty stag at noontide lay;
The wolf I've seen, a fiercer game,
(The neighbouring dingle bears his name,)
With lurching step around me prowl,
And stop, against the moon to howl;
The mountain-boar, on battle set,
His tusks upon my stem would whet;
While doe, and roe, and red-deer good,
Have bounded by through gay green-wood.
Then oft, from Newark'st riven-tower,
Sallied a Scottish monarch's power:
A thousand vassals mustered round,
With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound;
And I might see the youth intent,
Guard every path with cross-bow bent;
And through the brake the rangers stalk,
And falc'ners hold the ready hawk;
And foresters, in green-wood trim,
Lead in the leash the gaze-hounds grim,
Attentive, as the bratchet'ss bay
From the dark covert drove the prey,
To slip them as he broke away.
The startled quarry bounds amain,
As fast the gallant greyhounds strain:
Whistles the arrow from the bow,
Answers the harquebuss below:
While all the rocking hills reply,
To hoof-clang, hound, and hunters' cry,
And bugles ringing lightsome.y.”-

Of such proud huntings, many tales
Yet linger in our lonely dales,

made of a warm stuff of diverse colours, which they call tartan: as for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of; their garters being bands or wreaths of hay, or straw; with a plaid about their shoulders; which is a mantle of diverse colours, much finer and lighter stuff than their hose: with blue flat caps on their heads; a handkerchief, knit with two knots, about their necks: and thus are they attired. Now their weapons are-long bowes and forked arrows, swords, and targets; harquebusses, muskets, durks, and Lochaber axes. With these arms I found many of them armed for the hunting. As for their attire, any man, of what degree soever, that comes amongst them, must not disdain to wear it; for if they do, then they will disdain to hunt, or willingly to bring in their dogs; but if men be kind unto them, and be in their habit, then are they conquered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful. This was the reason that I found so many noblemen and gentlemen in those shapes. But to proceed to the bunting:

My good lord of Marr having put me into that shape, I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruins of an old castle, called the castle of Kindroghit. It was built by King Malcolm Canmore. (for a hunting house,) who reigned in Scotland, when Edward the Confessor, Harold, and Norman William, reigned in England. I speak of it, because it was the last house I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days after, before I saw either house, cornfield, or habitation for any creature, but deer, wild horses, wolves, and such like creatures-which made me doubt that I should never have seen a house again.

"Thus, the first day, we travelled eight miles, where there were small cottages, built on purpose to lodge in, which they call Longunards. I thank my good Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be lodged in his lodging: the kitchen being always on the side of a bank: many kettles and pots boiling, and many spita turning and winding, with great variety of cheer,-as venison baked; sodden, rost, and stewed beef; mutton, goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridges, muir-coots, heathcocks, caperkellies, and termagants; good ale, sacke, white and claret, tent, (or allegant,) with most potent aquavitæ.

"All these, and more than these, we had continually in superfluous abundance, caught by falconers, fowlers, fishers, and brun-ht by my lord's tenants and purveyors to victual our camp, which consisteth of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of the hunting is this: Five or six hundred men do nee early in the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, eight, or ten miles' compass they do bring, or chase in the deer, in many herds, (two, three, or four hundred in a herd) to such or such a place as the noblemen shall appoint VOL. I.-2 W

Up pathless Ettrick, and on Yarrow,
Where erst the outlaw drew his arrow.ll
But not more blithe that sylvan court,
Than we have been at humbler sport;
Though small our pomp, and mean our gar
Our mirth, dear Marriott, was the same.
Remember'st thou my greyhounds true?
O'er holt, or hill, there never flew,
From slip, or leash, there never sprang,
More fleet of foot, or sure of fang.
Nor dull, between each merry chase,
Passed by the intermitted space;
For we had fair resource in store,
In Classic and in Gothic lore;
We marked each memorable scene,
And held poetic talk between;
Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along,
But had its legend or its song.
All silent now-for now are still
Thy bowers, untenanted Bowhill!T
No longer, from thy mountains dun,
The yeoman hears the well-known gun,
And, while his honest heart glows warm,
At thought of his paternal farm,
Round to his mates a brimmer fills,
And drinks, "The Chieftain of the hills!"
No fairy forms, in Yarrow's bowers,
Trip o'er the walks, or tend the flowers,
Fair as the elves whom Janet saw
By moonlight, dance on Carterhaugh;
No youthful Baron's left to grace
The forest-sheriff's lonely chase,
And ape, in manly step and tone,
The majesty of Oberon :**

And she is gone, whose lovely face
Is but her least and lowest grace;tt
Though if to Sylphid queen 'twere given,
To show our earth the charms of heaven,
She could not glide along the air,
With form more light, or face more fair.
No more the widow's deafened ear
Grows quick that lady's step to hear;
At noontide she expects her not,
Nor busies her to trim the cot:
Pensive she turns her humming wheel,
Or pensive cooks her orphan's meal;

them; then, when day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to the middles, through burns and rivers; and then, they boing come to the place, do lie down on the ground, till those aforesaid scouts, which are called the Tinkhell, do bring down the deer; but as the proverb says of a bad cook, so these tinkhellmen do lick their own fingers; for, besides their bows and arrows, which they carry with them, we can hear, now and then, a har quebuss or a musket go off, which they do seldom discharge in vain. Then, after we had staid there hree aours, or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us, (their heads making a show like a wood,) which, being followed close by the tinkhell, are chased down into the valley where we lay; then all the valley, on each side, being way-laid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are all let loose, as occasion serves, upon the herd of deer, that, with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain; which after are disposed of, some one way, and some another, twenty and thirty miles, and more than enough left for us to make merry withal, at our rendezvous.”

*["The second epistle opens again with chance and change but it cannot be denied that the mode in which it is introduced is new and poetical. The comparison of Ettrick Forest, now open and naked, with the state in which it once was-covered with wood, the favourite resort of the royal hunt, and the refuge of daring outlaws-leads the poet to imagine an ancient thorn gifted with the powers of reason, and relating the various scenes which it has witnessed during a period of three hundred years. A melancholy train of fancy is naturally encouraged by the idea." -Monthly Review.] + Mountain-ash.

[MS.-"How broad the ash his shadows flung, How to the rock the rowan clung."] [See Notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel.] $ Slowhound.

The tale of the outlaw Murray, who held out Newark Castle and Ettrick Forest against the king, may be found in the "Border Minstrelsy 31 In the Macfarlane MS., among other causes of James the Fifth's charter to the burgh of Selkirk, is mentioned, that the citizens assisted him to suppress this dangerous outlaw. TIA seat of the Duke of Buccleuch on the Yarrow, in Ettrick Forest. See Notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel.]

** [Mr. Marriott was governor to the young nobleman here alJuded to, George Henry, Lord Scott, son to Charles, Earl of Dalkeith, (afterwards Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry,) who died early, in 1808.]

The four next lines on Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith, afterwards Duchess of Buccleuch, were not in the original MS.}

Yet blesses, ere she deals their bread,
The gentle hand by which they're fed.

From Yair-which hills so closely bind,
Scarce can the Tweed his passage find,
Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil,
Till all his eddying currents boil,--
Her long-descended lord is gone,
And left us by the stream alone.
And much I miss those sportive boys,t
Companions of my mountain joys,
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
Close to my side with what delight,
They pressed to hear of Wallace wight,
When, pointing to his airy mound,
I called his ramparts holy ground!
Kindled their brows to hear me speak;
And I have smiled, to feel my check,
Despite the difference of our years,
Return again the glow of theirs.
Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure,
They will not, cannot long endure;
Condemned to stem the world's rude tide,
You may not linger by the side;
For fate shall thrust you from the shore,
And passion ply the sail and oar.§
Yet cherish the remembrance still,
Of the lone mountain, and the rill;
For trust, dear boys, the time will come,
When fiercer transports shall be dumb,
And you will think, right frequently,
But, well I hope, without a sigh,
On the free hours that we have spent,
Together, on the brown-hill's bent.

When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone,
Something, my friend, we yet may gain,-
There is a pleasure in this pain:
It soothes the love of lonely rest,

Deep in each gentler heart impressed.
'Tis silent, amid worldly toils,
And stifled soon by mental broils;
But, in a bosom thus prepared,
Its still small voice is often heard,
Whispering a mingled sentiment,
"Twixt resignation and content.
Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone St. Mary's silent lake;l

Thou know'st it well,- -nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;

And just a trace of silver sand¶

Marks where the water meets the land.

Far in the mirror, bright and blue,

Each hill's huge outline you may view ;**

[The late Alexander Pringle, Esq. of Whytbank-whose beautiful seat of the Yair stands on the Tweed, about two miles below Ashestiel, the then residence of the poet.]

[The sons of Mr. Pringle of Whytbank.]

Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine.
Yet e'en this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour;
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing concealed might lie;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,

Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell;
There's nothing left to fancy's guess,
You see that all is loneliness:

And silence aids-though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,tt
Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passions' strife,++
And fate had cut my ties to life,
Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton longed to spend his age.$$
"Twere sweet to mark the setting day
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died,

On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
To say,
Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and gray!
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruined tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the tempest brings,
"Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust
From company of holy dust;!!!

On which no sunbeam ever shines

(So superstition's creed divines,)

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,

Heave her broad billows to the shore;

And mark the wild swans mount the gale,

Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,¶¶ And ever stoop again, to lave

Their bosoms on the surging wave;

It

ated on the eastern side of the lake, to which it gives name. was injured by the clan of Scott, in a feud with the Cranstouns ; but continued to be a place of worship during the seventeenth century. The vestiges of the building can now scarcely be traced:

Near the lower extremity of the lake, are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned for his depredations, than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. The author well remembers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name. The words usually sung to the air of "Tweed side," beginning "What beauties does Flora disclose," were composed in her honour. ¶ [MS.—" At once upon the silent

silver brink;

And just a line of pebbly sand."] **[MS.-"Far traced upon the lake you view

The hills' sides and sombre hue."]

{bare

+ The chapel of St. Mary of the Lowes, (de lacubus) was situ

spot so very retired, has an uncommonly striking effect. The vestiges of the chaplain's house are yet visible. Being in a high situation, it commanded a full view of the lake, with the opposite mountain of Bourhope, belonging, with the lake itself, to Lord Napier. On the left hand is the tower of Dryhope, mentioned in a preceding note.

["A few of the lines which follow breathe as true a spirit of peace and repose, as even the simple strains of our venerable Walton."-Monthly Review.]

$$ ["And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heaven doth show,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain."-Il Penseroso } At one corner of the burial ground of the demolished chapel, but without its precincts, is a small mound called Binram's corse, where tradition deposits the remains of a necromantic priest, the former tenant of the chaplainry. His story much resembles that of Ambrosio in the "Monk," and has been made the theme of a ballad, by my friend Mr. James Hogg, more poetically designed the Ettrick Shepherd. To his volume entitled the "Mountain Bard," which contains this and many other legendary stories and ballads of great merit, I refer the curious reader.

TI [MS.-"Spread through broad mist their snowy sail."]

Then, when against the driving hail,
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire,
And light my lamp, and trim my fire;
There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,*
And, in the bittern's distant shriek,
I heard unearthly voices speak,

And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range

To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I cleared, t
And smiled to think that I had feared.

But chief, 'twere sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune's strife,)
Something most matchless, good, and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice;

And deem each hour, to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease
Such peaceful solitudes displease:
He loves to drown his bosom's jar
Amid the elemental war:

And my black Palmer's choice had been
Some ruder and more savage scene,

Like that which frowns round dark Loch-skene.t
There eagles scream from isle to shore;
Down all the rocks the torrents roar;
O'er the black waves incessant driven,
Dark mists infest the summer heaven;
Through the rude barriers of the lake,
Away its hurrying waters break,
Faster and whiter dash and curl,
Till down yon dark abyss they hurl.
Rises the fog-smoke white as snow,
Thunders the viewless stream below,
Diving, as if condemned to lave
Some demon's subterranean cave,
Who, prisoned by enchanter's spell,
Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell.
And well that Palmer's form and mein
Had suited with the stormy scene,
Just on the edge, straining his ken,
To view the bottom of the den,

Where, deep, deep, down, and far within,
Toils with the rocks the roaring linn:
Then, issuing forth one foamy wave,
And wheeling round the Giant's Grave,
White as the snowy charger's tail,
Drives down the pass of Moffatdale.

Marriott, thy harp, on Isis strung,
To many a Border theme has wrung:§
Then list to me, and thou shalt know
Of this mysterious man of wo.

CANTO SECOND.

THE CONVENT. I.

Tax breeze, which swept away the smoke,
Round Norham castle rolled,

[MS.-"Till fancy wild had all her sway."]
(MS.-"Till from the task my brain I clear'd."]

A mountain lake, of considerable size, at the head of the Mof fat water. The character of the scenery is uncommonly savage; and the earn, or Scottish eagle, has, for many ages, built its nest yearly upon an islet in the lake. Loch-skene discharges itself into a brook, which, after a short and precipitate course, falls from a cataract of immense height and gloomy grandeur, called, from its appearance, the "Grey Mare's Tail." The Giant's Grave," afterwards mentioned, is a sort of trench, which bears that name, a httle way from the foot of the cataract. It has the appearance of a battery designed to command the pass. $(See various ballads by Mr. Marriott, in the Border Minstrelsy.] The abbey of Whitby, in the Archdeaconry of Cleaveland, on the coast of Yorkshire, was founded A, D. 657, in consequence of a vow of Oswy, king of Northumberland. It contained both monks and nuns of the Benedictine order: but, contrary to what was usual in such establishments, the abbess was superior to the aboot. The monastery was afterwards ruined by the Danes, and rebuilded by William Percy in the reign of the conqueror. There were no nuns there in Henry the Eighth's time, nor long before t. The ruins of Whitby Abbey are very magnificent.

'Twas sweet to see these holy maids,
Like birds escaped to green-wood shades,
Their first flight from the cage,
How timid, and how curious too,
For all to them was strange and new,
And all the common sights they view,
Their wonderment engage.

One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail,
With many a benedicite ;

One at the rippling surge grew pale,
And would for terror pray;

Then shrieked, because the sea-dog, nigh,
His round black head, and sparkling eye,
Reared o'er the foaming spray ;

And one would still adjust her veil,
Disordered by the summer gale,
Perchance lest some more worldly eye
Her dedicated charms might spy;
Perchance, because such action graced
Her fair turned arm and slender waist.
Light was each simple bosom there,
Save two, who ill might pleasure share,-
The abbess, and the novice Clare.

III.

The abbess was of noble blood,
But early took the veil and hood,
Ere upon life she cast a look,

Or knew the world that she forsook.
Fair too, she was, and kind had been
As she was fair, but ne'er had seen
For her a timid lover sigh,

Nor knew the influence of her eye.
Love, to her ear, was but a name,
Combined with vanity and shame;
Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all
Bounded within the cloister wall:
The deadliest sin her mind could reach,
Was of monastic rule the breach;
And her ambition's highest aim,
To emulate Saint Hilda's fame.
For this she gave her ample dower,**
To raise the convent's eastern tower;
For this, with carving rare and quaint,
She decked the chapel of the saint,

Lindisfarn, an isle on the coast of Northumberland, was called Holy Island, from the sanctity of its ancient monastery, and from its having been the episcopal seat of the see of Durham during the early ages of British Christianity. A succession of holy men held that office: but their merits were swallowed up in the superior fame of St. Cuthbert, who was sixth bishop of Durham, and who bestowed the name of his "patrimony" upon the extensive property of the see. The ruins of the monastery upon Holy Island betoken great antiquity. The arches are, in general, strictly Saxon; and the pillars which support them, short, strong, and massy. In some places, however, there are pointed windows, which indicate that the building has been repaired at a period long subsequent to the original foundation. The exterior ornaments of the building being of a light sandy stone, have been wasted, as described in the text. Lindisfarn is not properly an island, but rather, as the venerable Bede has termed it, a semi-isle: for, although surrounded by the sea at full tide, the ebb leaves the sands dry between it and the opposite coast of Northumberland, from which it is about three miles distant. ** [MS.-"'Twas she that gave her ample dower... 'Twas she, with carving rare and quaint, Who deck'd the chapel of the saint."]

And gave the relique-shrine of cost,
With ivory and gems embossed.
The poor her convent's bounty blest,
The pilgrim in its halls found rest.

IV.

Black was her garb, her rigid rule
Reformed on Benedictine school;
Her cheek was pale, her form was spare:
Vigils, and penitence austere,

Had early quenched the light of youth,
But gentle was the dame in sooth;
Though, vain of her religious sway,
She loved to see her maids obey,.
Yet nothing stern was she in cell,
And the nuns loved their abbess well.
Sad was this voyage to the dame;
Summoned to Lindisfarne, she came,
There, with Saint Cuthbert's abbot old,
And Tynemouth's Prioress, to hold
A chapter of Saint Benedict,
For inquisition stern and strict,
On two apostates from the faith,
And, if need were, to doom to death.

V.

;

Nought say I here of sister Clare,
Save this, that she was young and fair
As yet a novice unprofessed,
Lovely and gentle, but distressed.
She was betrothed to one now dead,
Or worse, who had dishonoured fled.
Her kinsman bade her give her hand
To one, who loved her for her land;
Herself, almost heart-broken now,
Was bent to take the vestal vow,
And shroud, within Saint Hilda's gloom,
Her blasted hopes and withered bloom.
VI.

She sate upon the galley's prow,
And seemed to mark the waves below;
Nay, seemed, so fixed her look and eye,
To count them as they glided by.

She saw them not-'twas seeming all-
Far other scenes her thoughts recal,--
A sun-scorched desert, waste and bare,
Nor waves, nor breezes, murmured there;
There saw she, where some careless hand
O'er a dead corpse had heaped the sand,
To hide it till the jackalls come,
To tear it from the scanty tomb,-
See what a woful look was given,
As she raised up her eyes to heaven!

VII.

Lovely, and gentle, and distressed-
These charmis might tame the fiercest breast:
Harpers have sung, and poets told,
That he, in fury uncontrolled,

The shaggy monarch of the wood,
Before a virgin, fair and good,
Hath pacified his savage mood.
But passions in the human frame,

Oft put the lion's rage to shame;
And jealousy, by dark intrigue,
With sordid avarice in league,

Had practised, with her bowl and knife,
Against the mourner's harmless life.

This crime was charged 'gainst those who lay
Prisoned in Cuthbert's islet gray.

VIII.

And now the vessel skirts the strand
Of mountainous Northumberland;
Towns, towers, and halls successive rise,
And catch the nuns' delighted eyes.
Monk-Wearmouth soon behind them lay,
And Tynemouth's priory and bay:
They marked, amid her trees, the hall
Of lofty Seaton-Delaval;

They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods
Rush to the sea through sounding woods;
They past the tower of Widderington,*
Mother of many a valiant son;

[See the notes on Chevy Chase.-PERCY's Reliques.]

At Coquet-isle their beads they tell
To the good saint who owned the cell;
Then did the Alne attention claim,
And Warkworth, proud of Percy's name;
And next, they crossed themselves, to hear
The whitening breakers sound so near,
Where, boiling through the rocks, they roar
On Dunstanborough's caverned shore;

Thy tow'r, proud Bamborough, mark'd they there,
King Ida's castle, huge and square,
From its tall rock look grimly down,
And on the swelling ocean frown;
Then from the coast they bore away,
And reached the Holy Island's bay.

IX.

The tide did now its flood-mark gain,
And girdled in the Saint's domain:
For, with the flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle;
Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day,
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day, the waves efface
Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace.
As to the port the galley flew,
Higher and higher rose to view
The castle, with its battled walls,
The ancient monastery's halls,
A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile,
Placed on the margin of the isle.

X.

In Saxon strength that abbey frowned,
With massive arches broad and round,
That rose alternate, row and row,

On ponderous columns, short and low,
Built ere the art was known,

By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,
The arcades of an alleyed walk

To emulate in stone.

On the deep walls, the heathen Dane
Had poured his impious rage in vain;
And needful was such strength to these,
Exposed to the tempestuous seas,
Scourged by the wind's eternal sway,
Open to rovers fierce as they,

Which could twelve hundred years withstand
Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand.
Not but that portions of the pile,
Rebuilded in a later style,

Showed where the spoiler's hand had been ;

Not but the wasting sea-breeze keen
Had worn the pillar's carving quaint,
And mouldered in his niche the saint,
And rounded, with consuming power,
The pointed angles of each tower:
Yet still entire the abbey stood,
Like veteran, worn, but unsubdued,
XI.

Soon as they neared his turrets strong,
The maidens raised Saint Hilda's song,
And with the sea-wave and the wind,
Their voices, sweetly shrill, combined,
And made harmonious close;
Then, answering from the sandy shore,
Half-drowned amid the breakers' roar,
According chorus rose.

Down to the haven of the Isle,
The monks and nuns in order file,

From Cuthbert's cloisters grim;
Banner, and cross, and reliques there,
To meet Saint Hilda's maids, they bear;
And, as they caught the sounds on air,
They echoed back the hymn.
The islanders, in joyous mood,
Rushed emulously through the flood,
To hale the bark to land;
Conspicuous by her veil and hood,
Signing the cross, the abbess stood,
And blessed them with her hand.