1 The Summer sun, whose early power
Was wont to gild Matilda's bower,
And rouse her with his matin ray
Her duteous orisons to pay,-
That morning sun has three times seen
The flowers unfold on Rokeby green,
But sees no more the slumbers fly
From fair Matilda's hazel eye;
That morning sun has three times broke
On Rokeby's glades of elm and oak,
But, rising from their sylvan screen,
Marks no gray turrets glance between.
A shapeless mass lie keep and tower,
That, hissing to the morning shower,
Can but with smouldering vapour pay
The early smile of Summer day.
The peasant, to his labour bound,
Pauses to view the blacken'd mound,
Striving, amid the ruined space,
Each well-remembered spot to trace.
That length of frail and fire-scorched wall
Once screened the hospitable hall;
When yonder broken arch was whole,
"T was there was dealt the weekly dole;
And where yon tottering columns nod,
The chapel sent the hymn to God.—
So flits the world's uncertain
Nor zeal for God, nor love for man,
Gives mortal monuments a date
Beyond the power of Time and Fate.
The towers must share the builder's doom;
Ruin is theirs, and his a tomb:
But better boon benignant Heaven
To Faith and Charity has given,
And bids the Christian hope sublime
Transcend the bounds of Fate and Time.
2 Now the third night of Summer came,
Since that which witnessed Rokeby's flame.
On Brignall cliffs and Scargill brake
The owlet's homilies awake,
The bittern screamed from rush and flag,
The raven slumbered on his crag,
Forth from his den the otter drew,—
Grayling and trout their tyrant knew,
As between reed and sedge he peers,
With fierce round snout and sharpened
Or, prowling by the moonbeam cool,
Watches the stream or swims the pool;
Perched on his wonted eyrie high,
Sleep sealed the tercelet's wearied eye,
That all the day had watched so well
The cushat dart across the dell.
In dubious beam reflected shone
That lofty cliff of pale gray stone,
Beside whose base the secret cave
To rapine late a refuge gave.
The crag's wild crest of copse and
yew On Greta's breast dark shadows threw;
Shadows that met or shunned the sight,
With every change of fitful light;
As hope and fear alternate chase
Our course through life's uncertain race.
3 Gliding by crag and copsewood green, A solitary Form was seen
To trace with stealthy pace the wold,
Like fox that seeks the midnight fold,
And pauses oft, and cowers dismay'd,
At every breath that stirs the shade.
He passes now the ivy bush,-
The owl has seen him and is hush;
He passes now the doddered oak,
Ye heard the startled raven croak;
Lower and lower he descends,
Rustle the leaves, the brushwood bends;
The otter hears him tread the shore,
And dives, and is beheld no more;
And by the cliff of pale gray stone
The midnight wanderer stands alone.
Methinks, that by the moon we trace
A well-remembered form and face!
That stripling shape, that cheek so
pale,
Combine to tell a rueful tale,
Of powers misused, of passion's force,
Of guilt, of grief, and of remorse!
"T is Edmund's eye, at every sound
That flings that guilty glance around;
'Tis Edmund's trembling haste divides
The brushwood that the cavern hides;
And, when its narrow porch lies bare,
'Tis Edmund's form that enters there.
4 His flint and steel have sparkled bright,
A lamp hath lent the cavern light.
Fearful and quick his eye surveys
Each angle of the gloomy maze.
Since last he left that stern abode,
It seemed as none its floor had trode;
Untouched appeared the various spoil,
The purchase of his comrades' toil;
Masks and disguises grimed with mud,
Arms broken and defiled with blood,
And all the nameless tools that aid
Night-felons in their lawless trade,
Upon the gloomy walls were hung,
Or lay in nooks obscurely flung.
Still on the sordid board appear
The relics of the noontide cheer;
Flagons and emptied flasks were there,
And bench o'erthrown, and shattered
chair;
And all around the semblance showed,
As when the final revel glowed,
When the red sun was setting fast,
And parting pledge Guy Denzil pass'd.
'To Rokeby treasure-vaults!' they quaffed,
And shouted loud and wildly laughed,
Poured maddening from the rocky door,
And parted-to return no more!
They found in Rokeby vaults their doom,—
A bloody death, a burning tomb!
5 There his own peasant dress he spies,
Doffed to assume that quaint disguise,
And, shuddering, thought upon his glee,
When pranked in garb of minstrelsy.
'Oh, be the fatal art accursed,'
He cried, 'that moved my folly first,
Till, bribed by bandits' base applause,
I burst through God's and Nature's laws!
Three Summer days are scantly past
Since I have trod this cavern last,
A thoughtless wretch, and prompt to err,-
But, oh, as yet no murderer!
Even now I list my comrades' cheer,
That general laugh is in mine ear,
Which raised my pulse and steeled my heart,
As I rehearsed my treacherous part—
And would that all since then could seem
The phantom of a fever's dream!
But fatal Memory notes too well
The horrors of the dying yell,
From my despairing mates that broke,
When flashed the fire and rolled the smoke;
When the avengers shouting came,
And hemmed us 'twixt the sword and
flame!
My frantic flight, the lifted brand-
That angel's interposing hand!-
If, for my life from slaughter freed,
I yet could pay some grateful meed!
Perchance this object of my quest
May aid' he turned, nor spoke the rest.
6 Due northward from the rugged hearth,
With paces five he metes the earth,
Then toiled with mattock to explore
The entrails of the cavern floor,
Nor paused till, deep beneath the ground,
His search a small steel casket found.
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