Would they had tongues the deeds of yore to tell,

What pageants sported in their mid-day sun;
What knight who in the lists could all excel,
The envied laurel wreath of victory won.

How changed is the fcene fince lords and ladies

gay lived and loved, and wooed and smiled, within those embattled walls—

All ruined and wild is their roofless abode,

And lonely the dark ravens' sheltering tree;
And travelled by few is the grass-covered road,
Where the hunter of deer, and the warrior trode,
To his hills that encircle the sea.

From Grongar hill Dyer faw this charm of English scenery

Gaudy as the opening dawn

Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,

His sides are clothed with waving wood;
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an ample look below;
Whose rugged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps.

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruin, moss, and weeds.
While ever and anon there falls

Huge heaps of hoary mouldered walls.

Let us endeavour, with the aid of Sir Walter Scott, to realize the picture of one of our old castles in the height of its lordly

profperity. We felect one of the most famous of the border

caftles of our country.

Day set on Norham's castled steep,

And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,

And Cheviot's mountains lone :
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates, where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,

In yellow lustre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seem'd forms of giant height:
Their armour as it caught the rays
Flash'd back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.

St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray,

Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the Donjon Tower,

So heavily it hung.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barr'd;

Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,

The warder kept his guard;
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border gathering song.

A distant trampling sound he hears;
He looks abroad, and soon appears,
O'er Horncliff-hill, a plump of spears
Beneath a pennon gay;

A horseman darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade
That loosed the Castle barricade,

His bugle horn he blew;

The warder hasted from the wall,
And warn'd the captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call,
To sewer, squire, and seneschal :

"Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe,

And quickly make the entrance free,
And bid my heralds ready be,

And every minstrel sound his glee,
And all our trumpets blow;

And from the platform, spare ye not
To fire a noble salvo-shot;

Lord Marmion waits below!"

Then to the Castle's lower ward

Sped forty yeomen tall,

The iron-studded gates unbarr'd,

Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard,

The lofty palisade unsparr'd,

And let the drawbridge fall.

And there we leave the bold Marmion to the welcome provided for him.

Charles Knight tells of other duties and occupations befides those of war, and pastime, and feasting, in which the lordly tenants