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 Echoes of 
 
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 ECHOES 
 
 OF 
 
 OLD CUMBERLAND, 
 
 POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY POWLEY. 
 
 LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS 
 CARLISLE: G. & T. COWARD. 
 
 MDCCCLXXV.
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This Volume is inscribed to the People of Cum- 
 berland and of Westmorland, to whom it may be 
 of most interest; in the hope that the endeavour 
 to preserve a picUire of local scenes, and in either 
 County, a record of habits and customs which are 
 passing away from us, will be a better apology for 
 its publication, than the request of friends ; or die 
 wish that these, the recreations of many years, may 
 entitle the Writer to a kind remembrance. 
 
 Several of the earlier Pieces have appeared many 
 years ago, in local Periodicals ; others more lately, 
 
 807S70
 
 IV. 
 
 anonymously, except in one instance. Many left 
 unfinished for years, are given with trifling additions, 
 and nearly in the order of their composition. Some 
 were written to preserve in remembrance, and in 
 their proper connection, expressive old words which 
 seemed then in danger of being lost ; because they 
 belong to a district less fortunate in collectors and 
 illustrators than the North or West of Cumberland. 
 And explanations are offered of such words, or 
 allusions, as may render the sense less generally 
 intelligible. A date with a title indicates the time 
 to which the description refers ; a date at the foot, 
 is that of composition. 
 
 Langwathby, 
 
 March, 1875.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Address to Cross-Fell . . . . j 
 
 A Mother's Influence ----- 7 
 
 Memory and Grief - - - - - 13 
 
 Kilspindie ; or, The King's Revenge - - - 16 
 
 Langanbye ------ 24 
 
 The Gleaner ------ 31 
 
 Brough Hill before Railroads - - - - 35 
 
 " And this also shall pass away " - - - 41 
 
 Solon ------- 44 
 
 Easter Day in Countiy Churches in Cumberland - 47 
 
 The Petrified Forest, near Grand Cairo - - 50 
 
 The Pass of the Icebergs - - - - 54 
 
 On an Ancient Grave - - - - "59 
 
 Invocation to Patience - - - - 64 
 
 England, the Meadow Land - - - - 67 
 
 The Woman of Mind. A Parody - - - 71 
 To Penrith Beacon - - - - -75
 
 VI. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 Friends ------ 8i 
 
 To the Pack-Horse Bell of Hartside - - - 85 
 
 The Dove ------ 92 
 
 The Moor — Enclosed - - - - - 94 
 
 Eden ---.... 98 
 
 To the Steam-Plough m Caitliness - - - 100 
 
 To my Purple Beeches - - - - 102 
 
 Summer ...... jq^ 
 
 A Tale of late October - - - - 108 
 
 The Funeral Psalm - - - - - 112 
 
 The Heaf on the Fell - ■ - - 114 
 
 Eden's Story - - - - - - 120 
 
 Waiting for the Day - - - - - 125 
 
 The Last Tree of Ingle wood Forest - - - 127 
 
 The Welcome East- Wind - - - - 132 
 
 An Incident of Emigration - - - - 134 
 
 Dialect - - - - - - 135 
 
 Difference of Opinion about our Mudder Tongue - 139 
 
 " I niver rued but yence " .... j^^ 
 
 Cumberland Thanksgiving Song - - - 145 
 
 The Brokken Statesman - - - - 148 
 
 " To see oursels as ithers see us " - - - 152 
 
 Translations - - - - - 154 
 
 Elsinore (Danish) - - 155 
 
 Tycho Brahe's Farewell do. - - icg
 
 Vll. 
 
 Uranienborg 
 
 (Danish) 
 
 The Thorn Hedge 
 
 do. 
 
 Jutland 
 
 do. 
 
 Zealand 
 
 do. 
 
 Langeland 
 
 do. 
 
 Home-Longing 
 
 do. 
 
 Fatherland's Song 
 
 do. 
 
 Soro 
 
 do. 
 
 Frederiksborg 
 
 do. 
 
 The Broken Ray 
 
 do. 
 
 Evenuig Song 
 
 do. 
 
 Northern Song 
 
 do. 
 
 On Mcen's Rock 
 
 do. 
 
 Spring Song 
 
 do. 
 
 The Smithy of Heligoland 
 
 do. 
 
 Holger Danske 
 
 do. 
 
 Sceren Nordby 
 
 do. 
 
 The Danish Soldier 
 
 do. 
 
 Monument and Boundary Stone 
 
 ! do. 
 
 Sceborg 
 
 do. 
 
 The Grave-Digger 
 
 (German) 
 
 Alexander Ypsilanti, at Munkacs do. 
 My Wish do. 
 
 The Grave in Busento do. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i6i 
 166 
 167 
 170 
 172 
 177 
 181 
 
 183 
 186 
 
 189 
 191 
 194 
 197 
 201 
 203 
 207 
 214 
 218 
 223 
 225 
 228 
 231 
 
 234 
 238 
 
 Relph. 1 71 2 — 1743 
 
 241
 
 ADDRESS TO CROSS-FELL. 
 
 ROSS-FELL ! Confederate of the storm, 
 Grey monarch of the mountain range ! 
 Calmly for ever towers thy form 
 Above this atmosphere of change ; 
 And ever, as our footsteps turn, 
 Seems watching o'er their homeward bourne. 
 
 Though fells our b'eak horizon close, 
 And hills o'er hills above us peer ; 
 
 To thee alone our valley owes 
 
 Tribute of dread, O, mount austere ! 
 
 And notes thy signs of gloom or grace 
 
 As subjects watch their tyrant's face. 
 
 Thou treasurest up the streaky snows. 
 
 In wintry thrift pre-eminent, 
 And oft where Spring's soft verdure glows, 
 
 In lowly vales, thy blasts are sent. 
 And when the harvest-time is near, 
 Thy menace puts the land in fear. 
 
 1
 
 ADDRESS TO CROSS-FELL. 
 
 Oft wild winds break their shadowy band, 
 And through the vales thy storm-voice thrills, 
 
 And shivering — foodless — patient — stand 
 " The cattle on a thousand hills ; " 
 
 While hissing sleet, or hurtling hail 
 
 Are downward driven upon the gale. 
 
 Old prostrate trees and scattered com, 
 
 Spring-showers of leaves, like Autumn's, shed ; 
 
 And severed branches, tempest-borne. 
 And drifted snow, o'er pit-falls spread. 
 
 The withered herb, the roofless cot, — 
 
 Can thy storm-trophies be forgot ? 
 
 Yet, wizard fell ! while o'er the land 
 
 From thy veiled brow the shadows lour, 
 
 Oft have we climbed the height, to stand 
 Within the circle of thy power. 
 
 And almost with our childhood's wonder, 
 
 List to its dread continuous thunder. 
 
 Our earliest vision met thy form. 
 
 Old Atlas of the Eastern sky ! 
 Our ear in childhood knew the storm. 
 
 Whose billowy voice roared wild on high, 
 And where those mighty winds were furled 
 Seemed then the boundary of the world.
 
 ADDRESS TO CROSS-FELL. 
 
 We love thy smiles, as children love 
 Th' unbending of their warrior sire ; 
 
 And e'en thy hostile panoply 
 
 And helm, by fancy's light admire ; 
 
 And climb thy skirts, or clutch thy crown, 
 
 Without the fear to meet thy frown. 
 
 Rise, veteran blast ! unshorn in power, 
 With memory's fragrance on thy wings ; 
 
 Thy fierce assault — thy deafening roar — 
 The garb that, fluttering, closer clings,— 
 
 Not sweetest gales of Araby, 
 
 Could bring such precious spells to me. 
 
 Our Pagan fathers wond'ring stood 
 
 As rose, 'mid calm thy tempest's wrath ; 
 
 Or when their stalwart strength was bowed 
 As some fierce whirlwind barred their path ; 
 
 While reigned around mysterious gloom, 
 
 And far was heard its thunder-boom. 
 
 They dreamed of wild unearthly forms. 
 Haunting thy lone and lofty brow ; 
 
 Pouring their demon-rage in storms 
 Upon the western vales below. 
 
 And when thy orient helm appeared, 
 
 The present fiend our fathers feared.
 
 ADDRESS TO CROSS-FELL. 
 
 Dark ages passed : and on our land 
 The Day-spring from the east arose ; 
 
 And holy men, a zealous band, 
 
 God's word to demon might oppose f' 
 
 And raise the Christian standard here, 
 
 With rite of exorcism, and prayer. 
 
 How beautiful, on this stern pile. 
 The feet of him of old who sought. 
 
 And to our lone and desert isle 
 
 Glad tidings of Redemption brought ! 
 
 And here, perchance, we press the sod 
 
 Those apostolic feet have trod. 
 
 Thy slopes are green, thy cloudless brow 
 Where winds the sheep's, or shepherd's path, 
 
 Retains nor saintly traces now. 
 Nor vestige of the demon's wrath ; 
 
 And whether reared of wood or stone, 
 
 Augustine's cross, can ne'er be known. 
 
 * A local legendary tradition ascribes the expulsion of the 
 Demons of the storms from "the Fiends' Fell," to Augustine 
 and his forty followers, who, in the course of their missionary 
 labours in these parts, erected upon the hill in question, a 
 cross, from which it is said since to have been called Cross- 
 Fell. — See Hodgson'' s Noi'thumberland.
 
 ADDRESS TO CROSS-FELL. 
 
 And since those men of days remote, 
 O, ^\^ld and seldom-trodden fell ! 
 
 Shepherds alone thy heights have sought, 
 And thou hast kept thy secrets well. 
 
 Though, fain Philosophy would trace. 
 
 Thy howling Helm-wind's nursing place. 
 
 Save that in long, bright summer days. 
 When springs are low, and winds are still, 
 
 And Natiu-e's pilgrims climb, to gaze 
 From each lone peak, and lofty hill ; 
 
 Glad troops of friends have often tried. 
 
 Who first should scale thy slippery side. 
 
 And oft the sheep, below that seem 
 Like stars in heaven, or ships at sea, 
 
 Stirless^ — apart — as in a dream. 
 Images of tranquillity ; 
 
 Fly their lone spring and tender grass. 
 
 While troops of laughing gypsies pass. 
 
 And seldom shall the young and fair. 
 E'en where earth's varied beauties meet, 
 
 Find loveliness that may compare 
 With the bright scene around thy feet. 
 
 O'er which the gathered spells of time 
 
 Have cast their witchery sublime.
 
 ADDRESS TO CROSS-FELL. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Cross-fell is the highest point of that range which the 
 Romans called Alpes Penine- — sometimes called by courtesy 
 the British Appenines, and in more homely language "the 
 back-bone of England." This chain extends from near the 
 Scottish Border (dividing Cumberland from Northumberland, 
 and Westmorland from Yorkshire,) into the heart of the 
 kingdom. The Helm-wind peculiar to this fell has been the 
 subject of much discussion, but philosophers are not yet 
 agreed as to its causes, or rather, as to the manner of their 
 operation. This wind often rises when the sky is clear and 
 the atmosphere perfectly calm, but it is always preceded by a 
 white cloud over the summit of Cross-fell, fancifully called 
 "the Helm.'" In a few minutes this cloud may have ex- 
 tended itself over the entire outline of the fells for the space 
 of five or six miles north and south of Cross-fell : a gloom 
 seems to hang over the country, an^ the wind blows from 
 the east — often with tremendous fury, and a sublime roar, 
 resembling that of a stormy sea. The Helm-wind prevails 
 frequently during the spring months, and much retards vege- 
 tation in the vales immediately below Cross-fell ; and its 
 influence is felt, though its force is proportionally mitigated, 
 at a distance of six or eight miles. Nine days is held to be 
 the usual period of its continuance at one time.
 
 A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE. 
 
 ' ' Train up a child in the way he should go ; and when he 
 is old he will not depart from it." — Solomon. 
 
 A Mother's influence ! what can bound 
 
 Its wide extent, its depth profound ? 
 
 On Life's parched track, though lost to view, 
 
 Its power survives ; as morning dew 
 
 To herbs suppHes, 'neath summer's sway, 
 
 Strength to endure the fervid day. 
 
 E'en in those hours of soft repose 
 
 The infant pilgrim dimly knows, 
 
 ^Vhen angel-whispers light the smile 
 
 That brightens o'er its fece the while, 
 
 As poets sing, — might love not deem 
 
 Its mother's image prompts the dream ? 
 
 Some dim mysterious consciousness 
 
 Of kindred love and watchfulness, 
 
 Ever at hand to soothe, to bless ? 
 
 And with the faint perceptive ray 
 
 That brightens into Reason's day. 
 
 Through childhood's careless simny hours, 
 
 Its life of glee, its path of flowers.
 
 A mother's influence. 
 
 The Christian Mother's influence 
 
 Shall link with each awakening sense, 
 
 That greets with wonder, awe, or love, 
 
 The opening world, a world above ; 
 
 By thousand apt analogies. 
 
 In Wisdom's path that daily rise. 
 
 That Power Supreme, whose word " Be light !" 
 
 Kindled that sun so wondrous bright^ 
 
 Each morn recalls ; each fading day, 
 
 Wlien rises many a fainter ray ; 
 
 The roving moon, and far and lone. 
 
 Stars ever changeless, shining on. 
 
 E'en outer darkness, childhood's dread, 
 
 "When beauty to its sense, seems dead ; 
 
 Save by the hearth which brightly bums. 
 
 Save in those eyes to which it turns. 
 
 That Power that caused the streams to flow, 
 
 Taught trees to wave, and flowers to blow, 
 
 Which gives to all of life the breath. 
 
 Resumes the gift, and this is — Death. 
 
 That Mercy whose regard divine 
 
 On little children deigned to shine, 
 
 ^^^lo blessed, and bade them all draw near, 
 
 And still their lisping prayers will hear ; 
 
 That Justice whose all-seeing eye 
 
 A little child's deceit can spy, — 
 
 Are linked in thought, a precious store. 
 
 With childhood's ne'er forgotten lore • 
 
 With birds and flowers and all things bright. 
 
 Springs of its ever fresh delight ;
 
 A mother's influence. 9 
 
 \\'ith all familiar things, or strange ; 
 
 With Time's, and Youth's, and Seasons' change. 
 
 So fall a Mother's accents bland, 
 So rears and twines her skilful hand, 
 ^\^lile flexile yet, with tender ease 
 The heart's soft sensibilities. 
 With many an amaranthine flower, 
 With stems of firm perenniel power ; 
 Or sows 'neath vernal skies of youth, 
 In human plots of genial mould. 
 Seed that may yield a thousand fold 
 Of bright and heaven-aspiring Truth. 
 
 Those days are o'er — the youth departs 
 From home's pure joys, and loving hearts ; 
 But first, he strays, with lingering sadness, 
 Through many a scene of childish gladness ; 
 Winds with the brook, his playmate oft. 
 Through many a dell and flowery croft, 
 Where, idly angling, he would pass 
 The truant hours ; or on the grass. 
 In summer's sunshine wont to bask. 
 Conning some lesson — scarce a task ; 
 Or with his brothers, in their glee, 
 Half drowned the wild brook's melody, 
 Or 'mid its brawling current played, 
 Or slept beneath its hazel-shade : 
 Lingers in bowers his sisters loved, 
 And alleys where, their sport, he roved. 
 In long bright days, amid the flowers ; 
 A memory for life's darkest hours.
 
 10 A mother's influence. 
 
 The walks his mother loved to tread, 
 And where his tottering steps she led, 
 And spoke those words, whose echoes still 
 The chambers of his soul shall fill. 
 The hearth her gentle eye illumed. 
 When fireside joys most sweetly bloomed ; 
 And where, his father's cares unbended, 
 The sire was with the playmate blended ; 
 That hearth where he was wont to glean, 
 At social wisdom's feast serene ; 
 And where the Sacred Word was taught, 
 And youth was trained to solemn thought. 
 He views with lingering filial glance 
 His native landscape's wide expanse ; 
 But dares not lift his eyes to trace 
 The parting grief on each loved face ; 
 Yet struggling rebel tears belie 
 His outward show of apathy. 
 But in the light which hope bestows, 
 He silent parts — and forth he goes. 
 With man's resolve — the world to brave ; 
 And, by the might of blessings poured. 
 And grace, by fervent prayer implored. 
 The world shall ne'er his soul enslave ! 
 Oh, happy youth ! the favoured heir 
 Of earth's least earthly love and care ! 
 No chequered lot, no distant clime, 
 Nor gold, nor grief, nor gnawing time, 
 Shall disunite the links thus tied 
 By her, his spirit's faithful guide.
 
 A mother's influence. 11 
 
 Nature's fair face is ever fraught 
 
 With holy harmonies she taught. 
 
 Summer's deep noon, in leafy bower, 
 
 And moonlight's solemn softening power ; 
 
 And twilight's calm, but social gloom, 
 
 WTien thought o'er vanished scenes will roam : 
 
 Those hours restore, in lands afar, 
 
 The form that was his childhood's star ; 
 
 And though that form in death be still — 
 
 And dark those eyes love once did liU, 
 
 Its influence is ever bright, 
 
 Her smile is with him in the light; 
 
 Is beaming to confirm — assure 
 
 In whatsoever things are pure ; 
 
 Restraining might is in her tears, 
 
 A chastening woe her image wears, 
 
 '\^'^len folly tempts, or sin would blot 
 
 The purity of early thought. 
 
 ^^'as all for this — the vigils kept. 
 
 The tears shed o'er him while he slept, 
 
 Her heavenly hopes, and earthly fears. 
 
 Her living love, and dying prayers ? 
 
 No ! still that hallowed memory. 
 
 Through all vicissitudes, shall be 
 
 Unto her child, in after time. 
 
 An amulet 'gainst woe or crime. 
 
 O'er the low tombstone, graven deep, 
 Rank weeds and russet lichens creep. 
 And yet though sore defaced to view, 
 Beneath, th' inscription still is true.
 
 12 A mother's influence. 
 
 So characters, by love first traced, 
 
 E'en Time's rough hand hath not effaced ; 
 
 His Mother's image ne'er shall part ; 
 
 Her monument is in his heart. 
 
 O'ergrown and gray with worldly cares, 
 
 Cumbered with twining hopes and fears ; 
 
 Yet when Mortality shall clear 
 
 From earthly stains the record there ; 
 
 Beneath th' accumulated heap, 
 
 None shall be found so true, so deep ; 
 
 His closing tomb reflects the ray, 
 
 That o'er his cradle wont to play. 
 
 And faith, and peace the world ne'er gave, 
 
 Of its dark terrors rob the grave. 
 
 But, lightly o'er his ashes tread. 
 Whose steps no pious Mother led : 
 Upon whose spirit's gloomy da^vn 
 No load-star of affection shone. 
 To guide his soul to Mercy's throne. 
 Uncheer'd oft, by such hope or aid, 
 Through Life's dark maze he downward strayed. 
 And guilt and woe, with fearful weight, 
 His dismal doom accelerate ; 
 Nor radiant hope, nor heavenward trust. 
 May check the tears that kindred shed 
 For him — the lost — the early dead — 
 Like that which beams above the dust, 
 And cheers the mourners of the just.
 
 13 
 
 MEMORY AND GRIEF. 
 
 Our Northern Sires, unskilled in Art, 
 But in the might of Nature strong ; 
 
 Of iron frame, and earnest heart, 
 
 Full rudely poured their thoughts along, 
 
 Yet aptly wont, of old to name 
 
 Remembrance, Thought and Grief the same.* 
 
 As summer's lightest breeze steals by, 
 The thistles' down its course will show ; 
 
 As scents reveal where violets lie ; 
 Or, footprints, wanderers in the snow. 
 
 And so this word, at random caught, 
 Seems but the echo of a thought. 
 
 These men of Odin's creed of blood. 
 
 The troublers of the olden time. 
 Of desperate valour — stem of mood — 
 
 War their religion — peace a crime, — 
 Had then the lore with years we buy, 
 They knew that "memory is a sigh." 
 
 * The same Saxon word, mcenan, which means to express 
 grief, means also "to think," to remember.
 
 14 MEMORY AND GRIEF, 
 
 The Strife and death their warriors sought, 
 Their pageants, conquests — Fame retains ; 
 
 And of their inner Hfe and lot, 
 
 This trace in Northern speech remains. 
 
 And now, a vision o'er me steals. 
 
 Of old heart -griefs this word reveals. 
 
 Such breasts in human mould were cast, 
 Of human woes endured the smart ; 
 
 And, haply, pondering o'er the past, 
 A poet's, or a woman's heart. 
 
 With insight deep, and utterance brief, 
 
 First linked together Thought and Grief 
 
 Or, some gaunt warrior, left to wait 
 
 In age and impotence, the grave ; 
 Whose sons had reached, through slaughter's gate. 
 
 The high Valhalla of the Brave, 
 Unconscious of its two-fold chain. 
 Might so have breathed his spirit's pain. 
 
 Stern Death, where kindred ties entwined. 
 As now, then severed — partings wrung— 
 
 Falsehood betrayed — and Love dechned — 
 Hopes faded — and Disease unstrung 
 
 The harp in whose sad quivering tone 
 
 Sorrow and Memory were one.
 
 MEMORY AND GRIEF. 15 
 
 Ages have passed. And though we scorn 
 The rude and uncouth Saxon tongue ; 
 
 And deem of riper time is born 
 
 This thought — the theme of many a song ; 
 
 No later poetry can reach 
 
 Beyond this Gothic truth of speech. 
 
 And all that ages since have taught, 
 Of varied terms— of polished Art, 
 
 Have failed to sever in our thought, 
 These old partakers of the heart ; 
 
 And Truth and Feeling still would name 
 
 Remembrance and Regret the same. 
 
 An After-Thought. 
 
 Yet, lingerer o'er thy fancies sad ! 
 
 Find'st thou not joy in memory too? 
 Mercies and gifts to make thee glad, 
 
 Such as thy fathers never knew ? 
 And heedless — thankless, would'st thou name 
 The Christian's thought and grief the same ?
 
 16 
 
 KILSPINDIE; 
 OR, THE KING'S REVENGE. 
 
 A HISTORICAL BALLAD. 
 
 The following ballad refers to that period of Scottish 
 history during which James V. exercised such unrelenting 
 severity, and so effectually humbled the pride of his nobles ; 
 among whom, those of the house of Douglas in particular 
 felt his revenge, for their ambitious encroachments on the 
 royal privileges, and for the personal restraints imposed on 
 himself during his minority, by the head of their house, the 
 Earl of Angus. 
 
 In Scotia's stormy days of yore, 
 When civil discord raged sore, 
 
 And chiefs their king defied ; 
 And Douglas, crafty, stern, and bold. 
 Beyond his sovereign's power, controlled 
 
 The eastern border vAde. 
 
 King James, like a furious steed, no more 
 Will brook the curb of his noble's power, 
 
 Nor a subject's thrall wall be : 
 Angus is hurled from his pride of place, 
 And banishment to all his race 
 
 Is the monarch's stern decree.
 
 KILSPINDIE. 17 
 
 As his native hills in the storm stood fast, 
 As Tantallon's towers repelled the blast, 
 
 So the haughty Angus stood ; 
 And long, when the gathering cry was heard 
 Of " Douglas" — as weak was the monarch's word, 
 
 As his who would bind the flood. 
 
 And fierce and dark waxed the royal gloom, 
 With the earl's resistance to his doom. 
 
 Which fraud at last o'ercame. 
 But an oath the fiery monarch swore — 
 " Henceforth, no Douglas serves us more ! " — 
 
 And he sternly kept the same. 
 
 Bright shone the sun on Stirling's towers ; 
 His beams had dried, in its pleasaunce bowers 
 
 The dews of morning sheen. 
 The royal pile seemed throned in air. 
 Beneath lay the valley wide and fair. 
 And the Forth wound, brightly devious, there, 
 
 As loth to leave the scene. 
 
 The forest wore its brightest shades ; 
 The deer were browsing in the glades 
 
 Of Stirling's sylvan park ; 
 All round was Nature's richest grace. 
 And where the sun declined his race. 
 In contrast strong, the eye might trace 
 
 Benlomond's outline dark. 
 
 2
 
 18 KILSPINDIE. 
 
 And, nursed 'mid Campsie's southern hills, 
 Came their bright meed of sparkling rills, 
 
 To swell the widening Forth ; 
 Far east, Dun Edin's towers were seen, 
 And, sweeping round, the Grampian screen 
 
 Fenc'd out the chilling north. 
 
 And the king and his nobles from hunting passed. 
 With sylvan pomp and bugle blast, 
 
 With a proud earth-shaking tread. 
 O, who could dream of woe or care 
 In that pageant gay, that scene so fair? 
 That passions dark were monarchs there. 
 
 And its living bloom o'erspread ? 
 
 Yet one with fainting step and slow. 
 With ^vl■inkled brow, and locks of snow. 
 
 Comes o'er the green expanse ; 
 His foreign weeds bear many a stain, 
 And he seems to writhe with inward pain. 
 As he halts to see the gorgeous train 
 
 To Stirling's pile advance. 
 
 Kilspindie, of the Douglas race. 
 Renowned for courtesy and grace. 
 
 In his monarch's sports had shared, 
 And the king in boyhood loved him well ; 
 Of his manly feats each knight could tell. 
 Ere the lightning stroke on Douglas fell. 
 
 That none of his name had spared.
 
 KILSPINDIE. 19 
 
 And now, long years of exile past, 
 The grey-haired man had come at last. 
 
 By a desperate impulse led, 
 To sue for his sovereign's clemency — 
 To die, if such his will might be ; 
 But again, whate'er the penalty, 
 
 His o\Yn loved hills to tread. 
 
 And oft from his lip pleased murmurs came, 
 And his eye seemed lit with youthful flame, 
 
 As it fell on the vale beneath ; 
 No foreign scene had claimed such glance. 
 Nor streams had seemed, in sunny France, 
 So bright as those which ever dance 
 
 Round his native hills of heath. 
 
 His home-sick sense had lightly scanned 
 The fairest scenes in the southern land. 
 
 In whose wars his blood he had poured. 
 And he knew how proudly the warrior dares, 
 For his native land, and the name he bears, 
 Compared with him who bravely wears 
 
 A mercenary sword. 
 
 And as with his form remembrance woke, 
 " Ho ! — yonder is my Greystiel ! " broke 
 From the lips of the gallant king.* 
 
 *" Archibald Douglas, of Kilspindie, was placed by the 
 Earl of Angus about the person of the king, who when a boy 
 loved him much for his expertness in manly exercises, and 
 was wont to call him his Greysteil, from the name of a 
 champion of chivalry in the romance of Sir Eger and Sir 
 Grime. " — Godscroft.
 
 20 KILSPINDIE. 
 
 That sound of the past seemed eloquent ; 
 But the flash is not more quickly spent, 
 That through ocean's treasure caves is sent, 
 By the lightning's gleaming \vmg. 
 
 Had the name his boyish sport conferred 
 No fresh and kindly feelings stirred ? 
 
 Nor could the king recall, 
 How oft in his boyhood's wayward hour 
 That name was a spell of enlivening power ; — 
 As the shepherd's strains, when clouds would lour 
 
 O'er the darkened mind of Saul ? 
 
 Or lives the bard, though thrice a king, 
 "Whose memory doth not fondest cling 
 
 To the friends and the sports of old ? 
 If such love in King James' heart had place. 
 It was choked by hate of the Douglas race ; 
 For he made no sign, nor slacked his pace, — 
 
 And his glance was stem and cold. 
 
 As the aged man knelt down in his path, 
 And strove to turn away his wrath ; 
 
 And with an exile's agony. 
 Whose heart the worst of woes had braved, 
 A life obscure and lone he craved, 
 
 Or a grave in Scotland free.
 
 KILSPINDIE. 21 
 
 But the iron-hearted king rode on, 
 Stem and unanswering to the tone 
 
 Once dear, — but now wild and hoarse ; 
 As, " Pardon ! gracious king ! " he cried, 
 " Thy scourge hath humbled the Douglas pride ! 
 Let thy wrath on his blood no more abide — 
 
 From his name remove thy curse. 
 
 " I bring not the arm of might which served 
 My king, from whom my heart ne'er swerved 
 
 In dire calamity, — - 
 And if now that heart could falsehood dare, 
 This nerveless arm no part would bear. 
 
 Against thy realm or thee. 
 
 " Oh, sire ! if thy native land is dear. 
 If the plaint of misery pain thine ear, 
 
 Remit this fearful doom ! 
 'Neath the tempest that another sowed, 
 My heart is withered, my strength is bowed, 
 
 And my days draw near the tomb ! 
 
 " All earthly hopes have left my breast, 
 But my sluggish heart still yearns to rest 
 
 In the lap of my country fair. 
 Oh, king ! by the memory of days long fled, — 
 By the blood which my sires for thine have shed, 
 By the crown of the just on thy royal head, — 
 
 Spurn not an old man's prayer ! "
 
 22 KILSPINDIE. 
 
 But ever on the proud king went, 
 Up Stirling's castle-crowned ascent, 
 
 And his steed the faster spurred ; 
 And the old man kept an equal pace, 
 Though links of steel his form encase ; — 
 But his chief of yore here found more grace, 
 
 Who died by his monarch's sword.* 
 
 Oh, Chivalry ! it ne'er was thine. 
 Fetters for age or grief to t^vine ; 
 
 And thou, the monarch's boast, 
 'Mid passion's storm was dimmed thy beam. 
 Which knightly deed and poet's dream 
 Inspired ; and from his brow the gem 
 
 Of purest ray was lost.f 
 
 But, dire Revenge ! we may not know 
 On guiltless heads, what weight of woe 
 
 Thy frenzied slaves have wrought ; 
 The usher of Remorse thou art. 
 The fierce tornado of the heart, 
 
 With desolation fraught. 
 
 * William, eighth Earl of Douglas, was barbarously 
 murdered in the Castle of Stirling, by James II. ; after 
 having been decoyed thither under the promise of a safe 
 convoy, for the amiable adjustment of his openly avowed 
 hostility to the crown. 
 
 + " The brightest jewel in a king's crown is mercy." — 
 
 Proverb.
 
 KILSPINDIE. 23 
 
 At the castle gate, like a child subdued, 
 The toil-worn man sat down, and sued 
 
 For water to quench his thirst. 
 The tearless warrior's might was frail, 
 His soul was dark, and his rough cheek pale. 
 
 As died the last hope he had nursed. 
 
 But the very menials of his state. 
 Aping their master's savage hate. 
 
 Refused the meagre dole. 
 And the old man passed the seas forlorn. 
 With the iron of his monarch's scorn 
 
 Barbed in his inmost soul. 
 
 But the doom which a Douglas might not brook, 
 And the stain, Death soon from his spirit took ; 
 
 And the pangs which deeper rend. 
 Like his who finds mere sordid dust 
 Some heart, the shrine of early trust ; 
 Or, who sinks beneath the treacherous thrust 
 
 Of his own familiar friend. 
 
 Nor long the unforgiving king 
 
 Of revenge the pride, — of remorse the sting, 
 
 On earth remained to feel. 
 Like the stricken deer who bore his dart, 
 'Twas said he died of a broken heart ! 
 Perchance he forgot, when he caused the smart, — 
 
 Who strike, shall fall by steel.
 
 24 
 
 LANGANBYE* 
 
 O ! spot of all the land alone, 
 
 Unsung, unheard of, and unknown ; 
 
 Dim back-ground of life's busy stage. 
 
 Scarce named in local history's page. 
 
 Neglected spot ! what hast thou done, 
 
 That, ever since the world begun, 
 
 Thy name proscribed hath seemed to be. 
 
 In legend, tale, or minstrelsy] 
 
 That e'en no rustic bard hath owned thee, 
 
 And thrown a wreath of song around thee 1 
 
 Alas for thee ! unknown to fame, 
 Genius hath never breathed thy name ; 
 And wert thou not, there scarce is one 
 Would miss or mourn thee, save thine own. 
 As these wild flowers alone would know 
 When ceased their parent spring to flow. 
 And though by all the world forgot, 
 Yet lonely, dear, neglected spot ! 
 Thy rustic children lightly hold 
 The world's regard — proud, wide, and cold ! 
 
 *The popular pronunciation of Langwathby. Often so 
 spelt formerly.
 
 LANGANBYE. 25 
 
 The world that bears no thought of thee — 
 Their loreless souls' mute poetry ! 
 For, mid thy waste, thy verdant hills, — 
 By thy broad stream, or nameless rills, 
 Hearts with thy love o'erflowing, beat, 
 And tuneless lips, afar, repeat 
 Thy name with fondness, like the glow 
 That poets sing, or patriots know. 
 
 Loud vaunting Fame, in places high 
 Proclaims, with fitting eulogy. 
 Names long unheard, of lowly men, 
 Never to be forgot again. 
 But strangers all. Their glorious birth 
 Hallows some happier spot of earth : 
 Of worthies, warriors, sages, bards, 
 Distinguished by Fame's high awards, 
 Not one hath lustre shed on thee. 
 Obscure, ignoble Langanbye ! 
 Neither have chronicles of crime 
 To tell of thee through distant time. 
 That one v/ithin thy bosom nurst. 
 Hath died and left his name accurst. 
 
 No spot amid thy hills or plains 
 Marked scene of ancient deed remains. 
 And yet thy neighbours of the vale 
 Have each their legendary tale : 
 Some tell where Roman legions camped, 
 And eagles flew, and chargers tramped ; 
 And, many shared that ridge of green. 
 That tells where Hadrian's wall hath been.
 
 26 LANGANBYE. 
 
 Some, stoned haunted castles hold, 
 Blent with the fame of chiefs of old ; 
 J -C-^^^-ca/C Some point to beacon steeps, where blazed 
 
 t\iA\Afiti ^aju tires that the country-side oft raised ; 
 c\^ ,J_~ Or, m ystic circle on the height, 
 
 ^^? Scene of some long forgotten rite ; 
 
 CA£a^x£JUl '^ Or, s]3rings, whence gentle fairies quaffed, 
 •^ . • .»,/• 'Neath summer moons, the limpid draught ;- 
 *^ ^^ And yet the spot, green, cool, and fair, 
 
 Might well detain them ling'ring there. 
 
 But thou ! whom fairy never haunted, 
 Nor grimmer ghost, or goblin daunted, 
 No light of giant, seer, or sage, 
 Reflects on thy dull after-age. 
 GltXuil (oM'^-i <*'''No castle, cave , or Druid spot, — 
 I \ eL'AlV^ -^^^ ^^'- ^^y "3^™^ appears forgot. 
 
 « Yet thou in earlier days hast been 
 
 Part dowry of a Scottish queen ; 
 And more of suftering, more of fame, 
 I ween, had twined around thy name. 
 Had not thy bridgeless stream kept ward, 
 And foes and strangers oft had barred. 
 That southward track the Scots knew well ; 
 And Eden's western bank would tell 
 How hardly with its hamlets fared. 
 While east, the woe and scath was spared, 
 Because the Lang Wath lay between, — 
 Oft sullen floods, of depth unseen. 
 Easier the Scots by Udford found 
 To cross the Eamont's narrow bound,
 
 LANGANBYE. 27 
 
 Before its waves in Eden merged, 
 One swift uncertain current urged, — 
 To reach the upper valley's charms. 
 And old Westmeria's richest farms. 
 
 Yet who thy far forgotten prime, 
 Or hstless tale of after-time, 
 Shall scorn, or deem their lot more blest 
 Whose deeds historic scrolls attest 1 
 In ancient records ever blaze 
 The guiltiest deeds, and stormiest days ; 
 While calm, green, peaceful spots like thee. 
 Have found no place in History. 
 
 Now fertile fields o'erwrap thy moor, 
 Once horse-course — battle ground of yore, — 
 Vague rumour saith. And late to us 
 One grave-mound, mute, mysterious, 
 Showed here some mighty chief had died, — 
 Was laid to rest in warrior pride. 
 Vain thought ! — to pierce the ages' haze, 
 'Twixt us and those dim olden days. 
 Or guess what greater things may 'wait 
 Thy bounds enlarged, thy richer state. 
 We know, whate'er swift roads may bring, 
 Whatever future bards may sing ; — 
 Old Langanbye ! is gone from thee, 
 That old-world, green tranquillity !
 
 28 LANGANBYE. 
 
 LANGANBYE = LANGWATHBY. 
 
 This name lias been vai-iously written and explained, 
 perhaps by persons unacquainted with its significance in the 
 simple northern sense of the three woi-ds combined* — the 
 village by the long ford — to which all circumstances of the 
 early state of the place point, as the true interpretation. It is 
 certain there was no bridge over the Eden here till the present 
 one, bearing date 1682. It is said in Burn and Nicolson's 
 History of Cumberland that, "the church of this village was 
 probably built for want of a bridge over the Eden, whereby 
 the inhabitants were often prevented repairing to Divine 
 worship at Edenhall." How the church was used while the 
 clergyman was kept on the other side by the frequent floods 
 of those watery times, does not appear ; nor why two parishes 
 on opposite sides of so considerable a stream, so near its con- 
 fluence with the Eamont, should have been thus united. 
 During wet seasons a west wind often suddenly augments the 
 tribute of the latter, by surplus waters from its great feeder — 
 Ullswater, and causes the lower valley of Eden to be deeply 
 flooded ; formerly with more disastrous consequences, as many, 
 persons living remember. 
 
 "In the year 1360, the bridge at Salkeld being fallen. 
 Bishop Welton published an indulgence of forty days to all 
 who should contribute to the repair of it." — (Burn and Nicol- 
 son, p. 415.) 
 V' It may be of this old structure, two miles lower dovvn, that 
 
 a pile of solid masonry remains in the bed of the Eden ; 
 
 * Scandinavian words, of which we have many other forms and 
 combinations. A wath is the usual country name for a ford ; by is a 
 viUage, ^ H t l^ 
 
 ,h<V9 Ut« "^"^ «»-+- • < '^ J ^ S'MsDi
 
 LANGANBYE. 29 
 
 it stood upright till a few years ago, when ic fell, but is still 
 to be seen, just above the new railway bridge, near Lazonby. 
 
 It is significant that there is no account of Scottish raids in 
 this parish, \\-hile the tenants of Penrith, Great Salkeld, and 
 Soureby, petitioned the crown in the reign of Edward III. 
 for compensation for their losses by the Scots, and had privi- 
 leges allowed in Inglewood Forest. 
 
 In the "Agreement between Heniy III. King of England, 
 and Alexander King of Scotland, concerning the lands after- 
 wards called the Queen's Haims" — 1237, viz. : "the manors 
 of Penrith, Soureby, Languethby, Salkild, Carlatton, et 
 Scotteby," part of 200 librates of land given "in towns where 
 no castle is situate," in consideration of which Alexander 
 released Henry from his claims of the three counties of 
 Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland, &c., which 
 lands were afterwards forfeited by John Baliol — (see Bum and 
 Nicolson) — the name is not much varied from the old form ; 
 but in an enumeration of these lands in 6th Edward I. 
 "before the King's escheator, Thomas de Normanville" — 
 Langwaldeofby — looks like an uncertain guess at a meaning, 
 while Long Waldeofby — if it was so spelt, as Mr. Denton 
 says, in ancient records — shows only, the influence of Norman 
 French on the language, or the name, but throws no light on 
 any Waldeof connected with the place at any time, since 
 Henry I., who gave it with Edenhall to Henry Fitz Swein ; 
 though it soon reverted to the crown. 
 
 In 1745, the Scots did pass over Langwathby Bridge, and 
 through the village to the moor, and the fell sides. But in 
 the list of fords to be watched, to oppose the progress of 
 earlier marauding parties, this name does not appear : it is 
 possible it might be alluded to by "Ednal and Dolphenby" — 
 (Udford) — by the latter of which the passage was much easier 
 into "the bottom of Westmoreland." At a period when ortho- 
 graphy of names was so much a matter of fancy to those who 
 wielded a pen, we find that "In 1292 the Prior and Convent 
 of Carlisle, presented Robert de Scardeburg to the vicarage of
 
 
 30 LANGANBYE. 
 
 Addingham ; Adam de Crokedayk having also presented 
 Richard de Longwardby — ^judgment was afterwards given for 
 the Prior and Convent. — (Burn and Nicolson, p. 450.) 
 
 " In 1376, Sir Ricliard de Langwathby was presented to 
 the Rectory of Orton."— (B. & N. p. 208.) 
 
 In other old writings and on letters it is spelt Langanbye, 
 according to its invariable and more convenient pronunciation 
 in the country. Throughout Burn and Nicolson's History, it 
 is spelt Langwathby. When or why the change of the first 
 syllable came in, we have no account ; but long after it was 
 tJV^ so taught by the schoolmaster, a_good_old_JV]car used to 
 resist strenuously, the new spelling and pronunciation ; 
 always called the village Langanbye and its people Langan- 
 bians ; nor have any of his successors adopted the innovation 
 in spelling. It is to be hoped the incongruity of putting a 
 %/ comparatively modern word before two far older, which 
 prevents the newer spelling ever becoming general, will 
 sometime be so plain as to induce a return to the more 
 consistent form. 
 
 This parish contained 36 families, and Edenhall 35, in 
 1777, the date of Burn and Nicolson's History. In Jefferson's 
 History, 1840, Langwathby is said to be less populous than 
 any parish in Leath Ward. At that date 250 was the number 
 of population, which is now probably doubled. 
 
 IL yhH^ R^ ■ ''■ - ^ ^^ ^¥^ 
 
 R.P 

 
 THE GLEANER. 
 
 " Where hast thou gleaned to-day ? "—Book of Ruth. 
 
 Through his lattice, unconscious, the pastor gazed, 
 
 Where now no longer the radiance blazed 
 
 Through his cottage-screen of waving pine, 
 
 Of the autumn evening's red decline. 
 
 He marked not when twilight's gloom o'erspread 
 
 The sacred page whence he late had read, 
 
 Of the old Judean harvest days. 
 
 Now given to his Fancy's backward gaze. 
 
 The leafy hum round his lonely eaves 
 
 Seems the rustling of heavy and sun-crisped sheaves, 
 
 '\\Tiich with sigh of breeze and stream is blent, 
 
 And the young men's glee through the valleys sent, 
 
 'Mid their toils which the harvest maidens share, 
 
 And the daughter of Moab is gleaning there. 
 
 Then a dearer vision before him shone. 
 Of a vale o'er which Alpine snow-peaks frown ; 
 Through whose depths the waves of a blue stream 
 
 sweep, 
 Up whose sides the vine and the olive creep. 
 And reapers bend 'mid the ripened com, 
 Their blythe song far on the air is borne ;
 
 32 THE GLEANER. 
 
 And sunburnt vintagers combine 
 
 To win from the steeps their oil and wine ; 
 
 But his earhest home is fairest to view, 
 
 And those forms which the youth of his heart renew. 
 
 And the dreamer's fancy turns at last, 
 
 To think how the world is a harvest vast. 
 
 And though moveless his eye and lip remain. 
 
 Through his spirit floats this saddened strain : 
 
 My Soul ! O, where hast thou gleaned to-day ? 
 And why do thy footsteps so often stray, 
 In the profitless fields where tares abound, 
 And troops of gleaners throng the ground ? 
 Why oft dost thou heave the silent sigh 
 For glades where the bowers of memory lie 
 By thy native streamlet's winding side, 
 In the pleasant sound of its rippling tide. 
 Where, with friends, and song, amid early flowers, 
 Too quickly past o'er thy spring-tide hours; 
 And where ne'er o'ertaken time was spent. 
 When first to Life's harvest a gleaner sent? 
 For no sere leaf warned thy loitering feet, 
 'Neath the rose-axch where summer and autumn 
 
 meet : 
 The forest rejoiced in its deepening green 
 Though white for the sickle some fields were seen. 
 And in orchards bent with sunburnt fruit, 
 The song-birds of summer were not yet mute ; 
 Nor fell by the stream the hoar night-dews. 
 Which paint on the landscape its varying hues,
 
 THE GLEANER. 33 
 
 Proclaiming the autumn's deepening prime, 
 Though 'twas barley-harvest's early time. 
 
 That season is past, with its offered boon ; 
 Now is wheat-harvest's more precious noon. 
 More early afield comes the reaper band ; 
 'Tis the harvest hum pervades the land. 
 Ne'er so rich were the fields with green and gold ; 
 \^Tiat azure and crimson the hills enfold ! 
 And this brightness thou lovest, o'er nature cast, 
 May be summer's farewell — the last — the last ! 
 Oh ! spend not, trifling, the precious hours. 
 Nor as children are wont, in gathering flowers ; 
 Nor famt 'neath the noontide's breezeless glare. 
 Nor murmur though few in thy toils may share. 
 For the time wears on, and at autumn's eve. 
 Thy spirit forlorn, shall bootless grieve — 
 Though the harvest-moon be full and bright — 
 For the wasted hours of purer light : 
 And, woe ! when summer is past and done, 
 If grace and wisdom have not been won ! 
 
 Tarry not now to bewail the past — 
 Why o'er thy future its shadow cast ? 
 Harvest is plenteous, and earth is free, 
 And its choicest fields may be gleaned by thee. 
 Onward ! afar ! by the tedious way, 
 Where straggling, anxious gleaners stray, 
 To the sun-bright slopes, to the glorious fields, 
 \\Tiose soil the rich gold of garners yields ; 
 And gather the ears of wisdom's wheat, 
 Though the stubble-cares may pierce thy feet ; 
 
 3
 
 34 THE GLEANER. 
 
 Where the glorious reapers of old have trod, 
 The men who long since went home to God : 
 For the scattered wealth by their labours sown, 
 Hath now to a priceless harvest grown. 
 Look to the fields where the mighty dead, 
 The sweat firom their laurelled brows have shed, — 
 To the plains of bright and immortal thought, 
 Whence the treasures of many a heart were brought; 
 Nor shrink from the steeps where, on trellised vines. 
 Autumn's deep day-long fervour shines. 
 The same pure streams from their clefts still break, 
 Whence the mighty of old their thirst would slake ; 
 And the lofty songs of their deathless age. 
 Shall yet thy humbler toil assuage, 
 As thou makest the leaf-lost wealth thine own, 
 Of the gleaning grapes, when the vintage is done. 
 And when summer is o'er, and the joyous shout 
 Of Harvest-home o'er the hills rings out ; 
 While with sunset's soft expiring light. 
 Yon far-receding hills are bright, 
 Lift up thy voice with the sunburnt throng ; 
 Join in their thankful shout and song, 
 And cheerful, though weary, take up thy load — 
 The moon shall illumine thy homeward road, 
 And slumber such chains shall o'er thee throw, 
 As childhood and labour alone may know. 
 Then let wintry days of gloom come on, 
 When flowers are few, and fruit may be none ; 
 The treasure by faithful labour stored. 
 In age shall furnish the spirit's board, 
 And at earth's last harvest thy Lord may say, 
 Servant ! well hast thou gleaned to-day !
 
 35 
 
 BROUGH HILI. BEFORE RAILROADS. 
 
 Amid the dark Westmerian hills, 
 Where Eden drinks her firstling rills — 
 The classic stream, whose graceful course 
 Uter Pendragon's bootless force 
 Was long addressed, traditions say, 
 To turn it from its winding way — 
 There is an upland, wild and bare, 
 On which is held an ancient fair, 
 Where, on St. Michael's eve and day, 
 When peevish grows the year, and gray, 
 Chapmen from all the counties round. 
 With wares of every sort are found ; 
 Of. hard, or soft, or large, or small. 
 Displayed on many a tempting stall. 
 And country produce, stock and store, 
 Firkins and cheeses by the score, 
 With implements of every trade ; 
 And simplest garments, knit or made 
 In the world's nooks, where fashions ne'er 
 Till ten years after date appear. 
 Many a device of wood or horn, 
 The travelled wight would hold in scorn.
 
 36 BROUGH HILL BEFORE RAILROADS. 
 
 Rushes, well dipped in fat, for light, 
 To spare the price of candles " white " ; 
 Which only lend their costly aid, 
 On nights of feasting or parade, 
 By many a happy dalesman's hearth, 
 Guiltless alike of waste or dearth. 
 But brighter things are gleaming here, 
 Genevan gauds, and Berlin ware ; 
 Arabian scents, furs from the North, 
 Gems of bright gleam, but little worth ; 
 All the cheap trader can devise 
 To catch the rustic maidens' eyes. 
 For here is seen, in garb of pride. 
 The flower of all the country-side. 
 Lo ! ark-like caravans that boast, 
 Creatures from every clime and coast ; 
 From tropic heat and polar snows, — 
 Which now these narrow bounds enclose. 
 And here, in bondage may be seen 
 The roamers of our fell-sides green : 
 Pens of sore-soiled and trembling sheep. 
 And cattle tether' d on the steep. 
 By mud, and by the moving crowd, 
 Which never leaves for one a road. 
 Horses, in strings or droves are there, 
 More mettled blood their owners bear. 
 Ponies that on wide moors had strayed, 
 Of every size, and shape, and shade ; 
 Which ne'er have felt the rein or bit, 
 Now tired, amazed, perforce submit ;
 
 BROUGH HILL BEFORE RAILROADS. 37 
 
 Though long they rear, and kick, and snort, — 
 
 Causing the crowd no little sport. 
 
 And antics — Punch and many a show, 
 
 Whose trumpeter walks to and fro ; 
 
 And, with untiring zeal and din. 
 
 Invites admiring gazers in. 
 
 And liquor tents, where cheer and glass, 
 
 With every match and bargain, pass ; 
 
 W^here drouthy swains sit snug and warm. 
 
 While roars without the brawl or storm. 
 
 Sunburnt Bavarians shout their brooms, 
 
 'Twixt sighs for their far southern homes ; 
 
 Like those dark-eyed Italian boys, 
 
 W^iose music swells the wondrous noise. 
 
 With fiddle, bagpipe, shout, laugh, neigh, 
 
 Bleat, grunt, crow, cackle, hiss, and bray — 
 
 These rue the day, for gain they sought, 
 
 So late, this upland wild remote. 
 
 For oft upon St. Michael's day, 
 
 The elements seem in a fray. 
 
 But vainly storm or driving hail 
 
 The hardy northern wights assail ; 
 
 The rain may pour, or frost may pinch. 
 
 They stir not from their post an inch. 
 
 Jobbers and sharpers carp and jangle ; 
 
 And jolly 'statesmen greet, or wrangle, 
 
 And haply, to as wise conclusion, 
 
 As in St. Stephen's great confusion. 
 
 And farmers look more wise by far, 
 
 Than merely mortals ever are ;
 
 38 BROUGH HILL BEFORE RAILROADS. 
 
 By coats and plaids, swelled out in size, 
 And 'kerchief muffled to their eyes. 
 Here one, well wrapped, holds loudly forth, 
 On what this beast, and that is worth ; 
 Whipping his brown topped-boots — the pair 
 Time out of mind, seen at the fair — 
 While at his heart, through all his coats. 
 His pocket-book the sharper notes ; 
 And in some swaying crowd, and dense. 
 Subtracts it from his consequence : 
 For pickpockets are met from far, 
 As ravens on the field of war. 
 While drenching rains, and winds so shrill 
 Oft sweep the high unsheltered hill, 
 That now, all sorts of storm together. 
 Is curtly called Brough-Hillish weather. 
 
 No spot indeed, in all the land, 
 Such frequent mention may command. 
 As this, the Northmen's mart of old, 
 Where yearly higgled, bought, and sold, 
 Their sires ; who from each far deep dale, 
 By rugged fell-side roads would scale. 
 When crops were housed, and minds at rest, 
 With long-anticipated zest, 
 T' enjoy, as still both great and small, 
 Enjoy this rural carnival, — 
 The grand excitement of their life, 
 Where news and enterprise were rife ; 
 Where flashed on many a dalesman raw. 
 All of the world he ever saw.
 
 BROUGH HILL BEFORE RAILROADS. 39 
 
 No mention made of tide or time, 
 This name with them stands out subUme, 
 For Autumn's shortening drizzly days, 
 For leafless trees, and miry ways. 
 You'd think the spot was classic ground 
 Whose name on all men's lips is found. 
 Farmers and traders, housewives — all 
 Date from this famous carnival ; 
 And sportsmen, if you ask, reply, 
 That first the woodcock — rare and shy, — 
 In northern plashes dips his bill, 
 "The first full-moon after Brough Hill." 
 And rushes cut 'neath that same light, 
 The housewife knows, will burn most bright ; 
 And, ask the date of bond or bill, 
 'Tis often, — ^just about Brough Hill. 
 All change that Autumn brought, or brings, 
 The flight of birds, or fall of kings, 
 Is linked, — -though great or small th' event. 
 With this, to them, more prominent. 
 Not Stratford, nay — not Runnymede — 
 No scene of deathless birth or deed, 
 Whose' name may History's pages fill. 
 Enjoys such fame as bleak Brough Hill. 
 And did they name some fight of yore. 
 As Hastings, or as Agincourt, 
 Which happened while the sere leaves lay. 
 Though many a hundred miles away, 
 The Northern rustics' utterance still, 
 Would have it — " just about Brough Hill."
 
 40 BROUGH HILL BEFORE RAILROADS. 
 
 Should they bethink them, — 'twas this day, 
 On which the Conqueror sailed away, 
 'Gainst England, in his power and state, 
 St. Michael to propitiate — 
 (The Normans' ancient patron-Saint,) 
 By prayers, and by observance quaint, — 
 They'd say, and think no jest or ill, 
 The Conqueror sailed about Brough Hill. 
 
 But, should a stranger, spirit-stirred. 
 By that which he might think he heard, 
 Of treasure lost, of empire won, — 
 Deeds of high faith and valour done. 
 Which ancient prophecies fulfil — 
 All at this very same Brough Hill. 
 Where births, deaths, marriages seem rife, 
 Bad accidents, and loss of life ; 
 "Wliere household stuff, and clothes were bought, 
 Pockets were picked, and fevers caught — 
 The scene of fun, and fraud, and vice ; 
 The mart of various merchandise, — 
 And seek the spot, save where the fair 
 Makes life, and stir, and traffic there, 
 He well might doubt this height so bleak. 
 Could be the spot he came to seek ; — 
 The storied, trophied, classic hill. 
 Which fancy furnishes at will ; 
 And like the traveller old, enquire, 
 "If this could be the Northern Tyre?"
 
 41 
 
 "AND THIS ALSO SHALL PASS AWAY." 
 
 "There is an oriental tale of a Sultan who consulted 
 Solomon on the proper inscription for a signet ring, requiring 
 that the maxim which it conveyed should be at once proper 
 for moderating the presumption of prosperity, and tempering 
 the pressure of adversity. The apophthegm supplied by the 
 Jewish sage, Avas I think admirably adapted for both pur- 
 poses, being comprised in the words— And this also shall 
 ^3cs,sz.\\-d.y"— Letter of Sir IV. Scott. Lockharfs Life. 
 
 O, warning meet for triumph's hour ! 
 
 ^Mien to the conqueror's feet are brought 
 The trophies of his fearful power, 
 
 Of glorious deeds his arm had wrought. 
 But dim his eye and sad his soul 
 
 As swells the P^an shout on high ; 
 Remorse and pity o'er him stole, — 
 
 The warning signet met his eye. 
 The pageant fades like morning's breath, 
 
 His towering pride hath lost its stay : 
 In visions of reverse and death, 
 
 He sees that this shall pass away. 
 
 The captive on whose brightening chain 
 Many a sad summer's light hath shone, 
 
 Starts, weeps, — as the spring-beams again 
 Find him still captive and alone.
 
 42 "and this also shall pass away." 
 
 But yet — within his breast revives 
 
 Of hope deferred the expiring ray. 
 His heart is free, his courage Hves — 
 
 This yet, on earth may pass away. 
 At least, the tyrant's boon of breath, 
 
 Consum'd in sighs that speak his sway, 
 The anguish of this hving death, — 
 
 He knows that these shall pass away. 
 
 When day departs, and footsteps cease 
 
 Around the sick man's lonely bed ; 
 And midnight stillness brings not peace, 
 
 Nor slumbers, to his feverish head. 
 Yet bears he on. Still prayers ascend 
 
 Of faith, amid the mortal strife ; 
 And drops of Heaven's own balm descend 
 
 O'er failing heart, and brain, and life. 
 He knows the bleeding ties which strain 
 
 Th' aspiring spirit down to clay — 
 The gloom — the bitterness — the pain 
 
 Of even Death shall pass away. 
 
 Through hours which healthful sleep should claim, 
 
 The student toils with painful care ; 
 In hectic haste to climb to Fame, 
 
 And pluck the \vreath he ne'er shall wear. 
 For Fame's, nor Wisdom's beams renew 
 
 Youth's radiant bloom, and green delight ; 
 And sad Affection's tears bedew 
 
 In vain, its unreviving blight.
 
 "and this also shall pass away." 43 
 
 He dreamed in future days, to give 
 
 Some boon to men — some truth to say ; 
 
 To teach the dead in sin, to Uve — 
 And woke — but hfe had passed away. 
 
 The warning speaks in accents low. 
 
 But deep, to all of human clay ; 
 The doom of joy — the knell of woe, 
 
 For both alike shall pass away. 
 On all of Life is written — Death ; 
 
 A shade of change is on each leaf; 
 Sorrow like vapour vanisheth. 
 
 And joy, alas ! is yet more brief 
 Only the Christian's hope and faith 
 
 Is fixed on one pure, steadfast ray, 
 Which lights the gloomy vale of Death 
 
 When Earth and Time have passed away.
 
 44 
 
 SOLON. 
 
 A HISTORICAL SKETCH, 
 
 A tumult rose in Athens old, 
 
 Amid the market's space ; 
 A great and gathering crowd behold 
 
 With eager, upraised face ; 
 One in a sick man's garb arrayed. 
 
 And cap, who stood on high. 
 Whose tones of power the clouds invade. 
 
 While fiery gleamed his eye ; 
 And all were mute, save he alone. 
 The bard who stood on the heralds' stone. 
 
 'Twas a son of Codrus' race who dared 
 
 A strain unheard to sing ; 
 And the pitying people knew and spared 
 
 The blood of their martyr-king. 
 Nor voice was raised to check his song. 
 
 Nor hand a brand to draw, 
 On him who 'mid the city's throng, 
 
 Outraged the dastard law ; 
 Which doomed his death who counselled this, 
 War for lost, severed Salamis.
 
 SOLON. 45 
 
 'Twas Solon, who indignant, sheathed 
 
 Till now, his patriot aim ; 
 And o'er Megserian triumphs, wreathed 
 
 With Athens' sunken name, 
 Had brooded, — madman-like the while, — 
 
 Lest to his lips should swell 
 His theme of thought, his native isle 
 
 Which his sires had loved so well. 
 And his soul fulfilled its task in this — 
 Singing a song of Salamis. 
 
 And soon in the fervid atmosphere 
 
 Of his patriot energy 
 Their souls grew warm, their eyes saw clear 
 
 For Athens, Victory ; 
 As he bade them with a Prophet's might, 
 
 To break their spirits' chain. 
 And win the isle that shone so bright 
 
 In the blue Saronic main ; 
 Or die, — as their fathers died, for this 
 Their isle of refuge, Salamis. 
 
 In many a breast Resolve grew strong 
 
 That had not died, but slept ; 
 And Valour's tongue was loosed, that long 
 
 Silence perforce had kept. 
 The patriot Sage's artifice 
 Won back for Athens Salamis.
 
 46 SOLON. 
 
 Nor, in our boasted times, in sooth. 
 
 Are men and things so changed ; 
 Or hearts less hardly won to Truth 
 
 That Error hath estranged. 
 Teachers more high, in faith more blest, 
 
 With him may still believe — 
 "Those laws and lessons still are best 
 
 Which men can best receive." 
 And deign to conquer prejudice, 
 Like him the Sage of Salamis. 
 
 Oft, to stern Blame impervious, 
 
 Men Error closer hold. 
 As, spite the blasts of ^olus. 
 
 His cloak the wight of old ; 
 Who, when the sun shone, still and warm. 
 
 Cast its dark folds aside ; 
 So softer influences disarm 
 
 Perversity and Pride. 
 As once the Lawgiver and Sage, 
 Roused with a song his torpid age.
 
 47 
 
 EASTER DAY IN COUNTRY CHURCHES 
 IN CUMBERLAND. 1848. 
 
 The Lord hath risen to-day ! 
 
 Shall many a glad heart say ; 
 And in these northern valleys deep and lone, 
 
 Beauty is disentombed ; 
 
 Nature, which seemed benumbed, 
 From the Spring's sepulchre hath rolled away the 
 stone. 
 
 In village churches gray. 
 
 In chapels far away. 
 Under some verdant hill or sheltering rock ; 
 
 Some Sabbath gathering place, 
 
 For wide thin peopled space. 
 Weekly the pastor feeds his scattered mountain flock. 
 
 The traveller scarce might note 
 
 The humble pile remote, 
 Save for the field-paths from its gate diverging ; 
 
 One spans the fell's bleak brow, 
 
 One in the vale below 
 Lost, till on some bright hamlet-green emerging.
 
 48 EASTER DAY IN COUNTRY CHURCHES. 
 
 In windows barred and low, 
 
 No blazoned emblems show, 
 No tracery is wrought about the lowly eaves ; 
 
 Nor round these pillars climb 
 
 Carved wreaths, save those of time, 
 But sunshine falls unstained through ever-wavering 
 leaves. 
 
 No storied 'scutcheons wave 
 O'er knight's or noble's grave — 
 
 Such never dwelt or slept in this green dell ; 
 Nor from the Holy Wars, 
 Came one with glorious scars 
 
 To give to these low walls a boastful tale to tell. 
 
 But where their fathers prayed — - 
 Where their own dead are laid — 
 
 Comes many a Sabbath group byfieldand shadylanes; 
 Parents, with pious thought, 
 Where they of old were brought. 
 
 Bring children to be taught within these lowly fanes. 
 
 And, as the childish band 
 
 In solemn order stand, 
 Before the holy man in his high robes and place, 
 
 Who catechising each. 
 
 Hears in his shrill small speech. 
 And accents quaint, each child his creed and duties 
 trace.
 
 EASTER DAY IN COUNTRY CHURCHES. 49 
 
 Seems it not very meet, 
 
 In pastoral valleys sweet, 
 At intervals 'tvvixt prayer and praise and psalms, 
 
 That thus should be obeyed 
 
 His high behest, Who said 
 Of old, to His apostles, "Feed my lambs"? 
 
 Perchance they little know, — 
 
 The motley lisping row, — 
 Of all the mighty depth and import of their words ; 
 
 But such is oft, me seems, 
 
 The sowing by all streams 
 Of seed whose fruit shall be in after years, the Lord's. 
 
 Scarce shall it be forgot, 
 That in this hallowed spot, 
 Such strength for life or death, was to their weakness 
 given ; 
 
 While men in sins grown grey, 
 Hearing their children pray, 
 Have felt that yet one link remained 'twixt them 
 and Heaven. 
 
 [Jr - Ia^ 3 duo k/I 1Jlaj<^XaajJ^ <A d.
 
 50 
 
 THE PETRIFIED FOREST, 
 
 NEAR GRAND CAIRO. 
 
 What rings beneath our horses' tread, 
 
 Like iron in this desert vale, 
 With sinking sand and sea-shells spread — 
 
 Where round us dismal hues prevail ? 
 
 A forest fallen— a maze of stone — 
 
 Which scarce th' Egyptian ass may thread. 
 
 Rigid, and desolate, and prone, — 
 Dead — darkly, and forever dead. 
 
 When forests leave our hills and plains, 
 Their rooted still-life seems to change, 
 
 For one which human art ordains, — 
 A lower life — with wider range. 
 
 In form of stately ships, the oak 
 
 May cruise and compass oft the world ; 
 
 Its top, where spring-birds warbling woke, 
 May bear the British flag unfurled.
 
 THE PETRIFIED FOREST. 51 
 
 1 he rafters that our roofs uphold, 
 Those doors that keep the storm at bay, 
 
 The staff that props us, weak and old ; 
 The coffin that protects our clay, 
 
 These, man's allies — seem not dead things : 
 But in this sterile vale, and lone. 
 
 Ghastly as mummies of their kings. 
 Forever lie these trunks of stone. 
 
 The fibres still, the roots we trace, 
 
 The bark — and where 'tis broke apart, 
 
 Discern how, in its sylvan days, 
 
 The worm assailed the giant's heart. 
 
 O ! change how dismal here, since bowed 
 Those rigid boughs, with every breeze 
 
 Which, passing woke, and swept abroad, 
 The varied voice of living trees. 
 
 Each tree gave forth its own sweet tone ; 
 
 Each, haply, bore some genial bird, 
 \Vhose plumage from our world is gone, 
 
 Whose song may never more be heard. 
 
 No soimd of axe, no lightning's scath, 
 No slow decay those trunks have known ; 
 
 Crept through their veins insidious Death, 
 And turned their very worm to stone.
 
 §2 THE PETRIFIED FOREST, 
 
 In all the landscape now no palm 
 Waves, cooling the hot sultry air ; 
 
 No bright bird seeks the forest's calm^ 
 To build, or rest, or warble there. 
 
 No cedar shades the scorching beams, 
 Nor date tree bends with luscious fruit ^ 
 
 The smitten vale forsaken seems. 
 And the hot breezes faint and mute. 
 
 Ruins mysterious ! as the pile 
 
 Round which Doubt's mists are ever curled ; 
 Are ye of Egypt's ancient growth. 
 
 Or wrecks of some dim deluged world ? 
 
 No power unbinds your stony chains ; 
 
 No second life from man's decrees, 
 No pile consumes your dark remains ; 
 
 Ye hopeless sylvan Sadducees ! 
 
 O, dismal types ! Thank God our faith 
 Saves Christians from such sleep forlorn ; 
 
 Though dark, though sudden, sad our deaths 
 We waken to a brighter morn.
 
 THE PETRIFIED FOREST. 53 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 "Nice observ'ers of Nature have remarked on tTie variety 
 of tones yielded by trees when played on by the wind. Mrs, 
 Hemans once asked Sir Walter Scott, if he had noticed that 
 every tree gives out its peculiar sound, 'Yes,' said he, 'I 
 have, and I think something might be done by the union of 
 poetry and music to imitate their voices, giving a different 
 measure to the oak, the pine, the willow.' What a contrast 
 to a li\ang forest, moving and vocable in every breeze, is that 
 remarkable spectacle — the petrified Forest near Grand Cairo I 
 The traveller having passed the tombs of the Caliphs just 
 beyond the City gates, proceeds southward across the Desert 
 to Suez," &c — TaWs Magaziii£, Octobsr, 1846.
 
 54 
 
 THE PASS OF THE ICEBERGS. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY THE ACCOUNT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION, 1 838-42. 
 
 O ! little the sailor, though veteran he be, 
 Knows of perils or storms of the ocean, 
 
 Whose course has been over waves Hquid and free, 
 Though with winds in the fiercest commotion ; 
 
 If he hath not been tossed on the dark winter sea. 
 
 Where more cruel than earth-rocks the ice-billows be. 
 
 Our ship her brave course through the far Polar deep 
 
 Was smftly, but heedfully cleaving ; 
 That her frost-bitten crew her prompt mastery might 
 keep, 
 
 For the ice-rocks were clashing and heaving ; 
 With the surges' wild swell, or the snow-driving gale — 
 Perils dire as the Argo's of old Grecian tale.
 
 THE PASS OF THE ICEBERGS. 55 
 
 How beauteous and pure in our boyhood we deemed 
 The snow-wreath that crowned our own Highland ; 
 
 And the snow, through our Yule-hghted casement 
 had seemed 
 Like a hohday garb of the island ; 
 
 But here, 'twas a shroud, ghastly, hateful as white, 
 
 To veil which we blest e'en the perilous night. 
 
 On our food, was the snow, on our sails, on our bed • 
 The ice mountains seemed sepulchres whited, 
 
 Of long perished ships, — snow encumbered our tread, 
 And the low-sailing clouds were snow-freighted ; 
 
 And for weeks not a leaf, not a bird had been seen; 
 
 All was whiteness abhoiTed, save the sea's sullen 
 green. 
 
 And all canvass was crowded, to windward to keep 
 From the rocks where the surf was heard roaring j — 
 
 Uncharted, unseen — the still growth of the deep; — 
 And we felt, with the blinding snow pouring, 
 
 How near to a monster, blind, ruthless, and vast, 
 
 WTien, aback, by the eddy, our try-sails were cast. 
 
 Icebergs passed, like bears foiled, hoarsely growled 
 on the stern. 
 
 By their shocks the ship's timbers were bending ; 
 Yet, less certain seemed death in advance than return, 
 
 Though the low sun scarce twilight was lending : 
 But a gust helped the horror-struck helm's-man to spy 
 An ice-wall which towered on each side to the sky.
 
 56 THE PASS OF THE ICEBERGS, 
 
 Then burst forth that dread, dream-haunting shout — 
 " Ice ahead ! " 
 By — "And close on the weather-bow !" followed; 
 "On the lee-boom ! — abeam !" it was instantly said — 
 
 And the tempest more fearfully bellowed : 
 Then Hope seemed to have plunged 'neath the dark 
 
 swirling wave, 
 And the thick snow was shed as the dust o'er a grave. 
 
 And the vessel rushed on with her heart-stagnant 
 
 crew, — 
 Ever dauntless and true to their duty in danger, — 
 Skill was naught — nor their old boodess bravery 
 
 now ; 
 But an impulse of prayer — to some hearts long a 
 
 stranger — 
 With the home-pang of dying afar, like a flash. 
 Shot through hearts of the death-bolt awaiting the 
 
 crash. 
 
 Eyes unconsciously glared on the horrible rift, 
 
 Whose jaws to escape, but a maniac had striven : 
 To her doom goes the ship, — with the impetus swift 
 Which her masters — aeriel and human — have 
 given ! 
 O, suspense ! the next agony life has to death ! — 
 Save that man may survive — and once more we 
 drew breath.
 
 THE PASS OF THE ICEBERGS. 57 
 
 Lo ! as passed through the Red Sea the IsraeHtes 
 old, 
 As the dove -guided Argo 'twixt floating rocks 
 steered, 
 Straight and swift as the flashing aurora — behold — 
 The death-gorge, all scathless the gallant ship 
 cleared ! 
 And grey tars view with thankful, yet doubtful amaze, 
 The strait none had dared in his boldest of days. 
 
 To be stomi -tossed was joy — conscious life in the 
 shocks — 
 E'en to bend through the white haze our snow- 
 troubled vision ; 
 Or list the wild whistling 'twixt huge wandering rocks, 
 ^\^lich the fierce sea may lash into a^vful collision. 
 Chart nor beacon shall mark them, nor eye see again; 
 Their stem life is unbound in the soft southern main. 
 
 And oft, like a man who at midnight must tnist 
 
 His life to some dark guide he may not believe, 
 But walks with a hand raised to guard his false 
 thrust — 
 To an iceberg the lone ship is anchored at eve ; 
 And watchfully drifts in its wide-sweeping wake, 
 Till dim mom on the long fearful darkness shall 
 break.
 
 58 The pass of the icebergs. 
 
 And perils unknown — dismal deaths none can tell — 
 Ships like ancient live victims forever immured, 
 
 By the waves' stony walls — and, hark ! to their yell, 
 Who ere death, horror, hunger, and madness 
 endured ! 
 
 God Almighty ! the lost and the wanderer to keep. 
 
 Guide the course of the brave on the far Polar deep !
 
 59 
 
 ON AN ANCIENT GRAVE, 
 
 DISCOVERED ON LANGWATHBY MOOR, FEB. 1850, 
 
 A Grave ! "\^^lere the sower would scatter his seed, 
 In this nook of the vale, by the lone moorland 
 rill;— 
 'Neath the stone that no longer the plough may 
 impede, 
 Though for undisturbed ages it crowned the green 
 hiU. 
 
 But what people, or age, may this dust have 
 bequeathed 
 To the lone valley's keeping, no record hath 
 traced ; 
 What rites have been practised, what prayers have 
 been breathed. 
 When this rude grave of Honour was made in the 
 Waste.
 
 60 ON AN ANCIENT GRAVE. 
 
 For of honour it tells. — As this mound the deep 
 vale, 
 So thy fame, nameless dust ! once thy brethren's 
 surpassed, — 
 And the urn in thy sepulchre, uncouth and frail. 
 Speaks of friends, and their cares for thy soul as it 
 passed. 
 
 And men tell us — " Some Chief of the Britons lies 
 
 here " ; 
 
 Men who vast tomes of history, haply have 
 
 scanned, 
 
 But who see not the signs in our pathway so clear — 
 
 The Runes that are writ on this people and land. 
 
 When the names of our hamlets and hills meet my 
 
 ear. 
 
 Or our rude Northern tongue, unenfeebled by time; 
 
 When the voice of our fathers' stern Fiend's-fell 
 
 I hear. 
 
 Like a Skald's who is chanting a requiem sublime; 
 
 Then this spot conjures up some wild tale of the 
 North,— 
 
 For a spell lures me back, as to kindred remains; 
 And in fancy I see o'er the hill-tops break forth, 
 
 A cloud of the restless, all-conquering Danes.
 
 ON AN ANCIENT GRAVE, 61 
 
 Herds again stray at will through this vale, waste 
 and bleak, 
 And from huts on the hill waving smoke-wreaths 
 ascend ; 
 ^\^lile the strong man's defiance, the wail of the weak, 
 Seem, with clang of rude arms, and fast trampling 
 to blend. 
 
 Red fires, through the darkness mark many a far 
 height ; 
 But the strength of the valleys is gathered in vain : 
 How fierce is the shock of the merciless fight ! 
 How thick at its close lie the maimed and the 
 slain ! 
 
 And again floats the Raven of Denmark on high, 
 By the brook; — yet the victors in sadness appear,— 
 
 Ah ! they raise their stern leader ! it is but to die, 
 And the voice of the dying is borne to my ear. 
 
 " Let me lie in this vale, which my prowess hath 
 won. 
 
 As is meet for a Jarl, and a warrior to lie ! 
 'Neath a grave-mound befitting my father's renown ; 
 
 He who went on the sea in his fire-ship to die !
 
 62 ON AN ANCIENT GRAVE. 
 
 " But alone — all alone — not my weapons or steed, 
 Shall be laid in the breast of this alien land ; 
 
 Those faithful and tried ones, my son, thou wilt need, 
 When the Thane shall have strengthened his 
 fugitive band. 
 
 " And I, who am favoured by Alfaders' grace — 
 
 A warrior chosen in battle to die, 
 Valhalla's bright sons shall my weapons replace — 
 
 Farewell ! for their splendoiur now dazzles my 
 eye ! " 
 
 It is done. And while this lowly grave keeps its 
 trust, 
 Gods and temples have perished, and Empires 
 declined ; 
 On the red creed of Odin lie ages of mst ; 
 
 And the Gospel of Peace is the bond of mankind. 
 
 Yet once more, — I could dream 'twas this brave son 
 
 who cast 
 
 At the feet of stem Cross-fell his spoils of the main; 
 
 And made those green slopes, — spite the Thane and 
 
 the blast — 
 
 The prize, and thenceforward, the home of the 
 
 Dane.
 
 ON AN ANCIENT GRAVE, 63 
 
 The name of one hamlet bears record alone 
 
 Of lost triumphs, which Fancy would image — in 
 vain ; 
 His deeds are forgotten, his grave is unkown, 
 But tradition still points where dwelt Melmor the 
 Dane. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The grave was certainly British, as far as the urn and manner 
 of burial could prove it so. This imaginary view of the gi^ave 
 and its occupant has no other ground than, that the locality, 
 and the names around, were favourable to a dream of what 
 might have been. 
 
 The -writer's consciousness of the absence of weapons, or 
 other usual accompaniments of a Northman's giave-mound, is 
 implied in the dying hero's words.
 
 Gi 
 
 INVOCATION TO PATIENCE. 
 
 O, Patience ! Friend and Healer, stem yet kind ; 
 Look, where Ave straggle in Afifliction's throe, 
 And lend thy soothing balm, — the soft and slow — 
 
 Yet sure, our sad and world-worn hearts to bind. 
 
 Pilgrim, and Seer, and Sage ! Bom of old Time, 
 And Wisdom ; let us lowly at thy feet. 
 Oft list to thy mild utterance, replete 
 
 With teachings of thy parentage sublime. 
 
 Of old thou wert a Stoic ; and beneath 
 
 The pillared fane, unmoved, stood'st looking out; 
 While War's and Superstition's reckless rout 
 
 Made straight earth's paths for the old conqueror, 
 Death. 
 
 Nor smitten flowers, nor friends crushed in his way, 
 Wrung from thy iron heart one frigid sigh ; 
 Nor teardrop dimmed thy clear and steadfast eye, 
 
 When in its sight earth's loveliest dying lay.
 
 INVOCATION TO PATIENCE. 65 
 
 But now thou art a Christian, and thy heart 
 Of flesh, though inly sound, hath suffered sore ; 
 And through thy mild eyes Nature's sorrows pour, 
 
 And oft, men see thee sitting sad, apart ; 
 
 Yet tranquil, and with often upward glance ; 
 
 Or, through steep paths of thorny duty wending, 
 Wrong-stricken, with pierced feet; or meekly 
 bending, 
 
 'Neath clouds of dark afflictive circumstance. 
 
 Or, musing by the stream, where willow boughs 
 Seem flowing ^vith its waves, yet fixed abide ; 
 As good men seem to flow with the world's tide, 
 
 Yet their high place and purpose never lose. 
 
 Or, in Life's highway, halting oft to aid 
 
 The weak and faint, the erring to bring back 
 To the pure sunshine of the Christian's track ; 
 
 Tending the fallen in the wayside shade. 
 
 O, good Samaritan, and guide ! could'st teach 
 Our faltering feet to hold th' appointed race ; 
 Our shrinking souls Life's far-seen blasts to face, 
 
 Our eyes to view bright flowers we may not reach. 
 
 5
 
 66 INVOCATION TO PATIENCE. 
 
 Aid us to banish far the thankless pride 
 With which, like children spoilt we turn, 
 And many a precious blessing spurn, 
 
 If one wild wish may not be gratified. 
 
 Make us by heart, — not lip, or ear, to learn 
 How worse than bootless is our earnest will ; — 
 How vain man's proud and mountain-moving 
 skill, 
 
 To shun the darts no mortal shield may turn. 
 
 Disciple of Faith, Hope, and Charity ! 
 
 Of each the nature and the grace partaking ; 
 
 Lend us thine arm to stay this purpose-shaking. 
 To reach, through storms. Heaven's bright tran- 
 quillity. 
 
 Patience ! what lessons beam from thy Seraphic 
 face ! 
 'Mid creeds and schools, but One hath taught 
 
 like thee : — 
 Not of the earth thy pure benignity ; — 
 Angelic is its sphere, its name is Heavenly Grace.
 
 67 
 
 ENGLAND, 
 
 THE MEADOW LAND, 
 
 England ! Methinks thou wert The Meadow Land, 
 
 To olden rovers of the North seas known ; 
 Though, round thy southward coasts the white 
 cliffs stand, 
 And Roman legions called thee Albion. 
 But to their eyes who sailed the chill seas o'er 
 
 So oft, from darker tracts, of the high North ; 
 Who named that islet, Meadowland, — by Holstein 
 shore, 
 Wert thou not, ages long, the gem of earth ? 
 Thy sward and shore, the charms, brought many 
 a longing rover forth ? 
 
 Wide, with fair woods, mth grassy holms and hills, 
 Sunshine and showery skies, they saw thee stand; 
 
 With noble streams, the sum of gathered rills ; 
 Apart — a rich, majestic meadow land.
 
 68 ENGLAND, THE MEADOW LAND, 
 
 And when late spring to their stern clime returned ; 
 When the hoar-frost died out the north-sea breeze, 
 
 And Viking hearts again for conquest burned. 
 As Egir sunk the ice in softened seas, 
 Thou wert the loadstar of their hopes, their 
 energies. 
 
 Came not rude barks, then fleets, age after age. 
 In thy spring verdure, haunting shore and creek \ 
 
 With fierce fresh hordes, the welcome war to wage. 
 And force resistless dispossessed the weak ? 
 
 In Cumbria's slowly changing vales, we now, — 
 As favoured flocks graze deep, in early springs, 
 
 On river-meads unbroken by the plough. 
 
 Of perfect verdure— call them holms and ings,"^-' 
 And Fancy oft, o'er these old names, a Runic 
 radiance flings. 
 
 * Eng, Icelandic and Danish, a meadow. Holm, Ice. and 
 Dan., once — an island, now often the raised bank of a river. 
 Eng, or lug, as we spell it, seems to belong to those districts 
 considered more decidedly Danish, and is so generally found 
 in conjunction with the termination by, that it might perhaps 
 serve, also, as a sort of test-word of long Danish occupation. 
 In many old agricultural parishes it is a field name, both in 
 south Cumberland and Westmorland. In Langwathby, there 
 is a parcel of joint proprietorship named open Ings — besides 
 private Ings — not adjoining a river. In Yorkshire the word 
 is well known in the same Danish sense, and there are large 
 tracts so named — ^some of loo acres. From the source of the 
 Eden to some miles below Penrith, Ing is found in the names 
 of many meadowy farms, in both counties — as Little Ing, 
 Load Ing, Lady Ing, Hard Ing, Broad Ing, West Ing, Pye 
 Ing, Lambeck Ing, etc. ; all which are inwariably, properly 
 accented in speaking, but sometimes sadly confused in writing, 
 by joining the two words.
 
 ENGLAND, THE MEADOW LAND. 69 
 
 O, verdurous Isle ! If thus in old times known, 
 Favoured by gleam and shower, fanned by each 
 breeze. 
 That grassy wealth yet strangers call thine owti. 
 
 Which none hath found in other lands or seas. 
 And needless thus, to that small Anglen horde 
 'T were, greater tribes should bow, to name the 
 strand ; 
 Saxon, Dane, Northmen, Angles, — in accord. 
 Might sheath their strife 'neath that old, happy 
 word ; 
 Call themselves, proud as we — still a mixt band, — 
 Thencefonvard, English — Children of the Meadow 
 Land. 
 
 1858. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 In Marryatt's yutland a7id the Danish Isles, he says : "The 
 frequent mention of England's Holm, England's this, and 
 England's that, at first puzzled me. The word Eng, signi- 
 fies meadow, and England is merely common parlance for 
 meadow-land." 
 
 English may often, in Denmark, refer to the meadowy 
 district of llolstein. 
 
 Historians say the record does not clearly show why the 
 smaller tribe of invaders should have given name to this 
 country, and various reasons are given for the circumstance. 
 
 "At least as early as the lolh century the Saxons who had 
 formed settlements in England, called the language Englisc, 
 and the country Englaland. King Alfred also, though of
 
 70 ENGLAND, THE MEADOW LAND. 
 
 West Saxon origin, uses these appellations ; and abroad in 
 the Scandinavian countries and in Iceland, the country was 
 in the loth century called England, and the nation Englar, 
 or Enzkir menn. The monks of that age too, in writing 
 Latin, called the nation Angli, which obviously points to the 
 Angles. It may be rather difficult now to account for this 
 circumstance in a satisfactory manner ; for the total emigra- 
 tion of the Angles seems not to afford any sufficient reason for 
 these appellations of English and England; — since it is certain 
 that they were in numerical respect, a smaller tribe than the 
 Saxons, and that not they, but the Saxons were the leaders, 
 as weU during the invasion as after settling in the country. 
 Perhaps it is a more admissible reason mat as the East Angles 
 occupied that part of the British coast on which Danes and 
 Norwegians most frequently landed, the appellation English, 
 was first promiscuously applied by them to all the Teutonic 
 tribes that had settled in the country, and afterwards adopted 
 by the natives themselves ; the more readily since it had the 
 advantage of distinguishing them from their Saxon brethren 
 on the continent." — Int. to Repfs Danish Dictionary.
 
 71 
 
 THE WOMAN OF MIND. 
 
 A PARODY.* 
 ( Written for Edmhall Penny Readings, 1 867 J 
 
 My mfe, too, 's a woman of mind ; 
 
 Though on no phrenological tests, — 
 On proofs practical, moral, domestic — 
 
 Her mental certificate rests. 
 Though I don't like a ilourish of trumpets. 
 
 Nor think angels e'er dwell with mankind, 
 We may set on the right horse the saddle. 
 
 And do justice to women of mind. 
 
 Howe'er lofty in gifts or attainment, 
 
 As ladies in plenty you '11 find ; 
 If good sense and plain duty 's neglected, 
 
 / call it perversion of mind. 
 If too clever to care for appearance, 
 
 If for home-wear too proud or refined. 
 If she oftener says "good things" than does them, 
 
 A fig for such woman of mind. 
 
 * On a piece which was often heard at Penny Readings, 
 beginning, " My wife is a woman oi mind."
 
 72 THE WOMAN OF MIND. 
 
 My wife 's not a bit like my neighbour's, — 
 
 Has no blue-stocking haughty pretence ; 
 When she tells me "a bit of her 7?wid" 
 
 'Tis with wonderful tact and good sense. 
 Neither proud of her bumps nor her learning, 
 
 She is happily able to find 
 Distinction and pride in her duties, 
 
 Enough for her well-balanced mind. 
 
 She can do any stitch, — for adorning — 
 
 Repairing — of household or clothes ; — 
 /never find shirts without buttons. 
 
 Nor stockings with holes at the toes. 
 She scorns not the homely and useful, 
 
 Says all labour by love is refined ; 
 Calls the darning of stockings, a poem. 
 
 To a good wife and woman of mind. 
 
 She can make, when she likes, themes and verses, 
 
 But oftener makes puddings and tarts ; 
 Knows how acids and alkalies mingle, 
 
 And such useful and chemical arts. 
 And she knows, too, a good man's affection 
 
 Disregard or neglect may unbind ; 
 That aji Englishman holds by his dinner, — 
 
 And she acts — like a woman of mind. 
 
 I'm not deafened by squalling of children. 
 Love and firmness good order maintain ; 
 
 And my wife has a care for the units, — 
 As the millions — of money or men.
 
 THE WOMAN OF MIND. 73 
 
 And while first for her nearest and dearest, 
 Unselfish, and thoughtfiil, and kind ; 
 
 For the good of the wide human family, 
 Is striving the woman of mind. 
 
 Her quick eye prevents peculations, 
 
 No servant could sell from our store ; 
 And in prices and quantities, knowing. 
 
 My wife keeps the wolf from the door. 
 For she knows that the housekeeping 's heavy, 
 
 And that care helps the money to find ; 
 That, though dross, it buys credit and comfort. 
 
 In the hands of a woman of mind. 
 
 Our furniture 's bright as a mirror. 
 
 The servants are prompt and polite, 
 'Gainst all pests, parasitic or pendant. 
 
 Or flying or crawling, unite 
 Fresh air and pure Avater in plenty ; 
 
 And, 'neath her good guidance combined. 
 Health, cleanliness, good-taste, — distinguish 
 
 The home of my woman of mind. 
 
 "When of authors we chat, never jealous, 
 
 (Oft to both the same favourites are dear) — 
 If I write — I've a lively home-critic ; 
 
 If I sing — I've a sweet echo near. 
 And while reading — from Milton to Bulwer, 
 
 Or what author I choose, I'm not blind 
 To the pleased and discerning reflection. 
 
 On the face of my woman of mind.
 
 74 THE WOMAN OF MIND. 
 
 And on Sundays, — at church with her children, 
 
 Whom she leads in the time-honoured way, — 
 No worshipper there is so humble. 
 
 Though she knows much the parson will say. 
 None so well knows how high aspiration 
 
 Must ever leave practice behind ; 
 And that there rich and poor are all equal, — 
 
 As the Christian, and woman of mind.
 
 75 
 
 TO PENRITH BEACON. 
 
 Ho ! Warder of the breezy steep, 
 
 Again unto the world awaking ! 
 After thy forty years of sleep 
 
 Another day is breaking. 
 Long years of peace had blessed the land, 
 
 Ere woods their curtain round thee drew ;* 
 And ne'er hath come a hostile band. 
 
 This hundred years for thee to view. 
 
 Like older, prouder fanes, art thou — 
 
 Whose aim is lost, whose fires are cold, — 
 Alien from all around thee now, 
 
 A voucher for the tales of old. 
 But, when these vales were scantly tilled — 
 
 Those hills were wildly bare and bleak. 
 Oft to thy lonely height there thrilled 
 
 The trampling rush — the shout — the shriek. 
 
 * The Spire of the Beacon has again been given to view, 
 by the order of Lord Lonsdale for the cutting do\vn the trees 
 immediately round it, since which the two first verses were 
 altered.
 
 76 TO PENRITH BEACON. 
 
 As blazed thy far o'erseeing spire, 
 
 A pillar of disastrous light ; 
 And distant hills replied, with fire 
 
 To that dread signal of the night. 
 Dismay the country-side o'erspread, 
 
 None knowing where the bolt should fall ; 
 The ravaged hearth, and lawless raid 
 
 Anticipation dealt to all. 
 
 Proud Sentinel ! Look down and see — 
 If thee alone, no joy it yields — 
 
 How Cultivation's 'broidery 
 
 Now wraps those barren skirmish fields ! 
 
 Calm fanes of prayer — sweet homes, behold- 
 Where panted once scared Solitude ! 
 
 And pasturing herds, where outlaws bold 
 Hunted the wild deer of the wood. 
 
 Where once a monarch- — on a day, 
 
 Long, long ere rose thy spire to view,- 
 Sent from his quiver shafts, — they say. 
 
 Two sylvan hecatombs that slew.* 
 And where in earlier ages gone, 
 
 Successive hordes invading came, 
 See peaceful men, from sire to son, 
 
 The same few fertile acres claim. 
 
 * " So full of deer was the ancient forest of Inglewood, 
 that Edward the first, when returning victorious from Scot- 
 land, is said to have killed 200 bucks in a few days. "
 
 TO PENRITH BEACON. 77 
 
 Our fathers in their day fulfilled 
 
 Their part, a wild and stormy lot. 
 And, grudge not that their sons now tread 
 
 A path where foes and fame are not. 
 And see'st thou not, as sunlight fills 
 
 The vales, o'er woods thou peerest forth, 
 Still, gatherings 'mid the Cumbrian hills, 
 
 And rural Risings in the North 1 
 
 What ! scorn'st thou the heroic name. 
 
 To lowly men and deeds applied. 
 Of that old strife, — of fearful fame — 
 
 'Twixt regal power, and lordly pride *?* 
 Yet wherefore 1 are not sword and brand 
 
 With which our fathers fought of yore 
 To ploughshares turned, to till the land — 
 
 Waste and debateable no more 1 
 
 On thoughts, while that old phrase is breathed 
 This later use no shame shall cast ; 
 
 For kings and bards with flowers have wreathed 
 The Grecian plough in ages past. 
 
 * The Rising in the North. 
 
 " After the comparatively unimportant insurrection which 
 became so celebrated througlr the fine heroic ballad, T/ie 
 Rising in the North, the Duke of Sussex and Sir George 
 Bowes put to death numbers by martial law. One of them 
 boasted that, for 6o miles in length, and 40 in breadth, there 
 was hardly a town or village in which he had not executed 
 some of the inhabitants." — Percy's Reliques.
 
 78 TO PENRITH BEACON. 
 
 The glory of that fearful day 
 
 Whose name so sacred thou would'st hold, 
 Cheered not that night of blood and woe, 
 
 Of which old chroniclers have told. 
 
 Nor broke the 'vengeful shower, that swift 
 
 On threescore ravaged miles did fall ; 
 And Death and Desolation left 
 
 In town and hamlet, bower and hall. 
 This morn — which Winter doth not claim — 
 
 Nor Spring's ethereal mildness own, — 
 Grey changeling from the flowery time 
 
 Which songs from olden bards hath won,— 
 
 Hath yet a charm e'en thou might'st feel. 
 
 Stone heart ! as Fame or Glory cold ! 
 The warmth which kindly deeds exhale 
 
 Might melt thy frozen pride of old. 
 To till their neighbour's land, three-score 
 
 Of goodly teams this morning came ; 
 A band as prompt as when of yore 
 
 Steep called to steep with tongue of flame. 
 
 Now many a ploughshare glances bright. 
 
 And many a voice is raised in glee ; 
 And gazers, — patriots — hail the sight, 
 
 The Rising of the stout and free. 
 The freeman's boon, on peaceful field, 
 
 Unlike the service of the sword. 
 When men their day, or life must yield, 
 
 At mandate of some tyrant lord.
 
 TO PENRITH BEACON. 79 
 
 And see ! the foreign raid to bar, 
 
 Starts to its feet a stalwart band ; 
 From folds among the hills afar, 
 
 From all the cities of the land. 
 Hoping for peace — for war prepared — 
 
 Up rise the unaggressive hosts ; 
 'Gainst their protest, no foe hath dared ; — 
 
 Their spirit fitly guards our coasts. 
 
 And, round one well-stored board will soon 
 
 Be met, — scarce tired, — that kindly throng : 
 Who gave by day his labour-boon, 
 
 At evening gives his jovial song. 
 For arts that cheer, — enrich the earth, — 
 
 Long may we friendly Risings see ! 
 But never more our beauteous North, 
 
 Wasted, — as oft 't was seen by thee ! 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 It is pleasant to be told that the steam plough can never, 
 in this district, entirely supersede the older plough, with its 
 manifold associations and advantages ; and that from circum- 
 stances of country and climate, the good custom of ploughing 
 days is in no danger of being lost, in new ways. It is one of 
 the advantages of a mixture of large and small properties 
 and farms, that a new tenant, entering on his farm, whether 
 large or small, can have the assistance of so many of his 
 agricultural neighbours — for asking — on an appointed day, to 
 prepare his ground at once, for the seed. The nuihbers are
 
 80 TO PENRITH BEACON. 
 
 sometimes larger than those mentioned above ; which impUes 
 that the farm is a large one, and that some must have travelled 
 several miles to reach the place. Thirty, I am told, is a more 
 usual number of draughts— \}i\Q^ local word for team — as there 
 are more smaller, than large farms. There is often honourable 
 competition on these public occasions, which can make the 
 best work. Refreshments are ample, spirits high, and at the 
 end of the day, an excellent dinner, with proper accompani- 
 ments ; and social enjoyment and song. These are called 
 boon days with more justice than the old exactions of feudal 
 times — and are quite voluntary.
 
 81 
 
 FRIENDS. 
 
 What are our friends'? and what are we, their benefits 
 
 to scan ? 
 Ere Reason dawned or Memory woke, their loving 
 
 care began. 
 And shall survive our consciousness ; for in Life's 
 
 uncertain round, — 
 Our faith is firm — good friends and true, shall unto 
 
 Death be found. 
 What cause for grateful thought is ours — how little 
 
 good were left, 
 If all we've gained from wiser heads, and higher 
 
 hearts were reft. 
 From the cradle to the bier their influence extends, 
 O ! poorest on the earth, though crowned — the 
 
 destitute of friends ! 
 
 Instruction, habits, characters — what are they but 
 
 the hues 
 Reflected from the friends we love, whose choice 
 
 we ever choose 1 
 Well-remembered fire-side counsel, in tones of 
 
 friends of old, 
 A power like words of oracles, in after years must 
 
 hold; 
 
 6
 
 82 FRIENDS. 
 
 And if 'neath the world's unkindness, or strangers' 
 
 wrongs we smart, 
 The thought is bahii — there is a friend who better 
 
 knows my heart ! 
 True friends ! whose cheer, in Sorrow's depth, or 
 
 Fortune's dark despite, 
 To us, Hke constant brooks, would give their songs 
 
 throughout the night. 
 
 Fond Hope and wistful Memory each their influence 
 
 partake ; 
 All our visions of the future are brighter for their 
 
 sake; 
 And past — how large the share of friends ! though 
 
 some are dead and gone, 
 The just, the fair, the gifted, — on whose graves long, 
 
 grass hath grown. 
 With each scene of grace, or strain of power, or 
 
 deed of high emprise, 
 Quick thoughts of some who loved them, unto my 
 
 spirit rise ; 
 And though dead, or never more to meet, a hallowed 
 
 radiance bends, 
 Where to our earthly sight went down our unforgotten 
 
 friends. 
 
 Our friends were seldom great or wise, in the 
 
 world's fame or power ; — 
 Oft lowly roofs warm hearts have nursed; high 
 
 thought, and generous lore ;
 
 FRIENDS. ' 83 
 
 'Neath mountain slopes, in lone green vales, where 
 
 tranquil wisdom dwelt, 
 AVe found them, learnt by heart their worth, their 
 
 partial kindness felt. 
 And since, — as friends deemed those whose voice 
 
 for Truth or Nature spoke ; 
 Whose radiant thought, unselfish deed, some loftier 
 
 impulse woke, 
 Like grand old books. And those whose song to 
 
 life a brightness lends. 
 Though far apart, — unseen on earth — we ever 
 
 deemed our friends. 
 
 With our old pleasures, there comes back, a bright 
 and genial throng ! — 
 
 Without them, — winter were too deep — and summer 
 then, too long ; — 
 
 Those days of Avandering weary — through woods, 
 o'er lake and fell ; 
 
 By winding rivers' tangled banks, or fairies' moss- 
 grown well. 
 
 Mute too, had been the wild old tales, at eve we 
 would rehearse, 
 
 The legend quaint, the mirthful song, and soul- 
 awakening verse. 
 
 From the days when primrose-gathering, we roamed 
 in meadows fair. 
 
 To our later search in fields of thought, for flowers 
 discovered there ;
 
 84 FRIENDS. 
 
 E'en joy unshared, was dull and dark, as a gem 
 
 that dwelleth lone, 
 In some cavern, where no kindling ray hath e'er 
 
 upon it shone. 
 
 What is our Faith? 'Tis but the trust in our 
 
 Almighty Friend ; 
 The substance of our brightest hopes when this 
 
 dream of Life shall end ; 
 When, Him whose glorious "form is Truth," as the 
 
 gifted Heathen told — 
 Whose "shadow on the Earth is Light," the faithful 
 
 shall behold. 
 And Heaven, that many-mansioned home, seems 
 
 yet more bright and fair. 
 That the early lost we hope to find, — all perfect, — 
 
 gathered there. 
 Where foes and falsehood are not, where pains and 
 
 partings end, — 
 The home — the glorious home of Him, our Father 
 
 and our Friend.
 
 85 
 
 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL 
 OF HARTSIDE. 
 
 Oft as thy silent rest I break, 
 
 Thou relic of the hardy past ! 
 Thy murmurs mountain echoes wake, — 
 
 The rude dim life, and roaring blast, — 
 Of old laborious days, when men 
 
 By simple strength and will o'ercame 
 Earth's barriers drear : and Commerce then, 
 
 Dawned on those wilds no power could tame. 
 Spent fires, and wealth, hid far below 
 The bare, bleak fells, oft crowned with snow. 
 
 And thou, survivor of that band 
 
 Of immemorial pioneers ! 
 Round thy dusk form a radiance bland, 
 
 Lights up the vista of the years. 
 When the staunch pack-horse gang of yore 
 
 The Fell's unbroken rigours faced,
 
 86 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL. 
 
 With stores for miners 'mid the moor. — 
 
 The Dane's stronghold at ten miles passed 3* 
 Then up the steeps their burden bore, 
 For trackless, treeless, ten miles more. 
 
 ft 
 
 And o'er the trusty leader's crest 
 
 Thou, vagrant bell ! a sphere wast hung ; 
 With chink through which storms never prest, 
 
 Nor snows could still thy rolling tongue. 
 Long years, while loftier bells told clear 
 
 Of bridals, burials, and war. 
 Through the bleak wilderness thy cheer 
 
 Rang like a Prophet's voice afar : 
 Herald of peace, to clear the ways, 
 For mightier powers of modern days. 
 
 In no ignoble strife, to aid 
 
 Those lowly \vrestlers with the Fell ; 
 Through storms, and Helm-wind's gloomy shade, 
 
 The demons, haply, to repel, t 
 And year by year, at winter's close, 
 
 To meet the sunrise, through the dark. 
 Thy ringing peal up Hartside rose. 
 
 Like carol of the morning lark : 
 In storm or calm, of equal cheer, 
 A voice of hope — a joy to hear. 
 
 * Melmerby — said to have been named from Melmor, one 
 of the three sons of Halfdan a Dane, who before the Norman 
 conquest, seated himself here, under the edge of the east 
 fells. 
 
 t Bells were anciently used as a safeguard against evil spirits.
 
 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL. 87 
 
 When the staunch troop, with travel sore, 
 
 Passed up within the Helm-cloud's veil. 
 And 'scaped the blast — yet heard its roar, 
 
 Below, in many a western dale ; — 
 When they, to cro^Ti the march severe, 
 
 Defiled through summits bleak and brown ; — 
 With sudden speed, and louder cheer, — 
 
 Came clattering do\vn to Alston town. 
 Round which the wide fells darkly peer, 
 And grasping Winter cheats the year ; 
 
 Of snows dissolved, and opened ways. 
 
 Round Cross-fell's base, they brought the tale; 
 Of all the promise of spring days. 
 
 And produce of the Eden's vale. 
 Borne on light breeze, thy music brief 
 
 Pleased wild bees murmuring 'mid the ling ; 
 Scarce startled fell-flocks, in their heaf,* 
 
 By peak, lownf beck, or sievy spring ; 
 Or prompted moor-bird's faltering flight. 
 To wile the passing traveller's sight. 
 
 As thou — ne'er loftiest minster bells 
 
 Rang in such day-spring radiance, spread 
 
 Swift o'er the vast, dark, solemn fells ; 
 Nor out — such glorious evening red ; 
 
 * Heaf, that part of a mountain pasture to which a particular 
 flock of sheep attaches itself. Ilevd, Dan. prescriptive right. 
 
 + Lffwn, O.N. and Dan. sheltered. Sievy, rtishy, siv. D. 
 a rush.
 
 88 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL. 
 
 As that descending pilgrims scanned, 
 Which gilded oft the peaks and streams, 
 
 Of counties far beyond the land 
 
 Of lakes, and fells, and poets' dreams ; 
 
 The border land of raid and fray. 
 
 At peace, 'neath autumn's kindling ray. 
 
 And, prompt, in presage of the storm, 
 
 Or, when the way grew rougher, steeper. 
 More clamorous grew thy voice — and warm- - 
 
 To rouse the laggard and the sleeper. 
 In deepening seasons' gloom, the while, 
 
 'Neath sudden storms with peril rife. 
 Thy voice led on the straggling file, 
 
 Through hours of fearful stouran drife y 
 'Mid blinding gloom a saving spell, 
 Wert thou, — heroic, nameless bell ! 
 
 To lost ones, 'mid the wild fell's shroud, 
 Or fog-lights-lured, — thy peal hath said,- 
 
 " Courage ! arise, and cry aloud ; — 
 There yet is hope and human aid ! " 
 
 What joy, by many a hearth, there thrills 
 The watchers for the lost ones back. 
 
 « ■ 
 
 Whirling, blinding, thick snow storm. Drife is not found 
 in any English collection of words. O. Norse, drifa — snow 
 fog. Stour may be the Scandinavian adjective Star — great, 
 which is also used in Scotland ; or if Siour — dust in motion, 
 it is rather like tautology.
 
 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL. 89 
 
 "V\Tien first thy cheer rang down the hills, — 
 
 Though snows and darkness closed the track ; — 
 Heard faint 'mid howling tempest's gloom ; 
 Or thunder-peals like crash of doom. 
 
 All this — but not his name, can'st show — 
 
 That stem Columbus of the Fell ; 
 The master-mind, whose impulse, thou 
 
 And that brave steed obeyed so well. 
 What of the staunch sure-footed horse — 
 
 That all the mountain strife withstood, — 
 Trod straight — where none could see the course — 
 
 Breasting the snowdrift and the flood ? 
 Ah ! years o'ergrew their place and name, 
 That scathed not thy enduring frame ! 
 
 Art spans the heights so lone and wide, 
 
 And Science like a bird now soars ; 
 And eastern traffic's cheering tide. 
 
 Steam through the miser region pours. 
 Still true — thou speak'st of heroes older, 
 
 ^^^lose toils have smoothed this world of ours ; 
 Unconscious, resolute, and bolder, 
 
 'Gainst Nature's unknown, awful powers. 
 Meetly, their dirge thou ringest now; — 
 The fells their cairn, enwreathed with snow.
 
 90 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 This bell is known by tradition to have been hung over the 
 collar of the leader of the Pack-IIorse gang, which, at the 
 close of the last century, twice a week crossed the fell from 
 Penrith to Alston. It is of the usual metal, of veiy good 
 workmanship, with the letters W. «S: R. on opposite sides of 
 the open circle at the bottom, but neither name nor date 
 could be recovered concerning it. In form and substance — 
 its weight being 12 oz. — it is as unlike the toy bells sometimes 
 seen on the necks of horses of the south of England, as its 
 sonorous ring is to their lively jingle. 
 
 People of the last generation used to speak of the procession 
 of pack-horses passing through Edenhall and Langwathby. 
 A lady of 85 has a dim recollection of ' ' three pack-horses 
 going up Edenhall brow," when she lived there, before her 
 seventh year ; but that must have been in the decline of the 
 traffic. When it began, the route to Alston was probably by 
 a road over Penrith Fell, near the race course, to the old 
 bridge between the two Salkelds — by Glassonby and Gamelsby, 
 and the old road over Hartside, a lower portion of the fell. 
 The more direct road might be much later than the building 
 of Langwathby bridge ; before which (1682) the Lang Wath 
 must have been too formidable a barrier to be approached 
 from a distance ; not only from the usual current of the Eden, 
 but from its liability to sudden overflow, so near the junction 
 with Eamont, whenever westerly winds swept down Ulls- 
 water. 
 
 In Burn and Nicolson's History, there is a long Hst of the 
 numbers of " Gangs of Pack-Horses" to and from Kendal; 
 to London, and many other towns ; to illustrate the extent of 
 the woollen trade — the number of journeys weekly, and of
 
 TO THE PACK-HORSE BELL. 91 
 
 liorses in each gang being given — * 'before the making of roads, " 
 after 1752. But no such traffic is mentioned in this direction, 
 though at that date (1777) there could have been Uttle other 
 means of reaching Alston. And probably there were smaller 
 and earlier gangs, than any from Penrith ; from the fell-side 
 villages, ■where tradition of them is still rife. It is known to 
 have been impossible to make an ordinary pack-horse pass 
 before its leader. And doubtless from very early times, and 
 such responsibilities as these, we have a name expressive of 
 excellence in a horse, which is still common in our rural 
 districts ; and also, I hear, in Lincolnshire. However it 
 may be superseded, or be deemed homely or vulgar from later 
 associations, Kappi, was the Old Norse word for a hero : and 
 to cap is still to excel. 
 
 In Hodgson's History of Northumberland, it is said that 
 ' ' the town of Alston is 20 miles from Penrith, 20 from 
 Brampton, and 23 from Hexham ; pent in a narrow valley 
 over which the mountains frown with a melancholy sterility." 
 Alston Moor is a wild, high parish, nine miles by eight ; of 
 dark moors intersected by streams and narrow valleys, in 
 some of which there is good pasturage. Since the making of 
 new roads to Penrith and Brampton, for which an Act of 
 Parliament was passed in 1823, the district is much improved 
 by cultivation and commerce ; and Alston has now its Floral 
 and Agricultural Shows.
 
 92 
 
 THE DOVE. 
 
 WRITTEN DURING THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 1870. 
 
 When from the sad earth's dekiged face 
 
 The Lord's voice bade the waters cease, 
 Thou, Dove ! first brought'st to man the leaf 
 
 Of Promise and of Peace. 
 And in the early Grecian days, 
 
 When beauty claimed thee, gentle Dove ! 
 Oft thou hast sped from isle to isle. 
 
 Ambassador of Love. 
 
 Thy part was then less sad than now, 
 
 Through War's and Famine's jaws to bring— 
 \\Tien man's swift transit-means were barred — 
 
 Minutest scrolls beneath thy wing. 
 Joy to the sad beleaguered crowd. 
 
 Where heart and hope began to fail. 
 When thou hast gleamed athwart the gloom, 
 
 With news of hearts beyond the pale.
 
 THE DOVE. 93 
 
 Through ages of the world unchanged, 
 
 Thou breath'st an atmosphere above 
 Man's wars, and woes, and treacheries, — 
 
 Own'st but the instinct of thy love. 
 'Mid slaughter brave ; 'mid ruin true ; 
 
 Unweeting States', or Kings' decree, 
 No worldly wile, or power can warp 
 
 The Dove's divine simplicity. 
 
 PosTSCTiPT. Jtine^ 187 1. 
 
 What means, meek Dove ! — in idlesse gay, 
 ^Mien all is calm by land and sea, — 
 
 That men, when war, nor wild-chace call. 
 Have turned their cruel rage on thee ? 
 
 Know they, whose laws forbid the sport 
 In great beasts' agonies to deal, 
 
 That pangs of each torn lingering dove 
 Are keen as baited monsters feel ? 
 
 Yet pain, or death thus multiplied, 
 In selfish man no pity moves ; 
 
 And Fashion and Frivolity 
 Applaud a hecatomb of Doves.
 
 94 
 
 THE MOOR— ENCLOSED. 1850. 
 
 Dark Moor ! Thy regal robe is torn ; — 
 Daily thy face becomes more strange : 
 
 A lion tamed — a giant shorn — 
 
 These types to me bespeak thy change. 
 
 I tread the old familiar ground, 
 
 My course prescribed 'twixt lines of stone ; 
 And to the eye, or ear, its bound 
 
 Gives scarce one well-known sight or tone. 
 
 Let Wisdom, Toil, and Enterprise, 
 Fitly, enjoy thy wealth to be ; 
 
 Sweet memory of the Moor o'erlies. 
 For me, this new fertility. 
 
 Though woods ma.y wave, and grass may grow. 
 Where only turf and moss have grown, 
 
 And Cultivation's magic show 
 
 Harvests on hills of sand or stone.
 
 THE MOOR — ENCLOSED. 95 
 
 I have its picture, perfect yet, 
 
 Nor parted, seamed, or ploughed its face ; 
 Its wild nide charms I ne'er forget. 
 
 Its wide old bounds, in thought, I trace. 
 
 Its denizens, all wild and bare. 
 Still o'er the turfy hillocks sweep ; 
 
 A herd of lawless ponies there, 
 Here straggling, predatory sheep. 
 
 Though gipsies camp, and vagrant herds 
 Forever banished, or restrained ; 
 
 The very bees, and moorland birds. 
 Forsake a region tilled and drained. 
 
 Yet Memory not alone retains 
 
 The heathery hill, and vagrant track ; 
 
 But peoples, as of old, those scenes. 
 
 And conjiures thoughts and feelings back. 
 
 I see the lapwing-haunted pool. 
 
 Though corn or grass has clothed its face } 
 And feel again the sunset's cool. 
 
 Of vanished summers on my face.
 
 96 THE MOOR — ENCLOSED. 
 
 And watching that lone waiUng bird, 
 Its wiles to lure me from its nest ; 
 
 Think how like our own wiles, to guard 
 Our highest joys from vulgar quest. 
 
 Recal the bridge, where I would dream, 
 At evening, o'er the moorland brook ; 
 
 Gaze up, or do\vn the tide, and deem 
 On Hope or Memory I could look. 
 
 Flowers, leaves, — as life's events in march, — 
 Came on the clear advancing waves, 
 
 Like Hope and Youth — down past the arch- 
 Seemed sunsets, memories, and graves. 
 
 How mused, o'er old fights on the heath. 
 Or, treasure buried in the ground ; 
 
 And on the ancient grave, beneath 
 The lonely, unsuspected mound. 
 
 Dear friends, and dead, again I greet, 
 There see perpetual blooming flowers ; 
 
 Lost voices, words, and fragrance sweet. 
 May oft be there at evening hours.
 
 THE MOOR — ENCLOSED. 97 
 
 My moorland picture keeps for age 
 Some spell of Nature — cultureless, — 
 
 As green sod in the skylark's cage, 
 Or towns-folks' bit of wilderness. 
 
 O, gleam above life's tiickerings faint ! 
 
 O boon, by God's benign decree ! 
 No art with power like theirs can paint — 
 
 The Masters — Hope and Memory ! 
 
 1870.
 
 98 
 
 EDEN 
 
 Amid Westmeria's uplands barren, 
 
 Oft when the southern breezes blow, 
 From out the ancient wild-boar's warren 
 
 There sounds a rattling fell-beck's flow. 
 As a fair child in stature growing, 
 
 In that pure stream the vales rejoice ; 
 But calmer is its onward flowing, 
 
 Than that early Eden's voice. 
 
 We heed not wail of sage prophetic, 
 
 That fitting theme of song is o'er ; 
 Nor join the dirge of the poetic, 
 
 Upon old Eden's golden shore. 
 Ages to come shall find unspent, 
 
 Dear stream ! thy power — thy beauty — fame, 
 In all thy course beneficent, 
 
 And in the magic of thy name.
 
 EDEN. 99 
 
 The dreamers of some blest ideal, 
 
 O'er earth, one utt'rance only claim, 
 That life, beyond the stern and real, 
 
 Breathes in the music of thy name. 
 And with its echoes' far vibration, 
 
 \Vhich ages — first to last — prolong, 
 Some bard may find meet inspiration 
 
 To sing thee in harmonious song.
 
 100 
 
 TO THE STEAM-PLOUGH 
 
 IN CAITHNESS. 1873. 
 
 Giant of later days ! benignly going, 
 
 Unchecked o'er fastnesses and deserts wild, 
 
 Abroad the seeds of peace and plenty throwing, 
 To the far North-sea, Hke a sportive child. 
 
 Beneficent enchanter ! 'neath thy power 
 Deserts primeval to new life are bom ; 
 
 And in thy footsteps spring up herb and flower, 
 The fattening grasses, and the blessed com. 
 
 The stern earth yields her fulness, at command 
 Of Science, messenger of God for human uses ; 
 
 Softens the hardness of the loftier land. 
 And frees, or turns to sap its marish juices.
 
 TO THE STEAM-PLOUGH. 101 
 
 Grim pioneer of man's best life we deem thee. 
 
 \\Tiere deer and wild-fowl held their lonely reign ; 
 ^Ve cannot see beyond — but now esteem thee 
 
 Last triumph of the art of Tubal Cain. 
 
 At true Nobility's impulse, most noble, 
 
 Giving the landless land, the hungry bread ; 
 
 Wiser than for wide space, or sport ignoble. 
 To drain the realm of faithful lustihed. 
 
 And in the roll of Nobles' lives and labours, — 
 When Scotia proudly counts her patriot band, — 
 
 Blessings of God, of peace, and of his neighbours, 
 Shall greet the name of noble Sutherland.
 
 102 
 
 TO MY PURPLE BEECHES. 
 
 A greenwood influence around me dwells : — 
 
 Blithe birds and varying breeze — 
 Bounding my world, — your waving, rustling spells, 
 
 O, great and gracious trees ! 
 In ever-waxing breadth of bole and crown. 
 
 With yearly heavenward reaches, 
 Extended shade, and earth-grasp deeper down, — 
 
 Majestic Beeches ! 
 
 In Summer's purple — Autumn's gold — ye stand, 
 
 Aeriel sanctuaries ; 
 A beauty and a blessing in the land, 
 
 O, great cathedral trees ! 
 Oft, with small burthens of the day opprest, 
 
 When languor Peace beseeches, 
 Fain, like the birds, I flee away to rest, 
 
 In thought, within the Beeches,
 
 TO MY PURPLE BEECHES. 103 
 
 In sleepless hours I hear a thousand birds, 
 
 Within your arches dim, — 
 Ere day awakes out-lying flocks and herds, — 
 
 Singing their morning hymn. 
 And from yoiu* depths, at sunset bright — those voices, 
 
 "Whose worship plainly teaches. 
 That every small bird in God's day rejoices. 
 
 And in o'ershadowing Beeches. 
 
 Not trees of immemorial growth, indeed, 
 
 Wearing hi^oric glory ; 
 But, like the ancients, beechen books I read, 
 
 For solemn Truth and Story. 
 Memorials ever — wardens by the portal ! 
 
 Of Love and Goodness gone ; 
 From earthly shadows to the life immortal, 
 
 By you, still beckoning on ! 
 
 Your voice through leafy Summer — singing, sighing, 
 
 In Autumn hoarsely preaches ; 
 Of Death and Doom, of golden pomp low-lying, 
 
 'Neath ravaged naked Beeches, 
 Like some great-hearted Patriots — rich and free, — 
 
 Beneficent to all ; 
 As they who occupy large space should be, — 
 
 Ye shelter great and small.
 
 104 TO MY PURPLE BEECHES. 
 
 For passers by the small birds know no fear, 
 
 In the great friendly trees ; 
 For school-boys, sportsmen, — harmless, saunt'ring 
 near ; — 
 
 None are their enemies. 
 And lessons from the birds man well may learn, 
 
 God's times to meet with gladness ; — 
 They see their lofty halls, their shelter torn, 
 
 Without a wail of sadness. 
 
 A feeble feathered folk ! — yet wise withal ; 
 
 Them Heavenly Wisdom teaches, 
 That He doth care for, and will shield them all, 
 
 When Winter strips the Beeches. 
 " A lowlier home they'll seek, 'neath ivy leaves " — 
 
 So I o'erhear their speeches ;— 
 " In hollow trees — 'neath stacks' or cottage eaves, 
 
 When storms assail the Beeches." 
 
 " Yet here, bright moms and eves, their songs will 
 raise, — 
 
 For none their right impeaches, — 
 Since, by the house in its deserted days, 
 
 Their sires first found the Beeches." 
 O, fearful soul ! Leave all to God, in faith, 
 
 As His own Spirit teaches ; 
 And pray— but for His rest, when thou, in Death, 
 
 Shalt pass— 'beyond the Beeches.
 
 105 
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 JUNE, 1873. 
 
 Genial June once more is o'er us. 
 Rich in verdure, foliage, flowers ; 
 
 Rustling trees, and song-birds' chorus. 
 Balmy airs and long bright hours. 
 
 With the beeches, dark, embowering, 
 Blends laburnum's golden rain,* 
 
 Legend-hawthorn redly flowering, 
 With lilac clusters come again. 
 
 Hills long bare 'neath winter's rigour. 
 
 Now are joyous like the vales ; 
 In the verdure, life, and vigour, 
 
 Bom of genial skies and gales. 
 
 *"Gold regen ! Das gold regen!" was the continual 
 exclamation of a German gentleman travelling in the Isle of 
 Wight, in May. The name is as beautiful as appropriate — 
 }i[olden rain.
 
 lOG SUMMER. 
 
 Poetic May ! the chill deceiver ; 
 
 With windy brightness boding woe. 
 To hungry flocks ; a grudging giver 
 
 To the grazing herds below. 
 
 Insect life, with hum now filling 
 All the air, cold May represt ; 
 
 Birds half starved — now ceaseless trilling, 
 In the glow of June are blest. 
 
 For the long-immured, escaping 
 
 To the Summer's haunts once more, 
 
 Heart and thought quick dreams are shaping, 
 All that dwelt in them of yore. 
 
 Freshness brings back years of childhood, 
 Warmth, old friends of fervent truth ; 
 
 Scents, recal the birken wild-wood. 
 And the fragrant fields of youth. 
 
 Flowers of long-past years are blooming, 
 Old vigour rustles in the breeze, 
 
 Undertones yet bees are booming, 
 To old sylvan melodies.
 
 SUMMER. 107 
 
 Gales of Mercy, softly blowing. 
 
 Earth's voices fitly in accord, 
 With rivers bright — in bounty flowing, 
 
 Sing — For Summer Praise the Lord !
 
 108 
 
 A TALE OF LATE OCTOBER. 
 
 Harvest is past, and cold and dull, 
 The lingering Autumn's sun at noon ; 
 
 The bams and bamekins are full,* 
 In slumber 'neath the hunters' moon. 
 
 Along the bounteous Eden's vale 
 Plenty and rustic peace abound ; 
 
 At evening firesides song and tale, 
 With busy wheels, go cheerful round. 
 
 What sough is that upon the breeze ? 
 
 Those sounds confused, — that measured fall ? 
 Not helm-wind wrestling with the trees ; — 
 
 A week agone it stripped them all. 
 
 * Barnekin, the outermost ward of a castle, within which 
 were the barns, stables, and cowhouses.
 
 A TALE OF LATE OCTOBER. 109 
 
 The good-man, listening, stepped without, 
 Glanced round his garner'd, folded things ; 
 
 *' 'Twill be a border raid, I doubt — 
 
 That's Scotsmen's tramp the north-wind brings !" 
 
 " Ah ! no ! " — said the foreboding mother, 
 Pallid with vague unspoken fears ; — 
 
 For Age and Childhood grief to smother, 
 She bravely strives with falling tears. 
 
 " Are not the waths* all watched and warded, 
 All that the rievers dare to take ? 
 
 Are not with dogs the passes guarded, 
 And the stout watchers all awake ? " 
 
 But then, shot up from Penrith Fell, 
 The beacon-flame j — and Orton Scar, 
 
 And many a lone height blazed — to tell 
 Swift tale of dread to vales afar. 
 
 Then trembling haste in homes to hide 
 What each one loved and treasured most ; 
 
 While, like the Solway's rolling tide, 
 Comes on the hungry riever-host. 
 
 * IVath is the popular word for ford.
 
 110 A TALE OF LATE OCTOBER. 
 
 Soon, — shriek, and prayer, and threatening hoarse, 
 
 Tell of assault, resistance, woe ; 
 But useless, rage — o'er-mastered force, — 
 
 To check the fierce unequal foe. 
 
 Morn da\vns on waste, and fire, and death, 
 \Vhile flocks and herds are driven away, 
 
 By lonely moor, and darkling path, 
 To reach the border — if they may. 
 
 Sorrow and graves — home desolation, 
 For Winter's pinch — left in their track ;- 
 
 And, trace of swift retaliation, 
 
 They say is left in Dead Men's Slack.* 
 
 * At Lazonby is a field so named, popularly believed to 
 have been the burial place of some over-taken and unfortunate 
 party of marauding strangers. It lay long undisturbed, and 
 when but lately its cultivation was begun, the remains of 
 bones, etc., disinterred, seemed to justify its traditional fame. 
 The succession of these scenes for many centuries, on both 
 sides the Border, make it impossible to fix on any date for 
 events of which the general features were so similar, and so 
 disastrous. But no testimony to the truth of history and 
 tradition is more to be depended on than such old field-names. 
 Dojtfilas Ing is still known by its old name, as was stated in 
 the Penrith Herald not long since. 
 
 "At the south end of the old bridge at Hoff, near Appleby, 
 is a field which in Mr. Machell's time was called Douglas 
 Ing ; where a battle was fought between the Scotch and 
 English ; at which time Appleby was bumed. Bones have 
 been dug up near the old bridge stead. Perhaps this may
 
 A TALE OF LATE OCTOBER. Ill 
 
 Those days are gone — their echoes mute ; 
 
 One people now, those foes of yore ; — 
 The ravage, blood-shed, hot pursuit, 
 
 And stem reprisal, — come no more. 
 
 When we for Plenty thank the Lord, 
 For harvests fair, and earth's increase, 
 
 O ! let thanksgivings deep be poured, 
 
 For earth's best blessing — household Peace ! 
 
 refer to the 13th Richard II., in which year, in the month of 
 November, when the Englishmen's barns were full, and tlieir 
 yards or barnekins well stored for the winter, the Scots under 
 the conduct of the Earl of Murray and the Lord Douglas, 
 entered England and burnt the country of Gilsland, kept on 
 their journey to Brough under Stanemore, and so through 
 Westmorland and Cumberland ; and after much spoil and 
 waste in all the parts aforesaid, with many prisoners and 
 great riches, they returned to their own country." — Drake's 
 Hist. Anglo Scotia. Burn &^ Nicolson' s Westmorland, p. 339.
 
 112 
 
 
 THE FUNERAL PSALM. 
 
 The village church was met for prayers 
 In Sunday evening's brooding calm ; 
 
 And many an eye was dim with tears, 
 As rose the solemn funeral psalm. 
 
 No sign within the still churchyard 
 Of recent death, that strain to claim ; 
 
 No new made grave, no broken sward, 
 No knell, no utt'rance of a name. 
 
 Enduring memory keeps^in view 
 
 The stragglers from that ancient fold : 
 
 Four hundred miles away, they knew 
 She died, for whom the tear-drops rolled.
 
 THE FUNERAL PSALM. 113 
 
 The knell scarce heard 'mid cities' roar, 
 Far vibrates 'twixt the quiet hills, 
 
 As with its solemn, softening power, 
 One death all hearts with sadness fills. 
 
 More sad that far away she lies, 
 
 Where hers is called a stranger's grave, — 
 The friend of all — though 'neath soft skies 
 
 There laurel bright, and cypress wave. 
 
 O'er name and dust, afar, they bend, 
 But here, too, on the household stone, 
 
 Her name and loving memory blend 
 With theirs of generations gone. 
 
 Dear Sister ! if the dead can hear, — 
 
 Pure souls loved spots on earth can see- 
 That memory is the fame most dear. 
 That psalm the requiem best for thee. 
 
 I may not grudge thy blessed lot ; 
 
 But, till that psalm for me shall rise. 
 Colder the earth where thou art not, — 
 
 Thy faith, hope, love's lost ministries ! 
 8
 
 lU 
 
 THE HEAF ON THE FELL.* 
 
 No Domesday record tells 
 Of fastnesses and fells, 
 Blue lakes and grassy dells, 
 
 Carved out for courtier's meed, or for daring 
 warrior's spoil ; 
 
 Long, Viking barks had swept 
 North seas, and while men slept, 
 Haply, fierce chiefs had leapt 
 
 Ashore, and in their fashion rude, ta'en seizin of the 
 soil. 
 
 Ages of fierce unrest, 
 Not for mere Battle's zest — 
 Weak people backward prest 
 Fresh hordes ; who fain in fell-side homes their 
 wanderings would cease ; 
 
 * Heaf, that pait of an open fell pasture on which a 
 particular flock of sheep feeds, and becomes attached to. 
 Dan. hcevd, prescriptive right Icelandic, hefda.
 
 THE HEAF ON THE FELL. 115 
 
 Their sons, a stalwart band, 
 Maintained with the strong hand, 
 Theii- days long in the land ; 
 Their strength, their weapons, words of war, turned 
 to the life of peace. 
 
 No conqueror drove forth, 
 
 From th' old unquiet North, 
 
 Its moist skies and upland earth, 
 Those stem and hardy settlers, from out their quiet 
 tillage ; 
 
 AVhen all with blood was dark. 
 
 No mandate came t' empark 
 
 The lofty, bleak out-mark ; 
 Joint remnant, and firm right, of many an ancient 
 fell-side village. 
 
 Ages of summer days. 
 
 There flocks are wont to graze ; 
 
 Each o'er its own heaf strays, 
 
 Like some Arcadian peoples, undivided, yet apart ; 
 Scarce heeding helm-wind's shocks, 
 Fronting in force, the fox. 
 And sheltering 'neath the rocks. 
 
 While o'er their varied pastures tempests roll, and 
 lightnings dart.
 
 116 THE HEAF ON THE FELL. 
 
 Nought there but peaceful things, — 
 
 Pure airs, and infant springs, 
 
 The atmosphere that flings 
 Such glory o'er the mountain-heads, and slopes so 
 near the skies ; 
 
 And, flocks that dwelt below 
 
 Heard screaming moor-birds crow, 
 
 And brattling fell-becks flow. 
 But nought to mar the quiet of that pastoral paradise. 
 
 The wild bees early came. 
 
 Their sweet first-fruits to claim, 
 
 When whins were all aflame, 
 Telling far up the heights, the immemorial summer 
 story ; 
 
 Rifling, with victor-boom. 
 
 The honey-rife ling-bloom ; 
 
 Coming soon-laden home, 
 When autumn clad the fells in a soft haze of purple 
 glory. 
 
 'Neath the last hedge's frieze, 
 Too, hives of garden bees. 
 Brought within scent of these, 
 The Northern summer's latest, richest yielding 
 flowers ]
 
 THE HEAF ON THE FELL. 117 
 
 Transported, pillion-tied, 
 By night, like stolen bride, — 
 Swarm forth at morning — wide. 
 To bring their latest gatherings in from the fragrant 
 moors. 
 
 O, lovely mountain heaf ! 
 
 Oft scene of pastoral grief, 
 
 Dire, keen, though haply brief, 
 A\Tien envious neighbours over their viewless 
 boundaries prest ; 
 
 Or barking collies sent, 
 
 To hound from off the bent 
 
 Sheep of such old descent, 
 From that familiar spot which was their chosen 
 home and rest. 
 
 Ah, suffering, silly sheep ! 
 
 Almost with you I weep, — 
 
 I share your yearning deep ; 
 Your wrongs and scattered \vretchedness, proclaimed 
 afar, I know. 
 
 Forced flight to rocks and bogs, — 
 
 O'er the crag's brink in fogs — 
 
 The terrors of the dogs. 
 And all the helpless little lambs', and wrecklings' 
 overthrow.
 
 118 THE HEAP ON THE FELL. 
 
 But what are griefs like yours ? — 
 Free to bleat among the moors — 
 To those which man endures ? 
 
 With his deep thoughts ; and far, and oft, reflected 
 memories, — 
 
 Quivering at music's tone — 
 From generations gone, 
 Heaping up woes upon 
 
 The heads of ruined folk, in ruthless War's 
 extremities. 
 
 At cruel kings' behest, 
 Whole peoples dispossest 
 Of all they loved the best ; 
 
 Their slaughtered sons, — their ravaged lands, — their 
 pleasant homes upbroken ; — • 
 Their Fathers' faith and fame, 
 Their ancient country's name, — 
 Its tongue — O, Tyrant's shame ! 
 
 Only in secret sorrow, or in exile to be spoken. 
 
 Little they care or wot, 
 Whose own the sheep are not, 
 The misery they allot.; 
 But yet shall the Good Shepherd come, some day, 
 and rede the wrong ;
 
 THE HEAP ON THE FELL, 119 
 
 And such kings shall wrath endure, 
 \\Tien our Lord shall, stern, abjure 
 The oppressors of the poor ; 
 And, haply, range on His right hand, those crushed 
 on earth so long. 
 
 1872. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 It may be difficult to convey to a stranger an idea of the 
 boundless sheep-ranges of our Northern fells, unless he should 
 have stood and looked from the top of Helvellyn or Cross 
 Fell ; if so, and he can recal the dark tumultuous wastes 
 stretching away to the horizon on every side, he will have an 
 idea of the undivided fell-pastures of several parishes, (from 
 the first of these heights he will see little else,) — but not of 
 the numbers of interests, and flocks there mingled — at large, 
 yet separate — nor of the extent to which the instinct of the 
 sheep to keep to their own heaf, is calculated on, as one of 
 the safe-guards of such property. — From a Paper on '■''Heaf,'''' 
 in Notes and Queries, M., Jan. i8t/i, 1873. 
 
 The right of pasturage on the parish waste, of owner or 
 occupier, is strictly proportioned by the in-field land he holds ; 
 and is kept up by continued use. The rule is, to keep as 
 much stock on the fell in summer, as his enclosed land will 
 maintain in winter.
 
 120 
 
 EDEN'S STORY. 
 
 Not of far Eastern life or glory, 
 
 Not of soft Paradisal bowers, 
 Seemeth to me that chiming story, 
 
 Eden tells through quiet hours ; 
 But like an ancient bard descending. 
 
 Striking on his silver strings, — 
 Eden through the valleys wending, 
 
 Of forgotten Northmen sings. 
 
 Echoes Arthurian may 'waken. 
 
 As flowing by Pendragon's hold ; 
 By stately pile and halls forsaken. 
 
 Faint sound of horn of baron bold. 
 But Northmen's trophy none discovers ; 
 
 They might have perished, root and branch. 
 Those resolute, home-seeking rovers, — 
 
 Those ceaseless Vikings — fierce and staunch
 
 eden's story. l^i 
 
 For aught of date, in History's pages, 
 
 For certain trace, in temple — tomb. 
 No sculptures theirs — as through long ages — 
 
 Earth keeps in memory of Rome. 
 Yet here their footsteps earth hath shown. 
 
 Impressed on England's morning dew ; 
 As if, of wanderers ere the dawn, 
 
 O'er meadows green and mountains blue. 
 
 No dream that in the air remaineth, 
 
 That Danish voice the shepherd hears ;* 
 
 ^^^lere mead, and grove, and rock retaineth 
 Names each hath borne, a thousand years. 
 
 * Wordsworth. A Fragment. This poem, to which no 
 note is given, seems an embodiment of pervading local 
 tracltion, as well as an allusion to the legend of the thraldom 
 of the cattle to the potent spell of harmony, which rings 
 thraigh the air, as they listen to the Danish or Norseland 
 boy. sadly singing the old bardic lays over the barrows of his 
 fore;athers. 
 
 " A harp is o'er his shoulders slung, 
 
 lie rests the harp upon his knee ; 
 And there, in a forgotten tongue 
 
 He warbles melody. 
 Of flocks upon the neighbouring hills 
 
 He is the darling and the joy ; 
 And often, when no cause appears 
 The mountain ponies prick their ears. 
 
 They hear the Danish boy. 
 While in the dell he sits alone, 
 Beside the tree and corner stone."
 
 122 eden's story. 
 
 The burden of the Eden's song 
 
 Brings echoes of the Northern seas ; 
 
 And oft, quaint rustic speech may throng 
 The thought with hints and memories, 
 
 Of storms and bloodshed ; — strife the sorest — 
 
 When Northmen came in conquering mood ; 
 Crashing like whirlwind through the forest, 
 
 As do^vn their earliest paths they trod. 
 And how, — their way resistless, -wTestling, — 
 
 Like Autumn's flood the vales they filled ; 
 How, 'neath the fells, familiar, nestling. 
 
 Their homes they made, their fields they tilled. 
 
 Took kindly to the mists and storms ; 
 
 And strove with ice and flinty earth. 
 And tempests, streams, and mountain forms, 
 
 They named as in the Higher North. 
 How kept of land and speech their hold. 
 
 And 'neath the hard gray fell-sides grew, — 
 While kingdoms changed, and ages rolled — 
 
 Those hard true Englishmen we view.
 
 eden's story. 123 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that familiarity with Westmorland 
 speech must have influenced the tastes and deepest studies of 
 Richard Cleasby, whose death a quarter of a century ago at 
 Copenhagen, where he was engaged in the publication of his 
 Icelandic and English Dictionaiy, was the grief of Northern 
 scholars. For twenty years no one was found to complete 
 the work, for which the materials were known to be of such 
 excellence. It has lately been given to the world by the 
 exertions of his family, assisted by the ablest Scandinavian 
 scholars, and fostered by the University Press of Oxford. A 
 noble monument to his memory, of which Westmorland is 
 naturally proud. For though born in London, his father 
 was born at Crag House, Stainmore, the family property ; and 
 country -tradition preserves, — with Joseph Addison's father's 
 house, and other matters of local interest, — how Stephen, after 
 the early death of his mother, who was Miss Mary Wilson of 
 Burtergill, near Warcop, lived much with her family, till he 
 went to London, to his uncle, Richard Wilson, the founder 
 of that mercantile Russia House to which he eventually suc- 
 ceeded, and to which, as to other northern houses, then, 
 came repeated accessions from the same place and family. 
 
 Thus in early life, and till he finally left his father's house, 
 Richard Cleasby must have been associated with natives of 
 the north, who doubtless continued to use the idiomatic ex- 
 pressions which people of those counties so rarely leave off, 
 whatever their pronunciation or after-education. And in his 
 energetic character, the perseverance with which, under all 
 discouragements, he pursued his great object — the study of 
 languages — and in the direction of his studies to those 
 Northern tongues, to which at that time so few southern 
 English were attracted, there seems acknowledgment of the 
 
 * Icelandic-English Dictionary. Based on M.S. Collection of the lato 
 Richard Cleasby. Enlarged and Completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson, 
 M.A. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1874.
 
 124 eden's story, 
 
 unconscious early influences ; wliicli, beyond circumstances of 
 birth or property, constitute the iDest ground on which to 
 claim Richard Cleasby as one of the sons of Westmorland. 
 
 These early impressions must have been deepened by visits 
 to the county at later periods ; and so it was no more 
 remarkable for him, a Londoner, to write to his brother from 
 Germany of a "raffish looking set" — than for Miss Words- 
 worth to write of "flowers growing on the riggins of Highland 
 cottages," and of a town "seeming to stand in a bottom." 
 
 The fresh interest to such an inquirer, familiar with the 
 names and speech of Upper Eden, on finding at Copenhagen, 
 forty years ago, — long before Professor Worsaae's visit to 
 England — Hellbeck, and Lund, and Kirkby, and all the 
 other bys and dales, again, we may imagine. As well as 
 many names for natural objects, fields, etc. ; and many words 
 connected with storms, and old occupations. "At skarp en 
 hest," might have recalled the Westmorland expression, "At 
 sharp a horse," for the frost. How often, on Stainmore, he 
 must have heard of ' ' stouren drife " — the expressive term for 
 a great snow-storm, still in use along the fell-sides of West- 
 morland, and of Upper East Cumberland, though apparently 
 unknown at Carlisle, or in books — save in the old Norse, 
 drifa — snow-fog. How interesting if he had lived to tell us,' 
 as seems probable, that though it might have dropped out of 
 modern Danish, the old word survives in the speech of our 
 fells : — and whether the prefix is the consistent Scandinavian 
 adjective, stor — great, slightly modified, as in '■'■Den Store 
 Verdeu^'—the Great World. 
 
 For this, and many things in want of such authority, we 
 cannot help fearing that — though the loss dreaded to the 
 English language in the death of Richard Cleasby, may now 
 be made up by this excellent Dictionary — there must remain 
 a disadvantage to our dialect : to those words which have no 
 date nor history, but on which he might have shed light, from 
 both points of view, such as no one may be left to supply.
 
 125 
 
 WAITING FOR THE DAY. 
 
 In the small hours past the midnight, 
 Counting how the clocks are going ; 
 
 In the gloom, or moonlight, voiceless, 
 Save for early cocks a-crowing. 
 
 Oft I watch the bright stars speeding 
 On their darkly radiant way ; 
 
 Of the sleepless all unheeding. 
 Waiting for the day. 
 
 Glad the sounds of earth's awaking ! 
 
 Welcome early, swift, foot-fall. 
 Or the gleam of passing lantern, 
 
 Flashing on my chamber wall. 
 For the far off twinkling radiance. 
 
 For the transient flashing ray. 
 Each are portions of the glory 
 Waiting for the day.
 
 126 WAITING FOR THE DAY. 
 
 O ! Still small hours ! most eloquent 
 Of th' Almighty's love and care ; 
 
 Of the faith and hope eternal, 
 Of the privilege of prayer. 
 
 Songs in the night ! of wondrous music ; 
 They that hear them by the way, 
 
 Self-forgetting, rest in patience, 
 Waiting for the day.
 
 127 
 
 THE LAST TREE OF INGLEWOOD 
 FOREST. 
 
 TO A PICTURE FRAME. 
 
 Last tree of the forest — last oak of the wood ! 
 That land-mark and umpire, six ages hath stood. 
 When the men of Carlisle came their boundary to 
 
 ride, 
 'Twas to thee that they looked, o'er the moss, as 
 
 their guide. 
 Apart, — not in ranks, with the chiefs of the wood, — 
 With his children around him, the patriarch stood. 
 And here is a relic, — a frame made of part 
 Of the old forest giant's unperishing heart ; 
 For a picture — ^but not of his tottering decay, — 
 Let us look on the oak in his flourishing day ! 
 In that fibre so firm, in that frame polished bright, 
 There are streaks, as through branches, of sun's 
 
 setting light.
 
 128 LAST TREE OF TNGLEWOOD FOREST. 
 
 A picture, methinks, looking through it, I see. 
 Of ages long gone, in the green-wood so free ; — 
 Sylvan strength, and rich leafage, and high-arching 
 
 glades : 
 Moss, moorland, and tarn; — rivers, rocks, and 
 
 cascades. 
 And that tinting harmonious, in forests that weaves — 
 Green, golden, gray, russet — a glory of leaves. 
 A forest right royal, for a king to hold chase ; 
 Where the spoil of his bow was left thick on the 
 
 place. 
 
 Now the chase is gone by — all the gallant pursuit — 
 Loud voices and far-sounding bugles are mute ; 
 The last rays of sunset stream in through the boughs, 
 And the deer-herds steal out, in the stillness, to 
 
 browse, 
 In that greenness where cool dews till noontide had 
 
 lain. 
 And which moonlight discovers all sparkling again. 
 
 Perchance, ages ere this, as mom gleamed on the 
 
 oak, 
 And from old Castle Hewen ascended the smoke, 
 Its tops waved salute to Tarn Wadling's lost pile. 
 While "King Arthur kept court in merry Carleil:" 
 When the stem forest depths but the boldest would 
 
 trace. 
 And of wolf, or of wild-boar was often the chase.
 
 LAST TREE OF INGLEWOOD FOREST. 129 
 
 And, later, when outlaws through famed "Englyshe 
 
 Wood,"— 
 Adam Bell and his fellows, those archers so good,— 
 Ranged, and hunted the deer, spite of monarchs' 
 
 decree, 
 Was their banquet and rest beneath this "trusty 
 
 tree"? 
 ■\\liich o'er wastes, long unstable, its green flag hath 
 
 swayed. 
 As oft hermit and way-farer slept in its shade ; 
 Hath seen armies pass onwards, to battle and scath; 
 And monarchs — in triumph, in bonds, or in death. 
 Hath outcasts and wanderers screened from the 
 
 blast ; 
 And %vreaths o'er the fallen, in secret hath cast. 
 
 Yes, landmark and chronicle, peaceful old tree ! 
 Time fails to recount all thou pictur'st to me ; — 
 How, through ages of strife, in a war-weary land, 
 Like a great rock of refuge the old oak would stand ; 
 Friend and guide, through the ages, that all men 
 
 could tmst ! 
 And its memory is sweet — like the fame of the just. 
 
 And long in our homes, we may reverently look, 
 On branches of Inglewood's last forest oak, 
 Adorning the walls — or protecting the store 
 Of choice things — of relics — of records — and lore ; 
 When war, raid, and ravage are heard of no more. 
 
 9
 
 130 LAST TREE OF INCLEWOOD FOREST. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 •'On Wragmire Moss, until 1823, there was a well-known 
 oak, known as the last tree of Inglewood Forest, which had 
 survived the blasts of 700 or 800 winters. This time-honoured 
 oak was remarkable not only for the beauty of the wood, 
 which was marked in a similar manner to satin wood, but as 
 being a boundaiy mark between the manors of the Duke of 
 Devonshire and the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle, as also 
 between the parishes of Hesket, and St. Cuthbert's, Carlisle ; 
 and was noticed as such for upwards of 600 years. This 
 gnarled and knotted oak, which had weathered so many 
 hundred stormy winters, was become considerably decayed in 
 its tiamk. It fell not, however, by the tempest or the axe, 
 but from sheer old age ; on the 13th June, 1823.* If not of 
 late years, as beautiful in its foliage, nor presenting such a 
 goodly assemblage of mde-spreading and umbrageous branches 
 as some other celebrated oaks, yet it was an object of great ' 
 interest, being the veritable last tree of Inglewood Forest. 
 Xerxes, who cared not for the sacrifice of human life, would 
 not suffer his anny to destroy trees, and halted his mighty 
 host for three days that he might repose beneath the Phrygian 
 plane ; and yet, perhaps that tree had not numbered half 
 the years of this relic of Inglewood, under whose spreading 
 branches may have reposed the victorious Edward I. , who is 
 said to have killed 200 bucks in this ancient forest, and 
 perhaps, at a later period, "John de Corbrig, the poor 
 hermit" of Wragmire, has counted his beads beneath its 
 shade. 
 
 * "It is not a little remarkable that on tlie same day on ■which this 
 ancient tree fell, Mi-. Robert Bovraian, of Irthington, a patriarch of 118 
 years, departed this life."
 
 LAST TREE OF INGLEWOOD FOREST, 131 
 
 "The great north road through Carlisle to Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow traverses this parish (of Hesket), and passes over 
 Wragmire RIoss, of which part of the road we have the 
 following notice in Bishop Nicolson's MSS. : — 'In 1354 a 
 grant was made of forty days' indulgence to any that should 
 contribute to the repairs of the highway, through Wragmire : 
 and to the support of Jolm de Corbrig, a poor hermit living 
 in that part.'" — Jeffersoiis History of Leath Ward. 
 
 Relics of the wood of this fine old oak, are preserved in 
 many homes of Cumberland people. In forms of cabmet, 
 sideboard, bookcase, and picture-frames.
 
 132 
 
 THE WELCOME EAST-WIND. 1872. 
 
 I heard long sound of southern waters flowing, 
 
 On wintry breezes borne ; 
 And saw, through dashing rains, the tree-tops blowing, 
 
 Their splendours reft and torn. 
 Then Ullswater, with all her tribute flushing, 
 
 Swept down by western gales, 
 Sends floods through Eamont's channel, northward 
 rushing. 
 
 O'er Eden and her vales. 
 
 And spreading swift, o'er corn-lands, — meads low 
 
 lying, 
 
 Spuming her bridges' bounds — 
 Rolls Eden reckless — frightened creatiues flying. 
 
 To reach the higher grounds. 
 And full and frantic go the little rivers, 
 
 As men in drunkards' plight. 
 That in their bounds were joy and plenty givers ; 
 
 Joined in disastrous might.
 
 THE WELCOME EAST-WIND. 133 
 
 Lands drenched, ploughs idle, homes oft damp and 
 dreary, 
 
 Flocks shivering in the mud ; 
 The East-wind comes to man and beast, rain-weary, 
 
 Prompt harbinger of good. 
 The keen ^^dnd, "as it listeth," timely blowing, 
 
 Dries up the watery vales ; 
 Th' Almighty's will in all its motions flo^ving, 
 
 Whose mercy never fails.
 
 134 
 
 AN INCIDENT OF EMIGRATION. 
 
 He left his land for lack of gear, 
 His father's land, his new-won bride ; 
 
 In loss of health, for lack of care — 
 Of love — afar the wanderer died. 
 
 He heard that she for whom he strove. 
 
 Their babe — ere gold or home were made- 
 Passed from earth's pains, and parted love. 
 And in a Scottish grave were laid. 
 
 O ! vainly parted ones ! of Gold, 
 
 Of Earth, or Time, scant portion given ;- 
 
 But Scotia's scattered children hold, 
 O'er all, the faith to meet in heaven.
 
 DIALECT, 
 
 HE Echoes of Old Cumberland would 
 be incomplete without the tones of its 
 dialect; so ancient, and \vith local vari- 
 ations, still so widely spoken in rural districts. 
 INIost natives of the county must remember old 
 persons who considered it a sort of disloyalty and 
 affectation to use modern words in speaking, though 
 they might be well enough acquainted with them 
 in books. "WTiere there are two terms for most 
 things, it is natural to use that which will be best 
 understood ; and this may account for changes of 
 expression which have been remarked on. in persons 
 first addressing a native and then a stranger. It 
 should be said that in Cumberland there are vari- 
 ations of speech, coming in for the most part, 
 imperceptibly, which at the extremities of the 
 county amount to a considerable difference of 
 sound and accent ; as in the word home, which at 
 the Scottish border is hame, in the Carlisle district 
 helime^ as written by Miss Blamirc, in the country
 
 136 DIALECT. 
 
 round Penrith hyam, and bordering Lancashire, 
 yam. Of one change the locaHty is strictly defined : 
 it is often remarked by country people that " It is 
 mine an' thine at Lazonby, but meyne an' theyne at 
 Kirkoswald." The two villages are on opposite 
 banks of the Eden, not much more than a mile 
 apart. Below this the definite article, which is 
 abbreviated through upper and central Cumber- 
 land, and all over Westmorland, as in Yorkshire, 
 comes into more general use, and the speech, 
 northwards, grows more musical. These changes 
 are quite in accordance with others of place and 
 field-names thereabouts. In one half the county, 
 words may be heard which are hardly kno^vn in the 
 other; and we have some for which there is no 
 single English equivalent. Strangers think the 
 sound of our dialect harsh ; but those who suppose 
 it necessarily associated with ignorance, make a 
 great mistake. Our first dialect writers, as Relph 
 and Miss Blamire, were cultivated and refined 
 people. Even now may sometimes be heard ex- 
 cellent discussions or observations on such subjects 
 as "f Rawman Rwoad," or "t' geological dip o' t' 
 strata," in certain directions ; which seem to show, 
 that though new words must come in, they will be 
 for some time longer, treated exactly like the old 
 ones. Strangers would smile — their associations 
 with the dialect may probably dispose them to do 
 so, — since it has been so successfully used by Dr. 
 Gibson, and others, as a medium for humorous
 
 DIALECT. 137 
 
 writing. But it has far higher claims to respect 
 than that; and the importance of preserving a 
 faithful record of old provincial speech is now so 
 generally recognized, that we do not so often hear 
 of such persons as an eloquent advocate of dialects 
 denounces. 
 
 ' ' The man who scorns and not respects 
 Our England's raral dialects ; 
 The man to whose dull ear and eye 
 Their eloquent antiquity- 
 Seems nothing more than vulgar babble 
 Of some uneducated rabble : 
 AVho will not see and ponder well, 
 That every common syllable 
 Is picturesquely crusted o'er 
 With fancy and with metaphor ; 
 And savours of the thoughts and ways 
 Of simpler lives and fresher days ! " 
 
 Adding with much feeling — 
 
 " Who, that is human, would not rise, 
 And help the reverend and the wise 
 By tenderest culture long to stay 
 The sad inevitable day, 
 When all that grace and all that lore 
 Shall dwell in living speech no more?" 
 
 From Aidd Lang Syne. By Arthur Munhy.* 
 
 In the following pieces it has not seemed 
 necessary to alter the spelling of words so much 
 as to lock up the sense from general readers. 
 Those of the two counties, who know the dialect, 
 
 * Verses Old and New. Bell and Dalby, 1865.
 
 138 DIALECT. 
 
 may be depended on for giving the vowels the due 
 breadth of their old northern sound; a as aa, or au; 
 0, as aw, in many words ; ?/, and ou, as oo ; and for 
 not mitigating the sound of//, and r; besides other 
 peculiarities of Eastern Cumberland not so easily 
 written as said. 
 
 The first dialect piece belongs to Upper East 
 Cumberland — and adjoining part of Westmorland, 
 as spoken at the date given, and even now, in many 
 places. The three following are in the speech of 
 North-East Cumberland; and the last that of the 
 Northern Border, or lowland Scottish. There are 
 no words which have not been heard in use since 
 the dates given; but there may be a possible incon- 
 sistency in the location of ings, where the definite 
 article is used, /. e. below Kirkoswald.
 
 139 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 ABOUT OUR MUDDER TONGUE. 1850. 
 
 A grey-haired dweller of the dale 
 
 With his far-travelled friend, behold ; — 
 
 In converse calm, till difference rose, — 
 One lauds new things — one loves the old. 
 
 " You see, the railways, uncle, stretch 
 Across the land, from to^vn to town, 
 
 And equal privileges bring 
 
 To spots like this — once drear and lone. 
 
 " They'll soften life's asperities 
 
 In manners — customs — where they reach ; 
 We soon shall hear, the kingdom through, 
 
 Smooth uniformity of speech."
 
 140 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 
 
 " What ! Do they think to lam fwok, aw — 
 To talk alike, aw England through ? 
 
 Is Cummerland to throw away 
 
 Auld words like ours, for sum 'at's new ? 
 
 " My certie !*' but they're sair mista'en, 
 'At think to grund us down sae flat ! 
 
 We say our say, — an' pay our way, — 
 Our-sels ;— we're owre far north for that ! 
 
 " We read our Bibles, an' our buiks, 
 Wi' aw our best pronunciation ; 
 
 But leavin' off our mudder-tongue 
 At hyam, 's nae part of edecation. 
 
 "We mainly talk to finer fwok 
 I' t' buik-wurds, put in for a bit ; 
 
 An' write an' spell t'em fast eneugh, 
 But niver t' auld 'ans could forgit. 
 
 " A bonny stwory it wad be. 
 
 If we forgat what t' auld fwok said ! 
 
 Or thowt sham o' the'r wise auld words, 
 As suin as iver they're low-laid. 
 
 * Pron. Sartie — my word for it.
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. l-tl 
 
 "An' when we're sturr't,' owts deep, at heart, 
 T' words spring we kent when we war young ; 
 
 If t' raihvays rive t' land aw to rags, 
 They'll nut destroy our mudder-tongue. 
 
 "What's t' use o' speakin' unket- words, 
 'At t' nags an' kye taks by contraries ? 
 
 An' t' heeght o' daftness it wad be, 
 To bodder t' dogs wi' dixonaries.^ 
 
 " Like yon fine farmer, com frae t' south. 
 An' fand a dog sae wise an' clever ; 
 
 He thowt if he could nobbut buy't, 
 
 'T wad seave him fash, wi' t' sheep, for iver,^ 
 
 " But when he'd bowt it — nut for him 
 
 'T wad fetch or follow, — gedder — wheel ; — 
 
 It could n't tell a word he said, — 
 
 T' puir dog ! 'at could ha' duin sae weel ! 
 
 I Stirred. 2 Unket — unfamiliar. 
 
 3 Dixonaries — a term which used to be scornfully given to 
 long hard words ; — chiefly perhaps, to Latinized words, 
 which always sound hke ahens in tire dialect. "Dunnet thou 
 dictate !" was once said by a stranger to a native, who was 
 laying down the law, at a wrestling match, 60 years ago. 
 The answer amounted to, "Confound thy dictates ! Let's ha' 
 nin o' thy dixonaries here !" (Dictionaries.) 
 
 4 Fash for iver — an infinite amount of trouble.
 
 142 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 
 
 " It's useless, — an' it's nut good manners, — 
 
 To talk to nowder men ner dogs 
 I' words they dunnet understand. — 
 
 Cum, Laddie !* mint — fetch on, — wi' t' hogs !"| 
 
 * Laddie — a common name for a sheep dog. 
 + Mill — man. % Hogs — yearling sheep.
 
 143 
 
 "I NIVER RUED BUT YENCE." 
 
 Nae time or service blunts the sense 
 O' that auld heamly Cumbrian phrase, 
 
 Oft hard — " I niver rued but yence ; " 
 An' sometimes — " it was aw my days ! " 
 
 Nor thousand minstrels o' remorse 
 Hae fund yae form o' utterance, 
 
 In aw their sangs, o' deeper fworce 
 Than this — I niver rued but yence. 
 
 The stracklin'* spends gude neame an' gear, 
 
 His fwore-elders' inheritance, 
 Far back, for mony a hundred year ; — 
 
 An' niver — niver rues but yence. 
 
 * StracklifC — a spendthrilt.
 
 144 "l NIVER RUED BUT YENCE," 
 
 An' yon fause man — he's aund to rue,*'* 
 Through aw his warldly arrogance — 
 
 'At left his auld luive for a new : 
 An' he — hes niver lo'ed but yence. 
 
 Oft graves hae chvosed ower Avrangs unreeghted, 
 
 An' wearin' thowts o' penitence, 
 Hae driven the \vranger — heart-beneeghted — 
 
 To 'sceape frae rue an' life at yence. 
 
 For darkest neeght, nor fair day-leeght,— 
 Nae time o' year, nor change o' days, 
 
 Nae wind 'at blaws, that sufferer knows, 
 That cloud ower life sail rive, or raise. 
 
 God help them that sae sairly languish ! 
 
 Greet hearts, they say, dree weird intense ; 
 An' monarchs hev-n't 'sceaped the anguish 
 
 O' deeds they niver rued but yence. 
 
 * Aund to rue — fated, doomed to remorse, regret. Perhaps 
 connected with audna — fate. Old Noi^se.
 
 145 
 
 CUMBERLAND THANKSGIVING SONG. 
 
 MARCH 2ND, 1 87 2. 
 
 The blast frae dark fells o'er us, 
 
 'J 
 
 That sweeps through Cumbria's vales, 
 Taks up the nation's chorus, — 
 
 God bless the Prince o' Wales ! 
 Wi' voice o' beacons bleezin', 
 
 Lown breeze owre muirs an' caims, — 
 God bless our Danish Princess ! 
 
 God bless their bonny bairns ! 
 
 Wi' London millions pourin' 
 
 For thanksgivin' an' prayers, 
 " The Queen ! " — " The Prince ! " — implorin' 
 
 Blessin's on them an' theirs ; 
 Thanksgivin'-Cumbrians gather — 
 
 For that spared royal life ; 
 To the smaa bairns their father — 
 
 The husband to his wife. 
 10
 
 146 CUMBERLAND THANKSGIVING SONG. 
 
 Frae thousand years abidin', 
 
 'Mang fastnesses an' fells, — 
 Auld speech an' spirit guidin' — 
 
 The Danish outcome tells. 
 Amaist like lang-kent faces, 
 
 This heamly phrase oft pours 
 A spell o'er hearts o' dales-fwok, — 
 
 " Their fore-elders** an' ours ! " 
 
 We grat — we joyed — for England ! 
 
 Our Queen — our Prince — our prayers ! 
 An' for our peerless Princess, 
 
 An' their reeght royal heirs ! 
 We haud a double fealty, 
 
 Amang our fells an' cairns ; — 
 God bless the twea auld kingdoms ! 
 
 God bless the Royal bairns ! 
 
 God save the Queen lang o'er us ! 
 
 God save the Prince o' Wales ! 
 This day's the Empire's chorus, 
 
 Wheas sunshine never fails. 
 
 * Fore-elders, in Cumberland, means ancestors generally, 
 not parents — as in Denmark. It seems an indefinable but 
 powerful bond among warm-hearted and stationaiy people, 
 that their fore-elders were acquainted. And at the time of 
 the Prince of Wales' marriage to the Princess of Denmark, 
 great joy was expressed by old country people, on this 
 account. Neither time, nor wars of old, seem to interfere 
 with the feeling.
 
 CUMBERLAND THANKSGIVING SONG. 147 
 
 Wi' lofty beacons flashin', — 
 
 Wi' deep sea's whispered tales, — 
 
 Wi' tower an' rampart crashin', — 
 God bless the Prince o' Wales !
 
 148 
 
 THE BROKKEN STATESMAN. 1850. 
 
 Aye, I yence was the heir, — though times hae 
 changed sair — 
 O' that lown-hggin' onset^ by fair Eden side ; 
 Aw its green holms an' ings,^ whaur the furst o' 
 gurse springs. 
 An' yon rich hingin'^ cworn-fields, — our fwore- 
 elders' pride. 
 Aye me ! still, though it's lang, I mind weel o' the 
 sang 
 'At through my young heart, wi' sec bevers* wad 
 thrill. 
 When a share on 't was mine, 'at I ne'er thowt to 
 tyne,^ 
 It was " Canny auld Cummerland caps them aw 
 still." 
 
 I Lown-liggh'C onset — a farm-house and outbuildings lying 
 in a sheltered situation. 2 Ings — meadows. 3 Hingin — 
 sloping. 4 Bever — to tremble, bevers — agitation. 5 Tyne — 
 to lose.
 
 THE BROKKEN STATESMAN. 149 
 
 O, the fule rackle days ! when in wild outwart^ ways, 
 
 I spent time but i' daftness, wi' raff an' expense. 
 Then the auld land's neglect, an' my friends' lost 
 respect, 
 "WTiile I scworned to tek counsel — I ne'er rued 
 but yence ! 
 The fair heame I hed meade — wife an' bairns suin 
 low-laid — 
 Though she cannily said, — "Aye, he's warst till 
 his-sel ! " 
 But, through aw change an' chance I hae ne'er rued 
 but yence. 
 An' I hear a voice flyte ^ — waur ner ill-tongues ^ 
 could tell. 
 
 When drink hed browt sorrow — fresh money to 
 borrow, 
 Wi' deep debt o' the riggin,'* puir crops o' the 
 hill; 
 Wi' life at the barest, heart-sorrow fell sairest ; 
 Yet e'en then, I thowt — Cummerland caps them 
 aw still. 
 
 I Outwart — (much in use, but not in print) — dissipated, 
 irregular — perhaps degenerate, if from Udart, Dan. degen- 
 erate. 2 Flyte — to upbraid, scold. 3 Ill-tonf;nes — revilers, 
 detractors. 4 Debt o' the riggitH — mortgage on the property.
 
 150 THE BROKKEN STATESMAN. 
 
 Fwok tell o' grand prairies, whaur rowthi without 
 care is, 
 Lands o\vre-sea, whaur gowd ligs by beck-side 
 an' hill ; 
 An' pastures to feed on, — like auld ings by Eden ; 
 But, — canny auld Cummerland caps them aw still ! 
 
 Oft a shek o' the hand, frae my scuil-fellows grand, 
 Whea come back i' their luck, gang as far as they 
 will, — 
 Brings sad thowts to my mind, though their words 
 may be kind, 
 For we aw ken 'at Cummerland caps them aw still. 
 Gude forgie me the past ! The auld land's geane at 
 last! 
 An' for me, feal't an' feckless,^ I'll lait nae new 
 bid' f 
 But just six feet o' yerth, i' the land o' my birth, 
 Whaur I'll lig, iv auld Cummerland, 'mang them 
 aw still ! 
 
 1 Rowth — plenty. 
 
 2 FeaVt ati feckless — failed, fallen off and powerless. 
 
 3 Lait nae new bieV (bield) — seek no new shelter.
 
 THE BROKKEN STATESMAN. 151 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 ^Statesman — Estatesman, a yeoman, small land-owner ; 
 equal to laird in Scotland. The term may now be applied 
 to men of various means, habits, and education, as some have 
 become larger proprietors. But large or small — the independ- 
 ance, and love and enjoyment of their own land, is common 
 to all who have been accustomed to live on it. 
 
 Various causes have contributed to reduce the numbers of 
 these small properties in the two counties, and the coming 
 in of strangers, and laying together of large estates, precludes 
 the possibility of i^etum to this old state of things. Though 
 "The Brokken Statesman " is a purely imaginaiy being, and 
 the date given is merely to indicate the time at which such a 
 style of expression might have been used, instances are sadly 
 numerous of decadence from similar causes. But the reduced 
 number of small properties is not all attributable to disaster. 
 Though some have declined, it should be remembered that 
 very many families have risen, by fortunate circumstances, by 
 successful enterprise or learning, above their old position ; 
 and their names are now found in other categories. In almost 
 every parish the two extremes may meet, and the old "scuil- 
 fellowship" be warmly acknowledged. 
 
 itT-
 
 152 
 
 "TO SEE OURSELS AS ITHERS SEE US." 
 (border dialect.) 
 
 " O ! wad kind heaven the giftie gie us, 
 To see oursels as ithers see us ! " 
 
 Burns. 
 
 As time the bloom frae life is stealing, 
 
 O ! let not Heaven the giftie gie us, — 
 Alien frae ither gifts and feeling, — 
 
 To see oursels as ithers see us. 
 Kind folk, wi' S3ai'ipathy that soothe 
 
 Some sufferers' life o' lanely languor, 
 Might say, if they should find the truth,— 
 
 That's just a sort o' Doppelganger. 
 
 Not o' that gruesome German kind. 
 That flay folk out o' life and sense ; 
 
 But in twa places — form and mind, — 
 At hame, and far abroad at yence.
 
 "to see oursels as ithers see us." 153 
 
 "While in th' accustomed nuik, perforce, 
 Seeming to sit, wi' half-shut eyes, 
 
 In Thought's and Fancy's vagrant course 
 Yen meets nae bars nor boundaries, 
 
 'Mid far, fair haunts o' Nature wand'ring ; 
 
 And grand, auld, famous scenes may view ; 
 Or, in the groves o' IMemory pondering. 
 
 See sunset radiance blinking through. 
 They think life held on stem conditions. 
 
 That ken o' laneliness and pain ; 
 But not o' lightsome gleams and visions 
 
 Kind Heaven has mercifully gi'en. 
 
 While weakness clips not wings o' fancy, 
 
 Nor wand'ring pains extinguish thought ; 
 And wi' a sort o' necromancy 
 
 That tea-pot, sma' and dark, is fraught. 
 At evening hours ; — I disagree 
 
 For yence wi' Burns. Far happier wi' us 
 To mak' the best o' things that be, 
 
 Not "see oursels as ithers see us."
 
 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 FEW Translations of modern poems, 
 chiefly Danish, are offered to the reader, 
 in the hope that the manly and home- 
 loving spirit of the northern poetry may still 
 awaken an echo in the land which bears in 
 language and institutions so many traces of the 
 northern character.
 
 155 
 
 ELSINORE. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF INGEMANN. 
 
 Roll, from the sea's depths, Stream profound ! 
 Fill with thy song of waves the Sound ! 
 Troops of bhthe sailors hither float. 
 Sunshine on thousand wings is brought, 
 And billow-towers from far coasts driven. 
 Out-din the thunder-peals of Heaven. 
 They hail, amid the Cannons' roar. 
 The Danish Flag, the Danish Shore. 
 
 On the fair Coast, by the deep Sound, 
 Stands Abilgaard, and Rosenlund. 
 With field, and grove, and hill, looks down 
 Bordering the Stream, the quaint old town. 
 And Kronborg's stately Castle-Keep, 
 Lord of the Sound, towers o'er the deep ; 
 And passing guns hail with accord 
 The Danish Flag, the Danish Lord.
 
 156 ELSINORE. 
 
 Through the World's Isles the bird of Fame 
 Sang the old Baltic Ruler's name. 
 In ancient battle-days it rang 
 Like clash of shields, 'mid trumpets' clang. 
 From Flynderborg — 'gainst Viking horde — 
 And Orekrog, — stout Danesmen poured ; 
 And Victory hailed, by wave and crag, 
 The Danish Folk, the Danish Flag. 
 
 And of the Baltic's giant Lord, 
 
 Proudly its Castle's vaults record. 
 
 At Kronborg sits the Warrior-Sprite, 
 
 As Northern Champion — Ocean's Knight. 
 
 The Hero's lion-sleep profound, 
 
 Europa honours by hjs Sound ; 
 
 The World's voice hails, by wave and crag, 
 
 The Danish Heart, the Danish Flag. 
 
 From slumber, pleased, the warrior wakes. 
 As seas' deep booming louder breaks. — 
 He thinks of knightly days gone by, — 
 He sees the World's ships onward fly, — 
 Now not for Strife and Slaughter ranked — 
 For that, th' heroic time be thanked ! 
 Now Friends hail loud from wave and crag, 
 The Danish Heart, the Danish Flag.
 
 ELSINORE. 157 
 
 Roll, Stream from Ocean's deepest caves ! 
 Roar through the Sound thy song of Avaves ! 
 Where pealed, of old the Battle's roar. 
 Now steam-wheels roll from shore to shore. 
 Race gives to Race a brother's hand, 
 And Fire and Genius seas have spanned. 
 They greet, with peals from wave and crag, 
 The Danish Folk, the Danish Flag.
 
 158 
 
 TYCHO BRAKE'S FAREWELL. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF HEIBERG. 
 
 The sun sank o'er the grove in night, 
 And, by the full-moon's radiance glossed, 
 'Twixt Skaania and Zealand's coast 
 
 Was Oresund a stream of light. 
 
 Uranienborg's high canopy 
 
 Was Heaven's blue vault and starry bow : 
 Tycho stood in the moonlit glow. 
 And viewed the rounded land below. 
 
 With sad regretful memory. 
 
 He said, " My native Land ! O tell. 
 What is the crime that I have done ? 
 That thou couldst bear to doom thy son 
 
 Far from thy heart away to dwell ?
 
 TYCHO brake's FAREWELL. 159 
 
 Hadst thou forgot what the World knew, — 
 'Twas I should bear thy honour high, 
 Up to the stars above the sky ? 
 The whole of Heaven can testify 
 
 That I have been thy son so true ! 
 
 " Here my Chaldea I have found. 
 
 Ah, ye my Danish plains so dear ! 
 
 That showed through the long nights so clear 
 To every side, the Heavens around ! 
 
 My native earth, so low and fair ! 
 
 Rather than all the world's rich lands, 
 
 Still must I love thy level strands. 
 
 Most that where the meet Temple stands, 
 Before the lofty starry choir. 
 
 " But yet, — Urania, his Friend — 
 Will find thy son another home. 
 Which her bright Science shall illume. 
 
 And thence to other lands extend. 
 
 But darkly yet my path I see, 
 Albeit the stars will make it clear ; — 
 Indifferent to what coast I steer — 
 Is not there Heaven every^vhere ? 
 
 And what is needed more for me ? "
 
 160 TYCHO brake's FAREWELL. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Tycho Bralie, born at Kundstmp, 1546, of a noble Danish 
 family, the famous astronomer, astrologer, and chemist, — 
 though his system was opposed to that of Copernicus,- — was 
 the first nobleman who gave lectures to diffuse a knowledge 
 of science. He enjoyed the favour of Frederic II. of Den- 
 mark, who gave him the little island of Hveen, between 
 Zealand and Skaane, where he constructed his famous castle 
 and observatory, named in honour of Urania, the goddess of 
 astronomy. It was furnished with every kind of instrument 
 and facility for observation of the stars ; and here he received 
 visits from many royal and other personages who were 
 mterested in astronomy ; James I. of England among others. 
 
 Tycho's good fortune ended with the death of Frederic ; his 
 successor, Christian IV. , paid him but one visit, and soon the 
 intrigues of faction obliged him to leave Denmark. He wrote 
 to the king imploring his aid, but received a harsh reply ; • 
 and was invited to Prague by the Emperor Rodolphus, who 
 offered him choice of three palaces, and a large pension. 
 Tycho only survived his exile two years, and died at Prague 
 1601.
 
 161 
 
 URANIENBORG. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF HEIBERG. 
 
 Thou wanderer of the sea ! 
 
 O, stop thy swift career, 
 Turn hither to the Island, 
 
 My Memory's song to hear. 
 And let thy Thoughts turn hither, 
 
 And check thine anxious mood — 
 Upon these yellow ridges 
 
 A knightly castle stood. 
 
 '.Twas in the days long vanished. 
 
 It shone in splendour bright ; 
 Now is there scarce remaining 
 
 The niins of its might. 
 Yet great and lofty was the pile, 
 
 In ancient days of pride ; 
 And grandly o'er the earth it towered, 
 
 And looked to every side. 
 11
 
 162 URANIENBORG. 
 
 'Twas not the hold of Viking, 
 
 By Sea and Islet feared ; 
 But in Urania's honour 
 
 The lofty pile was reared. 
 Divided by the sea it lay 
 
 From human fret and jars ; 
 And ever to the Heavens it looked, 
 
 And to the distant stars. 
 
 Firm in the ramparts builded, 
 
 Were gates to East and West ; 
 And on the North and South, the towers 
 
 With pinnacles were dressed. 
 High towered the castle's battlements 
 
 Where clustered spires combined; 
 And there a golden Pegasus 
 
 Was turned with every wind. 
 
 Those wondrous towers, to north and south, 
 
 Upborne on pillars strong ; 
 With terraces surrounding, 
 
 And pleasant walks along. 
 And wheresoever one might go, 
 
 On every side the scene 
 Then looked the mighty Quadrant, 
 
 And the great spheres serene.
 
 URANIENBORG. 163 
 
 And from the Castle o'er the Isle 
 
 All rich the view might be ; 
 With many a grove of lovely green, 
 
 And all the great salt sea. 
 And then its halls were gorgeous, 
 
 With coloured 'broideries ; 
 And many a garden lay around, 
 
 With fragrant flowers, and trees. 
 
 But when the glow of day was quenched. 
 
 And fell the night with dew ; 
 And men began to find the stars 
 
 Through all the heavenly blue ; 
 When, faint and distant, yet the sage 
 
 \Mth ear attuned aright. 
 Could hear the four great dogs that keep 
 
 Their watch upon the night ; 
 
 No warhke quest the gentle knight 
 
 Then Fame or Conquest stirred ; 
 Upon the wall he hung away 
 
 His armour and his sword. 
 And gladly would have fled from earth, 
 
 Its turmoil and its power ; 
 When in his quiet chamber 
 
 He sat at midnight's hour.
 
 164 URANIENBORG. 
 
 And there, through all the night so long, 
 
 He raised his eye to view 
 The passage of the silent stars, 
 
 The empyrean through. 
 The stars, that beaconed not his Fame, 
 
 But bore it o'er the sea ; 
 And kingly visitants there came, 
 
 His island guests to be. 
 
 But when the starry glory shone 
 
 To other lands afar ; 
 And beckoning Fate had called him forth, 
 
 He came again no more. 
 And now, but heaps of ruins 
 
 The sad forsaken halls. 
 Thy house, Urania ! now the plough 
 
 May furrow down its walls ! 
 
 But yet the sun declining, looks 
 
 On Hveen with gracious eyes, 
 Where paints itself the evening red. 
 
 So full of memories. 
 The melancholy moon hastes by 
 
 Her well beloved coast ; 
 And Freja's star all radiant smiles, 
 
 With love upon the lost.
 
 URANIENBORG. 1G5 
 
 Deep in the Borg's foundation 
 
 There moves re-kindhng power ;* 
 It thinks that it remembers 
 
 An olden evening hour. 
 But for a moment — then is gone — 
 
 For, ah ! It cannot be. 
 It sinks in Death and Ruins 
 
 The starry Phantasie. 
 
 * Probably an allusion to a star shining into a well in the 
 ruined castle's foundation.
 
 166 
 
 THE THORN-HEDGE. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF K. ARENTZEN. 
 
 As out in the lovely summer thou'rt going, 
 With a sweet surprise thy foot is stayed ; 
 
 Along the lane where the thorn-hedge, throwing 
 Out its sharp lances with war's parade 
 
 Thou lookest, and quickly discerns thine eye 
 
 How, winding through thorns undauntedly, 
 Lithe and soft, the convolvulus towers, 
 With a countless host of fair white flowers 
 
 Weaving a crown for the thorns on high. 
 
 And from out of the thornbush, thus to thee. 
 As of old to Moses, our Lord hath spoke ; 
 
 If thy journey beset with thorns should be, — 
 If thy life is wounded by adverse stroke, — 
 
 Sink not faint hearted, for brake or brier, 
 
 But upwards ! by day and by night aspire ! 
 Like the convolvulus bell-flowers white, 
 Threading thy way in the thorns despite. 
 
 And smiling, pass o'er them, to regions higher.
 
 167 
 
 JUTLAND. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF H. C. ANDERSEN. 
 
 When Eld was yet but new-born foam on the proud 
 
 waves of Time, 
 Lay Jutland as a wilderness, with deep black woods 
 
 sublime. 
 The land was but one forest, where lofty oaks then 
 
 grew, 
 And strong thick branches twining firm they to each 
 
 other threw. 
 Then eagles built their nests on high ; wolves dug 
 
 their caverns dark ; 
 And ne'er to Northern Thule then, had glided 
 
 vent'rous bark. 
 Nor stroke of axe had fallen — and twilight lay 
 
 aroimd, 
 For ages, ere the Forest first, its human tenants 
 
 found. 
 There was the home of savage strength ; but Nature 
 
 ne'er was lone. 
 For ever from green branches came some song-bird's 
 
 pleasant tone.
 
 168 JUTLAND. 
 
 But from the sea a mist arose, so still and keen and 
 
 cold, 
 It quenched the sunlight o'er the land, as dark and 
 
 drear it rolled. 
 Then flower and grass and herb were chilled, e'en 
 
 stems of mighty birth ; 
 And billows rose and battled with the blue-red 
 
 flames of earth. 
 With bowlings plunged the forest beasts affrighted 
 
 in the sea ; 
 And men, from homes submerged and lost, and 
 
 land, were fain to flee. 
 The wild wood-fire smote all alike, in one 
 
 destruction vast, — 
 And all like lava steaming lay. — Then desert ages 
 
 passed. 
 Again the heath grew high and dark, crowned with 
 
 its violet flowers ; 
 And lovely, round the eastern coast, stood groves 
 
 in summer hours ; 
 And flocks of birds, with pleasant song, there came 
 
 and built their nest ; 
 And human-kind an Eden found, beneath the dark 
 
 hill's crest. 
 Warriors then roved, and fought and fell ; Home- 
 faith its hearth did rear ; 
 And Bards that taught by Fancy's strains to all the 
 
 Folk were dear. 
 The King held Council on the heath, convened by 
 
 trumpet's blast ; —
 
 JUTLAND. 1G9 
 
 And many a word of power was said, and nights of 
 
 sport there passed. 
 And generations vanished thus, with many a lofty 
 
 dream, 
 While sailed the moon, as still as now, o'er Time's 
 
 still changing stream ; 
 And saw them plant the Cross of Christ, and heard 
 
 the Monks' loud song, 
 A^Tiilst against Skagen's grey-white Rock broke 
 
 billows loud and strong : 
 Looked on the proud old knightly days; and on 
 
 their Castle's glee : 
 And on Niels Ebbesen, who bled that Denmark 
 
 might be free ; 
 And, pale and round, like Time's great eye, looks 
 
 ever brightly down. 
 On Jutland's grove-encircled coast, and hills with 
 
 heath o'ergro^vn ; 
 On the West Sea in tempests the strong oak's 
 
 branches rending, 
 WTiile o'er the Hero's Bautastein the flowers of 
 
 Peace are bending. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 It vvas a terrible year that of 1319— no sun, but a heavy 
 mist over all the earth — at last towards the second spring, the 
 mist dispersed, the sky again appeared blue, and the pesti- 
 lence was stayed. But the villages of the centre of the land, 
 that long expanse of mose (moss) now desolate, called the Ale 
 Mose, suffered the most. The few inhabitants who escaped 
 the scourge migrated to the sea coast ; and from that time the 
 tract has been uninhabited. — MarryaWs Jutland a)id Ike 
 Danish Isles.
 
 170 
 
 ZEALAND. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF INGEMANN. 
 
 There lies an isle 'twixt the Sea and the Sound, 
 
 With lakes and woods of green ; 
 And as sunshine gleams o'er the Baltic's wave, 
 
 O'er the Grove streams golden sheen. 
 
 From Kattegat rushes the fresh north breeze, 
 
 With coolness on its wing, 
 And fair white swans glide over the Belt, 
 
 With the fragrant airs of Spring. 
 
 Whispering along goes the Starling's flock, — 
 
 "To the beauteous Isle, — to the Grove's repose !" 
 
 " How pleasant in Zealand 'tis to dwell ! " — 
 The Nightingale sings to the Rose.
 
 ZEALAND. 171 
 
 " In Zealand how lovely it is to dwell ! " — 
 
 The Lark-choir rings in the sky. 
 O'er their home in the bending rye they wheel, 
 
 Rejoicing like angels on high. 
 
 And away, with the birds fly vagrant thoughts, 
 O'er the dreaming clouds' dim traces ; 
 
 Oft they linger o'er moss-grown Council-hills, 
 And ancient dwelling-places. 
 
 And Memory soars o'er the lovely Isles 
 Which slumber'd in Saga's pages, — 
 
 But die not. They wake with song, and tell 
 Of the deeds of mighty ages. 
 
 They speak with the quiet speech of Runes, 
 From the battle-mound's grey stone ; 
 
 Their voice sounds over the bones of the dead, 
 Like a living spirit's tone.
 
 172 
 
 LANGELAND. 
 MORNING WANDERING. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF OEHLENSCHLAGER. 
 
 So sweetly there the holy beechen grove 
 
 Is beckoning me ; 
 O, Earth ! where never yet the rugged plough 
 
 Hath furrowed thee ! 
 In the dark shade, so friendly, stood a host 
 
 Of wild flowers sweet ; 
 So cordially they looked to Heaven, and smiled, 
 
 Around my feet. 
 
 O'er a wide field to reach the waving grove 
 
 My path was thro\vn. 
 There on the sward, surrounded by three hills, 
 
 I saw a cairn of stone. 
 It stood so venerably, greyly white, — 
 
 In form an oblong ring : — 
 There, doubtless, in the olden time was held 
 
 A royal Thing.
 
 LANGELAND, 173 
 
 Upon the Battle-stone there, sat the King, 
 
 With sceptre and with crown : 
 In sable and in marten robes, and looked 
 
 With father-gladnessMown. 
 And every warrior there, with simple trust. 
 
 And peaceful heart-accord, 
 Seated himself in quiet round the stone — 
 
 No hand upon his sword. 
 
 Upon this hill the kingly castle stood. 
 
 With walls of power. 
 On that, the lovely maid, his daughter, kept 
 
 Her virgin bower. 
 And on the third the Temple stood, so famed 
 
 I' th' North of yore ; 
 WTiere reeking blood of deer was offered up 
 
 To Asa-Thor. 
 
 O, friendly field ! — O, stately grove ! — 
 
 O, meadow cool and green ! 
 O'er all hath Freja, as a bridal couch, 
 
 Bespread her sheen. 
 Upon the field are springing, red and blue, 
 
 The corn-flowers tall. 
 I needs must stop, — I needs must stand and see, 
 
 And greet them all.
 
 174 LANGELAND. 
 
 Welcome again to the green earth, once more 
 The Year's return ! 
 
 Where pleasantly, in the young Spring, ye grow- 
 Up with the corn ! 
 
 As stars ye sparkle, 'mid the yellow flax, 
 With red and blue. 
 
 O ! how enchants me, with a child-like sweet, 
 Your summer glow ! 
 
 Ah, Poet ! little dost thou understand. — 
 
 Ah, Gracious Lord ! 
 Thou should'st but see our Master look on us, 
 
 And hear his word. 
 He never sees us but he calls us Trash, 
 
 In his eye a "thorn. 
 He calls us the infernal Klint,* among 
 
 The blessed com. 
 
 The greatest favour he has'shown to us. 
 
 In all our life ; 
 Is when he, sometimes, from his pocket takes 
 
 His folding-knife, 
 And cuts himself a handful,- — good and large. 
 
 With angry talk and clutch ;- 
 And thrusts us, with tobacco mixed, into 
 
 His seal-skin pouch. 
 
 * Klint — Dan. , Corn-cockle ; also a cliff on the shore.
 
 LANGELAND. 1 75 
 
 He says that in this manner smoked and mixed, 
 
 E'en such poor things as we, 
 Some small occasion yet the world affords, 
 
 Of use to be. 
 As for the rest — our beauty — red and blue — 
 
 'Tis useless growth. 
 His maxim ever is that Usefulness 
 
 Goes through the mouth ! 
 
 Ye miserable creatures ! — the poor man — 
 
 The men so poor ! 
 Who pass through life without one heart-felt joy, 
 
 Of Heaven's best store ! 
 Who never comprehend what God hath made, 
 
 Save only this, — 
 That Mouth is evermore the nearest gate 
 
 To blessedness ! 
 
 Ah, little Flower ! as goes with you the world, 
 
 With me it goes ! 
 A sin;iple Poet, like a corn-flower stands. 
 
 And wails his woes. 
 He is but in the way of the productive corn. 
 
 What fills his days ? 
 He meekly lifts his childish colour-glance. 
 
 To God in praise !
 
 176 LANGELAND. 
 
 Come, Flower ! we're kin ! come beauteous darling 
 here, — 
 
 Companion mute ! 
 And twine thyself, with magic sympathy. 
 
 Around this lute. 
 And tremble, as when zephyr moved thy leaf. 
 
 Beneath the harp-strings sway, 
 So will we gladly sing, whate'er our fate, 
 
 A morning lay.
 
 I I 
 
 HOME-LONGING. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF OEHLENSCHLAGER. 
 
 Wondrous breezes of the Evening ! 
 
 Whither beckon ye my Thought ? 
 Coohng gentle flower-scents, tell me 
 
 Whither on the wind ye float ? 
 Go ye over the white strand 
 To my dear-loved native land ! 
 And will ye, on your waves reveal 
 All that my heart would here conceal ? 
 
 Weary Sun ! Behind the mountain, 
 Flaming red, thou sinkest down : 
 While in silence and in darkness 
 
 I sit, an alien and alone. 
 There was no mountain near my home — 
 Ah, far indeed my footsteps roam ! 
 Nor brings the night sweet slumbers here 
 As in my Hertha's grove so dear. 
 12
 
 178 HOME-LONGING. 
 
 Norway's son ! I well remember, 
 
 Thou hast said with softened breast, 
 'Tis in thy native home, thou only 
 
 Canst find the true delight of rest. 
 Schweitzer ! Native of the rock. 
 These very words thou too hast spoke. 
 Back to th' accustomed mountains, too. 
 Thy heart the holy longing drew. 
 
 And think ye then that only mountains 
 Imprint themselves upon the heart ? 
 
 Ah ! from these naked stones ungenial. 
 My gloomy Thought turns with a smart. 
 
 Sing ye the Pines, the Firs ye love ! 
 
 But where is Denmark's Beechen Grove ? 
 
 And this wan stream which winding flows, 
 
 Ne'er lulls my soul to soft repose. 
 
 At home there is no river, flowing 
 
 'Twixt narrow banks of clayey hue ; — 
 Life's spring, and Joy's benignant Mother, — 
 
 The Sea — outspreads her silvery blue ! 
 Tmning herself with friendly arms 
 Around her daughter's varied charms, 
 She soothes herself with flowers to rest 
 Upon the young Sealunda's breast* 
 
 * Sealand or Zealand is often so varied in the spelling.
 
 HOME-LONGING. 179 
 
 But, Still ! be still ! a boat is swinging 
 Among the reeds and rushes light ; 
 
 A girl to her guitar is singing 
 
 Sweet in the silent summer night. 
 
 Ah ! tones so pure ! — a gentle pleasure 
 
 Streams through my heart with every measure. 
 
 But what is wanting ? Tears are springing : 
 
 Although she is so sweetly singing. 
 
 Ah ! that is not the Danish tongue, 
 Not the familiar strain and word, 
 
 Which in the cottage 'neath the tree 
 In joyous hours I oft have heard. 
 
 Better, more beautiful — may be ; 
 
 But ah ! 'tis not the same to me. 
 
 Better, indeed, she sings, I know. 
 
 Yet, pardon that my tears must flow. 
 
 Take not my song for aught but this, — ■ 
 
 A sad, involuntary sigh : — 
 So now, the stream may hurry on ; 
 
 Then, seem to loiter gently by. 
 In many a long-past evening hour 
 I sat within my own loved bower ; 
 And when my memory backward turns, 
 For home delights my bosom yearns.
 
 180 HOME-LONGING. 
 
 I lost, alas ! my Mother early — 
 
 My early cause of grief and pain ; 
 Denmark, which is my other Mother- 
 Shall I, indeed, e'er see again ? 
 But weak we are — Life soon is gone, 
 And Fate is beckoning ever on ; 
 Yet may I, with my latest breath, 
 Be locked within her arms in death !
 
 181 
 
 FATHERLAND'S SONG. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF MADS HANSEN. 
 
 Around our Danish field, a fence 
 
 Of billows blue is flung ; 
 And but a little gap therein, 
 
 ^\^aere should the gate be hung. 
 The Danish garden round, our Lord 
 
 Himself hath set a border ; 
 And we will watch it day and night, 
 
 Until the gate's in order. 
 
 Within the circle of the sea, 
 
 That wall of waving sheen. 
 So beauteous Nature is, so fresh, — 
 
 With lakes, and woods of green. 
 And Nature's stamp, — so frank, so bold, 
 
 So calm, — the people wear ; 
 And warlike, peaceful, high and low, 
 
 Familiar friendship share.
 
 182 fatherland's song. 
 
 The speech of Danish folk may be, 
 
 Rough as the billows' roar ; 
 Or, soft as song which nightingales 
 
 From out the green-wood pour. 
 Or, light as is the west-wind's play, 
 
 Amid the fresh rose-leaves ; 
 Or, weighty as— within his barn — 
 
 The peasant's golden sheaves. 
 
 Well suits the brave old Dannebrog, 
 
 The people's faith and aim ; 
 The people's Prince, the country's Lord,- 
 
 Their hearts' -allegiance-flame — 
 Shall never, never be disjoined. 
 
 No more than land and sea, — 
 Or, song-bird from the beechen grove. 
 
 Or, leaf-bud from the tree. 
 
 And the rich heritage we own. 
 
 That will we never lose ; — 
 Ere strangers on our mind and mode. 
 
 Their fashions shall impose. 
 We'll give up all, for battle stem. 
 
 Fight, man by man, — a border. 
 For Freedom, and for Fatherland, 
 
 Until the gate's in order.
 
 183 
 
 SORO. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF INGEMANN. 
 
 Soro ! wreath of lake and grove ; 
 
 Cloistered, still retreat ! 
 Isle 'mid heaven-reflecting waves, — 
 
 Grove of song-birds sweet. 
 Learning's home, — Adventure's garden ;* 
 Of heroes' graves memorial-warden ; 
 Thou call'st us sweetly back, afar 
 To days of Valdemar. 
 
 * Soro is called by Marryatt, "the Eton of Denmark." 
 The academy is founded on a monastery of the I2th century. 
 There numbers of royal and illustrious persons have been 
 educated — Valdemar II. (Atterdag), who died at Vording- 
 borg, in 1375 — was buried in the abbey church — as well as 
 many other remarkable historical characters. Frederik VI. 
 interested himself much in the preservation of the sepulchral 
 and other monuments, and was a great benefactor to the 
 establishment.
 
 184 SORO. 
 
 If, in the vale forgetfulness 
 O'ergrows the giant's breast ; 
 
 If, in a trance affection sinks, 
 Is memory's voice represt? 
 
 With soul of mighty ages gone, 
 
 Here si^eak aloud dead walls and stone ; 
 
 And Memory's bird, with youthful tongue, 
 
 Shall sing its glorious song. 
 
 Lakes are sparkling : woods are rustling 
 
 At spring-time in the vales- : 
 Softly heaven's blue mirror ripples, — 
 
 Sing the nightingales. 
 Learning's cloister-garden blooms, 
 In peace around our heroes' tombs. 
 At eve yet Axel's spirit loves 
 To whisper through the groves.* 
 
 When winter spreads o'er waves his ice, 
 
 O'er fields his slumb'rous pall ; 
 And birds are mute in darkened groves, 
 
 Still is there life in hall. 
 The bird consumed, with purple wings. 
 Immortal from its ashes springs ; 
 And new-born life in winter's hours. 
 Sounds gaily through the bowers. 
 
 * Axel or Absolon, the warrior- Archbishop of Lund, who 
 rebuilt the Abbey, and was buried there.
 
 SORO. 185 
 
 Lift up thy voice, undying bird ! 
 
 In the high hall, with music rife f' 
 And spread, with song, far o'er the vales, 
 
 The kernel-seed of life ! 
 Bring to the days that yet may be 
 Our lofty fathers' memory, 
 And to the farthest times proclaim 
 Otu: Frederik's honoured name. 
 
 * The beech-woods — hke the aisles of a cathedral — are 
 often so alluded to in Danish poetry.
 
 186 
 
 FREDERIKSBORG.* 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF HAUCH. 
 
 Beautiful Palace ! with fane brightly gleaming, 
 Ne'er in the north shall thy like meet our view ; 
 
 Thy summit so lofty thou stretchest to heaven, 
 And bathest thy foot in the billows so blue. 
 
 Thy Master all kingly, in art too and knowledge, 
 Hath conjured thee forth, o'er the bright rushing 
 stream ; 
 
 Thy roof over thousands of guests over-arching. 
 In stone hath imprisoned his loveliest dream. 
 
 * A most beautiful and unique palace, richly adorned 
 with royal portraits and antiquarian treasures. Begun by 
 Frederik II. and added to and finished by his son Christian 
 IV. It was burned December, 1859, during the visit of 
 Marryat, who laments pathetically the destruction of such 
 architectural beauties, and treasures of art. The building has 
 since been restored, at a cost of ;^40,ooo. M. A. Lower 
 says it is now used as a Military Academy. The noble park 
 surrounding is the resort of the public. — [IVayside JVo(es in 
 Scandinavia. By Mark Antony Lower. King and Co. 
 London, 1874.]
 
 FREDERIKSBORG. 187 
 
 Fair as a rose from the kingdom of fairie ; — 
 Firm as a word which a hero hath said ; — 
 
 Proud as a mountain to day's-hght uprising 
 
 Shone thy tower, with the tent of the stars 
 overspread. 
 
 Peaceful thou stood'st, through our gladness and 
 sorrow, 
 
 Interpreting deeds of the mighty ones gone ; — 
 Great as a legend of long-vanished ages. 
 
 In writing mysterious, engraven on stone. 
 
 Hardily upward thou soarest, unswerving. 
 
 Stretching thy hundred spires up to the blue ; 
 
 And like a high thought which is holy, immortal — 
 In the region of calm, ever radiant and new. 
 
 Pictures a thousand, and mighty memorials 
 
 Of greatness and splendour, of old time that tell ; 
 
 Runes of high power 'gainst the foes of old Denmark: 
 Emvreathed by thy beeches, thou keepest them 
 well. 
 
 That mighty house is fallen now ! 
 
 But shall we that an omen think ? 
 
 Shall Denmark's splendour, honour sink 
 In sudden Ruin's overthrow?
 
 188 FREDERIKSBORG. 
 
 No ! we will die ere that shall be ! 
 
 No panic shall our courage bind ; 
 
 In sorrow even, strength we find 
 To keep the Isles of Denmark free.
 
 189 
 
 THE BROKEN RAY. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF H. V. KALLUND. 
 
 Only great bards thy praises sway, 
 And thou canst not endure the less ; 
 
 Wilt only list the deathless lay, 
 
 Not feeble harpers trembling play. 
 O, fool ! hast thou the light's excess, 
 
 And would' St exclude the broken ray? 
 
 That light by Time may yet be shown ; 
 
 Into a thousand souls may break. 
 With kindred longing — grief as one — 
 
 Thousands to laughter, tears may wake. 
 When Time the scope and power hath shown, 
 Of humbler bard who gave the tone.
 
 190 THE BROKEN RAY. 
 
 And, yields my song but viewless seed 
 To the great summer of the spirit ? — 
 
 Though fame nor memory be my meed,- 
 Like coral insect 'neath the sea, 
 I help to build the isle to be. 
 
 The world which coming men inherit.
 
 191 
 
 EVENING SONG. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF OEHLENSCHLAGER. 
 
 How sweet, in summer evening hours, 
 "When sinks the weary sun to rest, 
 
 And song of nightingales is heard 
 From out the beech-grove's breast, 
 
 To hear the harp's sound, deep and strong, 
 
 Blent with the holy evening-song. 
 
 O, strike again, the tuneful string, 
 Break, pious soul ! thy prison wall ; 
 
 No longer bar th' aspiring bird, 
 Within oppressive bounds so small. 
 
 But let it in the golden even. 
 
 Full of devotion, soar to heaven.
 
 192 EVENING SONG. 
 
 For, oft as sinks the evening red, 
 
 Beyond the wood-crowned height we see, 
 
 It speaks unto our soul of Death, 
 Of glories of Eternity. 
 
 Swell then, my soul ! in heavenward flow. 
 
 As waves toward sunset's rosy glow. 
 
 Strike the sweet strings, thou gentle girl 
 Pour high the thrilling notes along ! 
 
 And sing, while the last ray departs, 
 The last great evening song ; 
 
 We've sadly sung for friends before ; — 
 
 Soon to be sung for us once more. 
 
 Who knows how near mine end may be ? 
 
 How swiftly time goes on with each ; 
 How light and sudden that may fall, 
 
 Wliich I am wand'ring hence to reach ! 
 Oh, God ! for Christ's blood grant to me, 
 My parting time at peace may be ! 
 
 Yes ! that deep purple, that pure flame — 
 Those glowing beams afar which streak. 
 
 And redden all the western arch, — 
 Unto the dust, of Death they speak ; — 
 
 Unto the soul, of Heaven above — 
 
 That is thy blood — this is thy love !
 
 EVENING SONG. 19i 
 
 O, bathe me in thy flames, Great Sim 
 
 Gone down ! and soothe my bosom's woe ; 
 
 And in thy shielding arms enfold, 
 
 When Death's cold scythe shall lay me low ! 
 
 Thy purple blood's atoning power 
 
 Sustain my heart at the last hour ! 
 
 13
 
 194 
 
 NORTHERN SONG. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF C. HAUCH, 
 
 We have not forgotten, — though ages 
 
 Have fleeted away as in dreams, 
 How of old, from the North, in its power. 
 
 Life burst in impetuous streams. 
 Glad witness of heathen-time's valour 
 
 Was Saga,* while watching Time's flood ; 
 And Ocean's wide-wandering billows 
 
 Were tinged with those Warriors' blood. 
 
 The dew-drops that sparkle and vanish 
 In the forest around Denmark's hall,t 
 
 Are the tears of the Elves that are flowing. 
 At the thought of those Warriors' fall. 
 
 * Saga, the goddess of History, 
 t The beech-woods.
 
 NORTHERN SONG. 195 
 
 And the hosts of the winds, that are sweeping 
 
 From Skania to Dofrefield forth, 
 Are the sighs which the sad air is heaving, 
 
 To the memory of deeds of the North. 
 
 The heroes in Death have long skimbered ; 
 
 No soul now hath visions so bold ; — 
 But could we once bring forth such power 
 
 As Berserkers wasted of old : 
 And could we the flame again kindle. 
 
 And Dullness and Sloth battle do\\Ti, — 
 Where yet could a race be found nobler, 
 
 What country could equal oiir own ! 
 
 Then endowed with the spirit for Conflict, 
 
 As of old with the sword we went forth ; 
 And ungrudging if Death we encountered, 
 
 For that which to Life gives its worth. 
 And enabled the chill doubts to conquer, 
 
 Which weigh down the spirit like lead ; — 
 Then around the high arch of the North Pole 
 
 A light, as of stars, shall be shed. 
 
 For, though we by space are divided. 
 By mountains, and waters, and stone ; 
 
 Yet well we perceive that in Spirit, 
 In Heart and in Will we are one.
 
 196 NORTHERN SONG. 
 
 In the North shall we all be united, 
 When arises the Spirit's new birth ; — - 
 
 Then Dissention shall change to Agreement, 
 And Wonder shall wake on the Earth. 
 
 When that Spirit shall shed down its radiance ; 
 
 When Strength shall recover his sight ; 
 When Courage, that glowingly burneth, 
 
 Kills not blindly, like flashes of light. 
 When our Cares and our Jealousies vanish, 
 
 Parted fragments together shall roll, — 
 Then our People shall wake from their slumber, 
 
 Then our Country becometh a Whole. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The crowns of the Swedes and Goths were united with 
 those of Denmark and Norway in 1389, by Queen Margaret 
 of Denmark, called the Semiramis of the North. Some 
 politicians hope for a restoration, at some time, of Scandin- 
 avian unity.
 
 197 
 
 ON MCEEN'S ROCK. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF F. PALUDAN MULLER. 
 
 Now the evening's Sun declining 
 
 O'er the wood-ciovvned marge I see ; 
 With the evening's lamps combining, 
 Heaven's memorials down are shining— 
 
 The watchers of Eternity. 
 From high above the eye can follow — 
 
 As seated oa the rocky strand, — 
 Waves on waves with foam encrusted, 
 
 Roaring in against the land. 
 
 Whither come those voices sweeping. 
 
 With a tone so deep and strong ? 
 Ah ! glad tones are roused from sleeping ; — 
 All that Ocean's depths are keeping, 
 Rolls out in that wondrous song.
 
 198 ON mceen's rock. 
 
 As a sigh from the Profound, — 
 As the thunder dying breaks ; — 
 
 Thus the world's strong voice, in surges 
 Through the distant ocean speaks. 
 
 Whence come storming here those billows, ' 
 
 With their crests of white o'ercast ? 
 Strong wind, that so smftly follows — 
 Covering them with foam in hollows, — 
 
 Tell me where ye rested last ? 
 Billows from the Danish strand, — 
 
 Was it South — or East — or West ? 
 Or have ye pressed the world's great forehead- 
 
 The Northern ice-field to yoiu- breast ? 
 
 Come ye from those Ocean centres. 
 
 Where the world's wrecks hidden lie ? 
 Where lie corpse-like, Man's adventures — 
 Where the daylight never enters, 
 
 With the darkness there to vie. 
 Have ye kissed the dead man's mouth, 
 
 Who lies a thousand fathoms deep ? 
 Him whom never mom shall waken 
 
 From his hundred years of sleep !
 
 ON mceen's rock. 199 
 
 Flowed ye round proud works which started 
 
 Into life in ages hoar ? 
 Monuments of Strength departed, — 
 Paragons of Beauty, parted, 
 
 Which the old world proudly bore ? 
 Saw ye all th' abyss hath taken 
 
 And buried in its caverns vast ? 
 Worth far more than aught now left us — 
 
 Worth far more — but that is past ! 
 
 Yet, at the last great day, — 'tis spoken, 
 
 WTien the mountain sides shall melt, 
 ^^^len the great deep's founts are broken, 
 And with crash and fearful token — 
 
 Shall be loosed the round world's belt ; 
 Then first from the abyss shall rise 
 
 All that its depths have long concealed,- 
 Then the world's down-sunken treasure, 
 
 And the dead, the Sea shall yield. 
 
 Until then, roll on, unsparing — 
 Sea ! thou never ending Sea ! 
 
 With thy strife the storms out-tearing ; 
 
 The barks upon thy shoulders bearing. 
 Till thy depths their grave may be.
 
 200 ON mceen's rock. 
 
 Or gently, yet with giant power, 
 
 And freshly as thou first flow'dst forth, 
 
 With youthful ardour still enfolding 
 Within thy ample arms the earth. 
 
 Clear, and blue-green canopy. 
 
 Over the deep's ne'er painted floor ! 
 What can enchain the Thought like thee ? 
 ^Vhat power can stir so mightily. 
 
 All depths within the bosom's core ? 
 Wavering as is the weakest rush. 
 
 Half thine is this world's strength and strife. 
 Half of Heaven's depth — of midnight's gloom — 
 
 Day's radiance ; — and to both thou'rt Life. 
 
 Thou who keep'st the Star of even, 
 
 Within thy skirts, — and morning red ; 
 Thou who draw'st from distant heaven 
 Gladly, hues and splendours — given, 
 
 A glory o'er thyself to shed ; 
 Thou by Heaven and Earth endowed ! 
 
 How like the Human breast thou art :- 
 Ever restless, ever yearning 
 
 For peace within thy heaving heart !
 
 201 
 
 SPRING SONG. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF MADS HANSEN. 
 
 Why should Italian groves so oft, 
 
 In song, as loveliest, be cro\\Tied ? 
 Are southern pines more green and soft, 
 
 Than beeches grow by Oresund ? 
 My song of Danish groves shall be, 
 
 A\Tiere lilies bloom in clustered knot ; 
 The sparkling wave, the deep blue sea. 
 
 And meadows with forget-me-not. 
 
 There is no place in all the earth. 
 
 Beauteous to me as Denmark's strand ; 
 None genial as my native North, 
 
 With summer nights so cool and bland. 
 Here in my even path I stray, 
 
 And sing, by pleasant thought engrossed ; 
 Here, like the vagrant swan, I fly 
 
 Around my home, from coast to coast.
 
 202 SPRING SONG. 
 
 I love this beauteous flowery wreath, 
 
 Whose passage is the bkie sea's wave, — 
 The beethng cliff — the russet heath, — 
 
 The moss-growii hill, and warrior's grave. 
 Let others praise the southern lands, — 
 
 My home, my homage here shall stay ; 
 My flight be round the Danish strands, 
 
 My song be of the Danish May.
 
 203 
 
 THE SMITHY OF HELIGOLAND. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF SCHALDEMOSE. 
 
 There stands a smithy on Hehgoland, 
 So lonely it stands by the white sea-strand ; 
 There Thormod, the smith, with zeal and power, 
 Wields the great hammer till midnight's hour. 
 The iron glows red, and the sparks fly white. 
 With the thundering strokes in the quiet night. 
 
 And while thus he stands, to the anvil near, 
 A strange weird sound comes to his ear : 
 As the tramp of two mighty steeds might be ; 
 Yet comes the sound from the stormy sea. 
 To the door he rushes — looks out with awe, — 
 And fearful the sight which there he saw.
 
 204 THE SMITHY OF HELIGOLAND. 
 
 A lurid cloud, from which lightnings glance, 
 
 Hovers wide o'er ocean's dark expanse. 
 
 To the shore it comes nearer, and yet more near, 
 
 Till at last a horse and a man appear, 
 
 Round his head waves the man a sword of flame. 
 
 And on four pairs of feet the strange steed came. 
 
 Hard seem the sea's great waves, as stone : — 
 Sparks fly where those dread feet had gone : — 
 On comes the cloud with its sight of fear ; 
 Soon sees he the horse and the rider clear. 
 They are soon at the door — there stops the steed, 
 And the knight from the saddle lights down with 
 speed. 
 
 One-eyed is he, as the sun-clear day ; 
 His helmet ice, of silvery gray ; 
 Around the dread warrior's mail-coat blue. 
 Bright sparkling stars bestudded show ; 
 And about his mighty shoulders swings 
 A screaming Raven, with coal black wings. 
 
 " Up, smith ! " said the stranger, " and shoe my 
 
 horse ; 
 Ply hammer and tongs, with all thy force ! 
 The shoe is broken — I cannot wait — 
 Be quick and sure — I am all too late ! 
 Ere Day shall redden the Baltic's side, 
 A hundred miles I have to ride ! "
 
 THE SMITHY OF HELIGOLAND, 205 
 
 And the smith his pond'rous hammer swang : 
 The iron glowed ■\\'ith the anvil's clang ; 
 Soon the brawny smith did the knight's behest : 
 To the saddle again sprang the fearful guest. 
 But ere the next sun sank the waves beneath, 
 Was the People's fight on Bravalla Heath. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The battle of Bravalla, date 730, is called in the early 
 history of Denmark, "the most remarkable which was ever 
 fought in this realm. It was between King Harald Hildetan 
 and Sigurd, King of Sweden, his sister's son. For seven 
 years they had prepared themselves ; and it was contested 
 vrith great gallantry on both sides. At last Harald fell ; and 
 the legend says that five kings and 30,000 knights were 
 reported to have fallen with him, not to mention common 
 men, of whom nobody knew the names or numbers. It was 
 not only men who fought there, but also women. The 
 Schildmaiden Hede, from south Jutland, led Harald's right 
 wing, and Schildmaiden Visne, from Vend, bore his principal 
 banner. But on the side of Sigurd fought the renowned 
 Stoerkodder, who is thought to be a symbolic impersonation 
 of the Northern Goth. He was a warrior like no other ; and 
 it is said of him that he had three pairs of arms (a symbol for 
 the three countries — Denmark, Norway, and Sweden — each 
 its pair). He lived in three centuries, and filled them all with 
 adventures, which he himself sung : for he was poet as well 
 as warrior." — Nissetis History of Denmark. 
 
 Stoerkodder is the hero of a tragedy of Q^.hlenschlager, 
 ■who represents him as a great and noble old warrior, but
 
 206 THE SMITHY OF HELIGOLAND. 
 
 without supernatural gifts ; and in his death, a contemporary 
 with Hastings, the Danish pirate. 
 
 Belonging to the Romance of Danish history, he might 
 after successful battle, naturally be invested, as in this ballad, 
 with the attributes of Odin, and held as a personification of 
 the Hero-God. 
 
 This battle is often alluded to in Danish poetry. And we 
 are told that in the Museum of Northern Antiquities at 
 Copenhagen are most interesting remains taken from an 
 artificial mound, under which were found a walled vault, and 
 close by, an um filled with what are considered the burnt 
 bones of a human body, and near, remains of horse-harness, 
 and some bronze vessels. The character of the remains. 
 Professor Engelhardt observes, shows them to have been 
 deposited in the latest period of paganism in Denmark. "We 
 recall," he says, "the description given in one of our Sagas 
 of the funeral of Harald Hildetan, who was slain at the battle 
 of Bravalla about the middle of the eighth century. After 
 the battle, Sigurd Ring caused search to be made for his 
 uncle's body, which, when it had been washed and placed on 
 the funeral car, was carried to the place of interment which 
 Ring had caused to be prepared. Then his horse was slaugh- 
 tered and placed in the tumulus, with Ring's saddle upon 
 him, so that the slain monarch might appear in Valhalla (the 
 heaven of Scandinavian mythology) properly equipped. Ring 
 then gave a funeral banquet, and recommended all the grandees 
 and warriors present to cast into the grave some large rings 
 and good weapons, in honour of King Harald. After this 
 was done, the grave was carefully covered up." — Mark Antony 
 Lower's Wayside Notes on Scandinavia.
 
 207 
 
 HOLGER DANSKE. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF H. C. ANDERSEN. 
 
 The Gothic grand old Kronborg stands in the 
 
 moonUght sweet, 
 While black and foam-clad billows round its 
 
 foundations beat ; 
 Proud ships sail through the curving Sound, in the 
 
 resplendent night. 
 And yonder blinks a single light, from Helsingborg 
 
 so bright. 
 The Danish coast stands lovely, with flowery land 
 
 and grove ; 
 And, towering o'er, and black as pitch, the Kullen 
 
 heights above. 
 At Kronborg now, rings pleasantly so many a 
 
 gamesome word ; 
 A troop of friends is gathered there, around the 
 
 festal board.
 
 208 HOLGER DANSKE, 
 
 Behold the punch-bowls steaming : with song and 
 
 laughter free, 
 E'en heroes pale, with merriment they cover in 
 
 their glee. 
 At last the conversation turns — 'tis just the midnight 
 
 hour, — 
 On Holger, — who is said to dwell 'neath Kroiiborg's 
 
 strongest tower. 
 " If indeed he dwells among us, 'tis a shame, I do 
 
 declare, 
 That none, of all us fellows, has visited him there ! 
 But come, let us investigate, and if the Saga's fiction, 
 We'll call him Poet, who first comes to bring us that 
 
 conviction." 
 No sooner said than it is done, — the youthful 
 
 advocate. 
 And all his comrades, eagerly fall into order 
 
 straight. — 
 Soon rusty hinges loudly creak, torches bum dimly 
 
 red, 
 Deep in the gloomy passages so desolate and dead. 
 There every footstep loudly sounds, stones and 
 
 rubbish yonder lie ; 
 And swarms of shy and ugly bats in frightened 
 
 circles fly. 
 That ponderous door of iron creaks — now shall 
 
 they quickly learn — 
 The torches 'gainst the walls they strike — they will 
 
 not clearly bum;
 
 HOLGER DANSKE. 209 
 
 The heavy air cools all around, e'en the hot youthful 
 
 blood, 
 And again, the blood cools rapidly, Youth's wanton- 
 ness of mood. 
 For in the vaulted chamber, where now they, awe- 
 struck, stand, 
 A vigorous aged man they see, — his cheek rests on 
 
 his hand. 
 Into the flat stone table his beard hath grown so 
 
 fast, — 
 His look resembled, otherwise, the Lord's on the 
 
 high mast. 
 In dreams he strangely murmurs, with emotion 
 
 heaves his form : 
 '•How fares it now with Denmark? — and doth she 
 
 need my arm ? 
 Reach me thy hand, young fellow ! See, I offer 
 
 mine to thee, — - 
 By thy hand's pressure I shall know how strong the 
 
 race may be ! " 
 But with his sleeve the youth was swift the door 
 
 again to turn. 
 For Holger's mighty hand-grip might bend the iron 
 
 stern. 
 And still, in dreams he smileth : — "Then 'tis not so 
 
 weak indeed ! 
 And Holger Danske comes to help, in Danger's 
 
 day and need ! " 
 All silently and pale went forth, from him those 
 
 venturous men, 
 
 14
 
 210 HOLGER DANSKE. 
 
 Nor, till they stood 'neath Heaven's bright blue, 
 
 they freely breathed again. 
 There they behold the radiant stars, and the moon 
 
 so pale and round, 
 While snow-white waves tumultuous roll, along 
 
 through Oresound, 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Holger Danske is perhaps best known in England through 
 the Fairy Tales of H. C. Andersen. In Continental fairy 
 lore he is mixed up with Charlemagne, King Arthur, and 
 other heroes who are reputed to be awaiting a call to activity 
 again. In the North he seems to enjoy a distinct mdividu- 
 ality, on which Danish archajlogy sheds a light. 
 
 On an old carved picture of Holger Danske, now in the ■ 
 Museum of Northern Antiquities at Copenhagen, Professor 
 Worsaae says : — "Of all the heroes of Denmark glorified in 
 legends and songs, none is more remarkable than Holger 
 Danske. Who does not know the valiant champion who, 
 though reduced by captivity and want, restored Iceland's, or, 
 as some say, Hungary's Christian King's daughter Gloriant, 
 to her betrothed. King Charles ? That he won the victory 
 over Burmand, and slew the grim heathen. And who has 
 not heard of the conflicts of the North under Jutland, m wliich 
 the formidable attack of the German, Dietrich of Beme, on 
 the domain of Denmark, was successfully repulsed by Holger? 
 For centuries the Danish people have seen in him a hving 
 realization of their independence and freedom. The hero of 
 more than a thousand years is not yet dead. Popular belief
 
 HOLGER DANSKE. 211 
 
 knows that he sits in the deep vaults under Kronborg Castle, 
 where his venerable beard has gro\vn down through the hard 
 stone table, and where he will sit peacefully till the extremest 
 danger threatens Denmark. Foremost will he then mightily 
 arise, and, as in old times, prepare the way for the enemy's 
 death and destruction. 
 
 "It is not singular that the memory of such a popular hero 
 should be preserved, not only in battle-songs, local legends, 
 and chronicle-books, but from time to time in sculptured 
 representations. By the Western Gate of Copenhagen stood, 
 two hundred years ago, a statue in which the thoughtful man 
 believed he recognized his ancient champion. About the 
 same time there was a Burgomaster's Court at Aarhuus, 
 adorned with a gate, on the portal of which Holger Danske, 
 as well as his opponent Burmand, was carved. ■ Also on 
 many carved objects, from olden to modern days — as on 
 drinking-horns, ale-cans, and powder-horns, it has been the 
 fashion, in Norway, Sweden, and in Iceland, to represent Hol- 
 ger Danske's adventures, — the fame of which, and especially 
 of this combat, extended throughout the Scandinavian North. 
 It is more singular that those really old representations, (though 
 hardly older than the time of the Reformation,) should not 
 have been earlier recognized, of the man in whom the Danish 
 people had for so long a time seen the impress of itself. It 
 is true that the legend of Holger Danske, from its first intro- 
 duction in popular songs, was from the South and West, and 
 that the oldest distinct history of a famous warrior named 
 Holger Danske, or Duke of Denmark, occurs in the following 
 of the Emperor Charlemagne, about the conclusion of the 
 eighth century. But as the legend is evidently developed in the 
 old Danish colony of Nonnandy, where so many generations 
 from that day have borne the name — le Danois — the Danish, 
 it can hardly be improbable that the legend, perceptibly 
 forming itself, not on one, but on many heroes, originally liad 
 its root in Denmark, from whence it was carried by the 
 Northmen to the fruitful soil of France. In all cases the
 
 212 HOLGER DANSKE. 
 
 legend of Holger in the North, whenever it is mentioned by 
 chroniclers of the fourteenth century, is old enough to have 
 been forthcoming in the middle ages, though in many different 
 forms." 
 
 The Professor remarks that it would have caused no little 
 surprise if, in Denmark, his own home, — had now been found 
 on old church-buildings, representations, apparently faithful, 
 and preserved from the middle-ages, or those nearest succeed- 
 ing — of Holger Danske and Burmand ; and that it is still 
 more remarkable to find them on old churches higher up in the 
 North, as in both Norway and Sweden. The carved portal, 
 which is the subject of this paper, and of which a plate is 
 given, was taken a few years ago from an ancient wooden 
 church in Norway, and affords an instance of the rich inter- 
 laced carving once so common in both wooden churches and 
 houses of the better class, in remote antiquity, in all the 
 North. Norway has preserved the most interesting specimens 
 in church buildings, recalling in many respects the style 
 which had prevailed at the conclusion of the pagan era, and 
 which centuries after, had such influence on carving in 
 the North, even in Iceland, almost to our own days. The 
 compartment which represents Holger Danske and Burmand," 
 — the former as a knight in complete armour, his sword 
 piercing through the throat of his adversary, who is represented 
 as a naked savage or Trold — is said not to be of nearly the 
 same antiquity as the elaborate surrounding parts, to which it 
 has been added to make up existing work of twice its age ; 
 being probably, from the style of their weapons, and the in- 
 scription, rendered — "hollager dans wan siger af burmand" — ■ 
 hardly further back than the time of the Reformation. And 
 this seems to show that, however renowned in popular songs, 
 people would not, so late as after the introduction of the 
 Lutheran doctrines in the North, have placed these pictures 
 as adornments of a church, had such not been an immediate 
 continuation of an older custom descended from Catholicism. 
 And with such repeated representations on the churches of
 
 HOLGER DANSKE. 213 
 
 Norway and Sweden, we are involuntarily led to the thought, 
 that this battle must unquestionably from the middle ages, 
 have been regarded, not merely from a traditional, but from 
 an ecclesiastical point of view. It is known how it was 
 sought, in the early days of Christianity, to suit the traditions 
 and representations existing among the people to the Christian 
 doctrines and Holy Chronicles, and, as insensibly as possible, 
 to pave the way for the transition from the old to the new 
 faith. Even in old wooden churches in Norway have been 
 found candngs from the widely renowned Edda Songs. And 
 when it is remembered that the Catholic church had a legend 
 of the Holy George, or St. George, who by killing a Dragon 
 liberated a Christian maiden, how much greater reason might 
 not the dweller in the North have to remember his own earlier 
 champion — Holger Danske, who by killing the foul heathen 
 Trold, delivered a Christian maiden for her affianced lover, 
 Defender of the Faith, King Charlemagne; and thereby 
 became the nearest type of Christianity, which delivered 
 afflicted Humanity as a maiden, from the power of Paganism. 
 And thus from the distant middle ages, Holger Danske may 
 have been regarded not only in Denmark, as especially the 
 representative of the people's Independence and Freedom, 
 but in the whole North, at the same time, as one of the 
 representatives of the victory of Christianity over Heathenism ; 
 or of Light and Truth over Distress and Darkness. — Abridged 
 Translation from a Paper by Professor Worsaae, in the Folks- 
 kalenderfor Danmark. 1871. Copenhagen.
 
 214 
 
 SCEREN NORDBY. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF O. C. LUND. 
 
 To Brussels Soeren Nordby came, 
 Exiled, unbent in act and aim ; 
 Of clear light blue his armour shone, 
 With great gold dolphins bossed thereon. 
 'Twas as if plates so strongly wrought. 
 The tint of Western Seas had caught ; 
 As told the metal blue that he 
 Was Admiral of the Baltic Sea. 
 
 And brave and reckless, — frank of port. 
 He came to Charles the Fifth's gay court. 
 Rich carpets lay on every floor ; 
 And hose of steel the warriors wore. 
 Here, free as Eagle's claw is set. 
 His iron shoe the velvet met ; — 
 And paced as if on open Val,* 
 The Baltic Sea's brave Admiral. 
 
 ' Val — the high bluff rocks on the coast of Sweden.
 
 SOEREN NORDBY. 215 
 
 Far o'er the velvet could be seen, 
 AVhere'er the hero's foot had been : 
 The carpet red — where he had paced, 
 His footsteps white could plain be traced. 
 That velvet fine the Court, aghast. 
 Beheld thus cut — down-trod ; — at last, 
 King Charles in his high palace hall. 
 Thus stopped the Baltic's Admiral. 
 
 " Thou cut'st my velvet with thy foot ! — 
 For that thou, plainly, must make boot. 
 Great need have I of thy strong steel : — 
 But, let the foe thy forces feel. 
 Imprint thy foot on Fields o'erthro^vn ; 
 Not thus on velvet, but on stone." 
 " Yes ! " — answered without boast or brawl, 
 The Baltic's valiant Admiral. 
 
 And over Milan's fields of Fame, 
 The Danish Hero Victor came. 
 'Mid flowers, upon the stony ground 
 His marks, mosaic-like, were found. 
 As once on velvet, here in blood, 
 The track of his firm footsteps stood : — 
 Then loud was praised in Kaiser's Hall, 
 The Baltic Sea's brave Admiral.
 
 216 SCEREN NORDBY. 
 
 Soon Commandant, a staff he bore 
 With Baltic amber jewelled o'er; — 
 It served to soothe the Hero's cares, 
 At Florence — home of his late years. 
 There fell, with wounded breast and knee, 
 'Neath shade of crowning laurel tree, 
 'Mid roses' showers — at Honour's call, — 
 The Baltic's famous Admiral. 
 
 No mail-clad warrior of the sea 
 A Brussels carpet knight could be. 
 On the coast's stones, so rude and red, 
 There Soeren well knew how to tread ; 
 And him the North will ne'er forget. 
 The traces best and deepest set, 
 Were those that brought to Saga's Hall,* 
 The Baltic Sea's brave Admiral. 
 
 ^ Saga — History. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Admiral Soeren Nordby fought most valiantly against 
 pirates, and conducted himself with equal distinction in the 
 service of Christian II. against the Swedish rebels. At 
 Visbye, in the island of GuUand, he sustained a siege for two 
 months ; and afterwards assembled a considerable force, with
 
 SCEREN NORDBY. 217 
 
 which, in the name of the King, then an exile, he took the 
 whole of Shonen and Blegind. TVHicn he ultimately found 
 that his efforts did not tend to the permanent advantage of 
 Cliristian, he emigrated, and entering the service of the 
 Emperor Charles V., died in tlie siege of Florence. — Holberg's 
 History of Denmark.
 
 218 
 
 THE DANISH SOLDIER. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF H. HERTZ. 
 
 On the open field, and when the fight was done, 
 Where War's shrill echoes all so late were stirred. 
 
 Now came there but a gasp, a booming tone, 
 Or tramp of wild steed — riderless — was heard. 
 
 And do\vn the evening sank, not with repose ; 
 
 Still traces there of War's foul bloody riot, 
 Lingered around, discordant — to oppose 
 
 The welcome evening's sad and fitful quiet. 
 
 From Flensborg, there was a south Jutland man. 
 Standing alone amid the plain so dreary, 
 
 And holding yet his leader's steed in rein ; — 
 Ah ! well indeed might man and horse be weary !
 
 THE DANISH SOLDIER. 219 
 
 A Stalwart fellow — soldier brave, — but sad, 
 As fell his eye on mingled dead and dying ! 
 
 Ah ! many who so late were fair and glad. 
 
 Now coldly in their life-blood's stream were lying. 
 
 " I thank my God who hath thus kept me sure ! 
 
 For space to breathe amid this slaughter dire ; 
 And were it not this thirst 's so hard t' endure, 
 
 Little were left me this day to desire ! " 
 
 Then looking all around — " Would that to quell 
 This stifling heat and thirst, I had but sent me, 
 
 A single pot of good old Flensborg ale ! 
 
 But here, I trow, with less I may content me." 
 
 Yet soon he got, by some chance lucky fall, 
 A flask of ale, — and half he sighed in saying, 
 
 " The Swedish ale — it is by law, but small, — 
 No matter, if it is but thirst-allaying." 
 
 Eagerly to his mouth, then, he had brought 
 
 The bottle's neck, and lithely, backward leaning. 
 
 When suddenly — upon his ear there smote 
 
 A prayer, a plaint — of urgent, piteous meaning.
 
 220 THE DANISH SOLDIER. 
 
 A wounded Swede dragoon, he saw aside ; 
 
 Low in the dust where blood was thickly 
 scattered, — 
 Woe was the Danesman's heart when he descried 
 
 How fearfully his foeman's leg was shattered. 
 
 "Oh, let me have a drink, to quench my thirst?" — 
 It was the sufferer's husky voice appealing, — 
 
 " Here, take it all ! " — quick from the Dane out- 
 burst — 
 "Such sight would move a very stone to feeling !" 
 
 Then to the parched lips held the bottle near. 
 And o'er the wounded soldier lowly bending : — 
 
 " Drink, comrade ! ah, sad is thy pain, I fear ! 
 How goes it? — Sorely do thy wounds want 
 tending ! 
 
 " Hardly, poor fellow ! drawest thou thy breath ; 
 
 Come, now, let me unloose thy jacket's lacing." — 
 But with revengeful eye, his brow beneath, 
 
 The Swede kept rigidly upon him gazing. 
 
 And seeing thus his foeman stoop across. 
 In pain, and hatred agonizing, — 
 
 He grasped and sudden fired his pistol, close 
 To the brave heart so warmly sympathizing.
 
 THE DANISH SOLDIER. 221 
 
 But ever Providence for him doth care, 
 Who tries his neighbour's sorrows to allay ; 
 
 So from the Danesman's side into the air,* 
 The ball glanced swift and harmlessly away. 
 
 One moment's space the soldier's heart recoiled — 
 "Thou scoundrel! So thou thoughtest to surprise 
 me ! " 
 
 Then felt himself unhurt, — his foeman foiled, — 
 And to his knightly post returning — wisely; 
 
 He grasped again his flask, in mood restored, 
 And leaning up against the charger's breast. 
 
 Half of the ale into his helmet poured, 
 And offered to the wounded man the rest ; 
 
 As stooping down and laughing low, he said, — 
 " That is thy punishment ; now half is mine ! 
 
 Hadst thou kept quiet — in good faith, instead— 
 For thy extremity, the whole was thine ! " 
 
 So did the gallant swain's revenge o'er-master. 
 According as the old tradition tells ; 
 
 And yet, a Danesman's heart beats doubly faster, 
 When he such record finds in Chronicles.
 
 222 THE DANISH SOLDIER. 
 
 When Denmark's King the story heard, he cited 
 The soldier's straightway at his court appearing ; 
 
 With glowing heart and royal grace united, 
 Thus spoke aloud in all the people's hearing, 
 
 " Thy heart, my son ! is noble born, — and I 
 Try not to make thee nobler than I found thee ; 
 
 Only to bind thee firmer mine ally, 
 
 I wish to hang this golden chain around thee. 
 
 And a remembrance of the deed to yield, 
 
 Which of thy high and tender heart hath spoken. 
 
 Thou shalt in future bear a Noble's shield, — 
 Thy crest — a flask half-filled — ^a noble token ! " 
 
 So goes the Saga. And in Flensborg town 
 May yet be found his late posterity. 
 
 They prize their simple ancestor's renown, 
 And hold in honour high his memory. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 This story is related by Marryat — by whom the soldier is 
 styled "the Sidney of Flensborg," — in his account of that 
 town ; as having occurred during the Swedish wars of the 
 seventeenth century, when the enemy had been worsted.
 
 223 
 
 MONUMENT AND BOUNDARY STONE. 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF MADS HANSEN. 
 
 Of victory and honour, only, 
 
 The Dane sat dreaming by his hearth ; 
 By his broad board he deemed himself 
 
 One of the strongest of the earth. 
 Safe lay the lion on the heath f- 
 The sword was rusted in its sheath. 
 
 And harp's sound called to dance and mirth. 
 
 A storm came driving from the south,- — 
 A wall of the house was shattered there ; 
 
 In, o'er the ruin swarmed the foe, 
 And set a boundary with his spear. 
 
 The Danes, in fight, strained life and breath 
 
 But many a heart was crushed in death, 
 And brother torn from brother dear. 
 
 * The lion in the arms of Slesvig.
 
 224 MONUMENT AND BOUNDARY STONE. 
 
 The Dane sits down by his own board, — 
 In thought, his hand beneath his cheek ; — 
 
 His longing heart for battle yearns. 
 But scarce a word he cares to speak. 
 
 He rises, and he grasps his harp ; 
 
 He makes his sword both bright and sharp,— 
 And purpose high his looks bespeak. 
 
 But ere he goes to sterner Duty, 
 
 His house and hold to bar and save ; 
 
 Awhile with tearful eyes he lingers 
 About his fallen comrades' grave. 
 
 Unto those heroes he will rear 
 
 A stone, which Denmark's maidens dear. 
 Shall crown with flowers that Memory crave. 
 
 Then turns his glance where brothers, yonder, 
 Endure the foreign yoke with pain ; — 
 
 He goes for Justice, and for Honour — 
 By God's help, comes not home again, 
 
 Till he hath set a stone beneath, — 
 
 Down there, on Sonder-Jylland's heath,* 
 A boundary 'twixt the North and South. 
 
 * South Jutland.
 
 225 
 
 SCEBORG.* 
 
 FROM THE DANISH OF O. C, LUND, 
 
 The storks walk proudly over Soeborg's Moss, 
 And pyramids of turves the ground emboss, 
 
 In black array. 
 Cheerily still the old flat boat goes past ; 
 But waters which once filled the lake so vast, 
 
 Have sunk away. 
 
 Where lifts the thorn its rugged branches high, 
 Upon the rampart's-mound the red stones lie. 
 
 And bleach to pale. 
 They point the outline round the grassy Toft, 
 And of the Maiden's-bower and the High-loft, 
 
 They keep the tale. 
 
 * Soeborg — which Marryat calls "The Chateau-fort of 
 Zealand." Royal personages were often imprisoned there. 
 It was strong and fair in 1270, when Erik Clipping some- 
 times visited it. 
 
 14
 
 226 SCEBORG. 
 
 Now ivy wreathes the prison wall with leaves, 
 And yellow flowers the torch-weed interweaves, 
 
 In summer's prime. 
 Iron and bolts are all consumed with rust ; — 
 Ground in th' inevitable quern to dust, 
 
 By ruthless Time. 
 
 That Tower shall never more have roof or lead ; 
 But, now, hath Heaven a rosy cloud o'erspread, 
 
 For canopy. 
 And where the captive wailed his woes unheard, 
 Now comes and sits unscared the vagrant bird, 
 
 And sleeps so free. 
 
 Once warlike engines stood, and ruin wrought, 
 Where rooted, now, the small forget-me-not 
 
 Gay clusters flings. 
 And on the stone where stood of old, the guard. 
 And sounded battle-call, now sits the bard. 
 
 In peace, and sings. 
 
 The spot enchains his Danish heart and mind ; 
 He loves the ruins, in and out, to wind. 
 
 Familiarly. 
 His thoughts swarm up as bees disquieted. 
 Upon a board of checquers, white and red. 
 
 All busily.
 
 SCEBORG. 227 
 
 Each square is as a coin in Fancy's pile : 
 He adds, he takes away, adorns the while, 
 
 In hours alone. 
 On Memory's groundwork, in the ruin's shade. 
 His dear-loved Denmark's name, at last, is laid 
 
 Upon the stone. 
 
 'Mid the red nmes, o'er all, there shines an hour. 
 From Hope's green region, and benignant power, 
 
 Wide and sublime ; 
 O, Lord of Heaven ! Let thou that radiance stay, 
 With flowers in every nook and circling bay, 
 
 In coming time.
 
 228 
 
 THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF N. SIEDEL. 
 
 Many a year at Fahrmund's churchyard 
 
 The grey sexton dwelt alone, — 
 There had buried many a stranger, 
 
 And his wife and only son. 
 Oft he sat absorbed in sadness, 
 
 O'er each fresh grave sighing still : 
 " Ah ! could I cast off life's burden, 
 
 Now, at age's weary hill ! 
 
 " Why should I here longer tarry? 
 
 My hair is white as snow ; 
 The spade I scarce can carry, — 
 
 My heart is torn with woe ! " 
 And a spot he long hath chosen, 
 
 Where his last repose shall be, — 
 A sweet spot all still and verdant, 
 
 'Neath the spreading linden tree.
 
 THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 229 
 
 And he well that spot hath guarded, 
 
 By no stranger dust defiled ; 
 On the right his wife is sleeping, 
 
 And on the left his child. 
 Once, at night, there came a knocking. 
 
 His chamber to invade ; 
 And a cry- — " Arise from slumber ! 
 
 A grave must straight be made ! 
 
 " At the foot of the broad linden. 
 
 That place so still and green ; 
 And the work must be completed, 
 
 Ere the stars withdraw their sheen." 
 Then taking spade and lantern, 
 
 To the churchyard he is gone ; — 
 As he passes through the wicket. 
 
 The church-tower clock strikes one. 
 
 He digs with haste, as growing, 
 
 Both grave and mound attest ; 
 And the labour-sweat is flowing 
 
 From his brow, and cheek, and breast. 
 Many a tear he weeps in silence. 
 
 Heaves many a painful sigh, 
 That beside his buried wife and son 
 
 Some stranger dust must lie.
 
 230 THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 
 
 And now, his task is ended, 
 
 While yet the stars are bright ; 
 And he, parting, to his dear ones, 
 
 Says, with yearning fond, •' Good night ! " 
 And when, three days thereafter. 
 
 The death-bell tolled once more, 
 To that grave so deep and silent, 
 
 The aged man they bore.
 
 231 
 
 ALEXANDER YPSILANTI, 
 
 AT MUNKACS. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF WILHELM MULLER. 
 
 Alexander Ypsilanti sat in Munkacs lofty tower ; 
 The mouldering lattice shook beneath the tempest's 
 
 angry power ; 
 And, drearily, o'er moon and stars dark heavy 
 
 clouds Avere flying, — 
 And — " Alas ! for my captivity ! " the noble Greek 
 
 was sighing. 
 He fondly eyed the distant hills, while bright with 
 
 noontide's ray, — 
 "Would, my beloved Fatherland ! that in thy earth 
 
 I lay ! " 
 Then, opening wide the lattice, the desert land to 
 
 view;
 
 232 ALEXANDER YPSILANTI. 
 
 Its vales where crows were swarming, and rocks 
 
 where eagles flew. 
 Again he heaved the sigh — " Doth none of these a 
 
 message bear 
 From my father's land?" — And then his eye seemed 
 
 heavy with a tear ; 
 Or perchance oppressed with slumber, — for his head 
 
 sank on his hand. 
 Lo, his face becomes so radiant ! — Dreams he of his 
 
 Fatherland ? 
 Thus he sat, until towards him, a heroic form there 
 
 stepped, 
 And viewed with long, glad, earnest look, the 
 
 troubled man who slept. 
 " Alexander Ypsilanti, Hail ! Be not thy spirit 
 
 bowed ! 
 In the narrow rocky pass where my blood, unsullied, 
 
 flowed — 
 Where in one grave the ashes of three hundred 
 
 Spartans lie ; — 
 To-day, before the conquering Greeks, barbarian 
 
 armies fly. 
 My spirit is commanded to bring this word to 
 
 thee, — 
 Alexander Ypsilanti ! — Hellas' glorious land is 
 
 free ! " 
 Then the slumbering prince awoke : — entranced — 
 
 " Leonidas ! " he cried ; 
 And he felt his eye and cheek were wet with tears 
 
 of joyful pride.
 
 ALEXANDER YPSILANTI. 233 
 
 Hark ! a rushing o'er his head, — and a golden 
 
 eagle's flight, — 
 Through the lattice, as he waved his mngs and 
 
 vanished in the night. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Alexander Ypsilanti was bom 1792, of an illustrious Greek 
 family. He early served in the Russian army, and as an 
 officer of the Imperial Guard, fought in the Franco-Russian 
 wars, and lost his right hand at the battle of Dresden, 181 3. 
 In the year 18 19, he put himself at the head of a band of 
 Patriots who hoped to attain the freedom of Greece. But 
 after the battle of Dragaschan, 1821, when the hopes of the 
 Hetairai were extinguished, he could only seek his personal 
 safety. He crossed the Austrian frontier, but found himself 
 treated as a prisoner, being confined at first in the fortress of 
 Munkatsch in Hungary, and afterwards in Theresienstadt in 
 Bohemia. At last, Russia obtained his freedom ; but on his 
 way to Verona, where he intended to live, he died at Vienna, 
 1828. — From Conversations Lexicon.
 
 234 
 
 MY WISH. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF HERTZLOSSOHN. 
 
 I would I were the oak tree there ! 
 
 In the green fragrant wood ; 
 And that my fabric, hke the oak, 
 
 A thousand years had stood ! 
 
 First by the sunbeams kissed each morn. 
 
 While earth in slumber lay ; 
 The thing which ever, latest shone 
 
 With sunset's golden ray. 
 
 Which, every spring-time, green and new, 
 Bright birds their home had made ; 
 
 While yearly adding ring to ring, 
 And casting broader shade.
 
 MY WISH. 235 
 
 Still dreaming through the winter time, 
 
 Within so warm and stout ; 
 My bosom filled with summer tales, 
 
 And vigorous life without. 
 
 Waking to tell, with bursting buds, 
 Spring's genial empire won ; 
 
 Unfolding in each leaf, an eye, 
 To bask in Heaven's own sun. 
 
 Scarce dreading, for my mighty breast, 
 The lightning's fearful power ; 
 
 Yet shedding lightnings from my leaves, 
 With each refreshing shower. 
 
 Slumbermg amid the melody 
 Of warbling nightingales ; 
 
 Illumined by the glow-worm's ray, 
 When moonlight's glory fails. 
 
 Beholding generations pass, 
 And men grow young and old ; 
 
 And deeds that seem to throng on deeds, 
 With changes manifold.
 
 236 . MY WISH. 
 
 Past records of the world should stand 
 'Graved on my memory's wall ; 
 
 For, much which modern men call great, 
 The ancients deemed but small. 
 
 Wanderers should rest, and children play, 
 At noon, beneath my screen ; 
 
 And oft I'd breathe to human ears, 
 Of that which once hath been. 
 
 And when my thousand years were gone, 
 
 And I were old and sere ; 
 My trunk might form a home for man, 
 
 A cradle, or a bier. 
 
 A cradle where new kindled life, 
 
 As a sweet infant lies ; 
 A board whence, haply, crowned with wine, 
 
 Cheers for the oak might rise. 
 
 A house where varied circles meet, 
 By good or evil swayed ; — 
 
 As pleasure brightens human hearts, 
 Or pain and sorrow shade.
 
 MY WISH. 237 
 
 In life I'd sympathise with all, 
 And when its sorrows close 
 
 Would be the pilgrim's final house, 
 And guard his last repose. 
 
 An oak tree towers before me there, 
 
 Into the sky so blue ; 
 It softens, yet it glads my heart, 
 
 When its green leaves I view.
 
 238 
 
 THE GRAVE IN BUSENTO. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF AUGUST VON PLATEN. 
 
 On Busento nightly whisp'ring, by Cosenza hollow 
 
 dirges, — 
 And in eddies, there re-echoing, come answers from 
 
 the surges ; 
 As up the stream, and down the stream, shades of 
 
 brave Goths are sweeping, 
 Who for their country's bravest, — best — for Alaric 
 
 are weeping. 
 All too early, far from their own land, here they a 
 
 grave must find him. 
 O'er whose fair shoulders, but so late, youth's bright 
 
 locks flowed behind him. 
 On Busento's shore they rank themselves, in 
 
 emulation burning, — 
 Into a channel newly dug, the waters swiftly 
 
 turning.
 
 THE GRAVE IN BUSENTO. 239 
 
 And far below the emptied depths, the earth they 
 
 hollow deeper ; 
 And on his steed, in armour full, they sink the 
 
 mighty sleeper. 
 Then o'er his corpse, his state, his wealth, the earth 
 
 restored upheaping. 
 For the long water-growths to root, and bind in 
 
 faithful keeping ; — ■ 
 Turned back again — the stream o'erflowed the signs 
 
 of earth -entombing — 
 Rushed mightily to their own bed Busento's billows 
 
 foaming. 
 Then sang the men a chorus — " Sleep ! — Sleep ! in 
 
 thy hero glory ! 
 No greed of Rome shall spoil thy grave — no Roman 
 
 know its story ! " 
 With the wild song of warrior-praise from Gothic 
 
 hosts rebounding, — 
 Roll ! ever roll, Busento waves, from sea to sea 
 
 resounding ! " 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Alaric remained only five or six days in Rome, and then 
 led his troops southward, captured Nola and other towns, 
 and, laden with spoil and treasure, on coming to the straits 
 of Rhegium, prepared to pass over and make conquest of 
 Sicily. But a storm shattered his transports, and a premature
 
 240 THE GRAVE IN BUSENTO. 
 
 death terminated his visions of dominion. To form a grave 
 for the mighty Alaric, the course of the Busentino, a small 
 river which washes the walls of Constanzia was diverted, and 
 his corpse, royally arrayed, was deposited in its bed. The 
 stream was then restored to its original channel ; and that the 
 secret of the restmg-place of Alaric might never be known, a 
 massacre was made of all the prisoners who had been engaged 
 in the work. — Keightley. 
 
 The names are left as in the German poem.
 
 241 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 RELPH. 
 1712— 1743. 
 
 The youthful pastor, day by day, 
 
 ^\^lo loftier aims and tongues would teach, 
 With leisure -hand, was first to lay 
 
 The curb of numbers on our speech. 
 
 The rugged speech of Cumbria's vales, 
 That oft her travelled sons are fain. 
 
 When far away, as spells to hear ; 
 Recalling home and youth again. 
 
 He left the grove of classic song 
 To roam by lonely dale and fell ; 
 
 And into strains poetic wove 
 
 Home-scenes and sounds he knew so well. 
 16
 
 242 RELPH. 
 
 Or, seated by the brook, o'er-screened, 
 
 His summer fancies deftly caught 
 The hues of rustic hfe and love, 
 
 The tones of native speech and thought. 
 
 He died, nor thought of praise or blame ; 
 
 For years with grass his grave o'ergrown, 
 Ere Friendship gave his songs to Fame, 
 
 Or reared his monumental stone. 
 
 Then where he mused in solemn thought. 
 Or roved, or sang, both young and old,- 
 
 Proud of his pure and simple strains. 
 And of his faithful pictures — told. 
 
 When, haply, many a year had passed. 
 And many a loving friend gone down, 
 
 Strange that some hand should dare assail 
 His wreath of Pastoral renown ! 
 
 But Time's strong wind the vapour clears 
 A hundred years of doubt may cast. 
 
 And Wrong his memory more endears ; 
 His Truth more bright for Error past.
 
 RELPH. 243 
 
 With keener sense of what we owe 
 To him, who first bestowed regard 
 
 On rural Ufe and rustic speech, — 
 We prize the earhest Cumbrian bard. 
 
 1875- 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 A question by the Secretary of the Enghsh Dialect Society, 
 accompanied by a list of local authors, last summer, revealed 
 that there exists a small "Collection of Poems in Cumberland 
 Dialect," of sixteen pages, containing the Pastorals usually 
 known as those of Rev. Josiah Relph. After the title of the 
 first, "Harvest, The Bashful Shepherd," "By the Rev. Mr. 
 Robert Nelson, late of Great Salkeld in Cumberland." The 
 titles of Relph's other two Pastorals are given without any 
 author'sname. "Printed by R. Wetherald, Sunderland." No 
 date. This copy had belonged to the late Sir Frederic Madden, 
 -who has left with it a note; praising as "equal to the Gentle 
 Shepherd, this Pastoral, which was written about a hundred 
 years ago by this worthy clergyman." He "is sensible that it 
 had before been published, and apprehends that some of the 
 greatest beauties are lost by the alterations and omissions in 
 that edition." There was something startling in the news of a 
 poet's having lived and died there without a sign ; without 
 recognition of those around, who, if they had not appreciated 
 him while living, would certainly have spoken of him when 
 dead. As there had been in living memory, a good old 
 minister. Rev. Timothy Nelson, of a Presbyterian family still 
 remaining at Great Salkeld, the idea was suggested of some
 
 244 RELPH. 
 
 mistake, or confusion of MSS., which, like that of Michael 
 Bruce's "Cuckoo," might yet be rectified: some lack of 
 honour to the dead, which might yet be atoned for, if, after a 
 hundred years, the matter could be cleared up. The result 
 of an effort, for which the time and locality seemed favourable, 
 suggested the lines on Relph ; which are said to require 
 explanation. 
 
 The question after a little enquiry shrunk into very narrow 
 limits. The purity of life and simplicity of character of 
 Relph, as shown in the biographic sketches prefixed to the 
 various editions of his works, by Southey, Boucher, and 
 Sanderson, all derived from his friends ; and his early death, 
 without an effort at publicity for his own writings, preclude 
 the idea of his misappropriating those of any other person. 
 Before his death, 130 years ago, he left by will, to a friend, 
 Mrs. Nicolson of Hawksdale, his Poems, merely expressing a 
 hope "that the reading them might pass away a leisure hour 
 of hers, as pleasantly as the writing had done several of his." 
 Four years after, in 1747, his Poems, edited by his i)upil. 
 Rev. T. Denton, were published at Glasgow. On the other 
 hand, the prompt and universal disclaimer of all the Nel- 
 sons who were asked, of any knowledge of the Sunderland 
 pamphlet, or of any such poems left in their family, was 
 decisive as to their being unacquainted with, and uninterested 
 in it. Only one had been named Robert, and he died long 
 before Relph was born ; and only one was a minister, the 
 aged gentleman whose death is remembered ; and who must 
 have been a child, eight years old, when Relph died. There 
 had been neither rector nor curate of the same name, and 
 nobody in Great Salkeld had heard of the Sunderland pub- 
 lication, or the poet. 
 
 Of the only other person mentioned, and his era, there is 
 this trace in Garbutt's "History of Sunderland," 1819, 
 p. 197: "Rowland Wetherald, Mathematician, departed 
 this life January 19th, 1791. He was the first who set up 
 prmting in Sunderland. Aged 64. This gentleman was a
 
 RELPH. 245 
 
 native of Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, and settled at 
 Sunderland as a teacher of the Mathematics about 1762. 
 Observing the inconvenience under which the gentlemen of 
 the law, and others, laboured, in having to send all their 
 handbills to Newcastle to be printed, he commenced the 
 typographic art ; at first in the High Street, and afterwards 
 in more commodious premises in Maud's Lane, where the 
 concern was carried on till his death," etc. This date is 
 verified by the Register of Great Salkeld : ' ' Rowland 
 Wetherald, baptized, 1727." Also, "Mr. Robert Nelson, 
 schoolmaster, buried, November 1697." 
 
 In the possession of Mr. Jackson, St. Bees, is a book which 
 furnishes an important link, and on the highest authority. 
 "The Perpetual Calculator, or Time's Universal Standard, 
 By Rowland Wetherald. Philomath. Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
 1760." An Advertisement is printed on the back of the 
 title-page, that numerous branches of learning connected with 
 Mathematics, "in all their parts, and according to the latest 
 discoveries, are carefully taught by the Author, at his resi- 
 dence. Great Salkeld, near Penrith, Cumberland, where 
 boarding may be had on easy terms." The book seems to 
 contain a great deal of scientific information, and of very 
 absti^use calculation. It is dedicated "To his worthy sub- 
 scribers (about 120 in number) whose generous subscriptions, 
 and pressing solicitations, were his only motive for attemi^ting 
 a work of the kind. He apologises for the delay in its 
 appearance, which he hopes the pains taken will atone for, 
 and in part retrieve his character with those who thought he 
 would never be able to bring it out ; so that Phoenix-like, he 
 may rise from the ashes of ridicule, wing his way through the 
 ethereal regions, and give them an information of the motions 
 of the celestial bodies." 
 
 It was two years after this, at the age of thirty-five, that 
 Wetherald, we find, settled in Sunderland as a teacher of 
 Mathematics. How soon he became a printer, or began to 
 print books, as he afterwards did, (some of which Bewick
 
 246 RELPH, 
 
 illustrated, ) does not appear ; neither is there evidence 
 whether his early years had been chiefly spent at Great 
 Salkeld ; but it is probable, from the majority of his sub- 
 scribers' names being those of residents in the neighbouring 
 parishes, that he had been for some time known there as a 
 teacher, and some of these his pupils. If so, the name of 
 Robert Nelson must have been more familiar than those of 
 his living relatives, for the initials and date are still to be seen 
 cut in the stone lintel, over the door of the old school, below 
 those of Bishop Nicolson, who was then Rector of Great 
 Salkeld and Archdeacon of Carlisle, and "was very instru- 
 mental jn getting the school built, the children having 
 
 previously been taught in the chancel of the church." W- N. 
 f J ^ R. N. 16S6. 
 
 Also the name of Relph must have been familiar, as that 
 of a statesman's family at a few miles distance ; and as, 
 where printed news was scarce, oral intelligence circulated 
 freely between villages, the poor young clergyman's decline 
 and death, at Sebergham, could hardly fail to be known 
 at Great Salkeld. In 1747, when his Poems were pub- 
 lished, Wetherald was twenty years of age, and with 
 his reading and intelligence, must have seen and probably 
 appreciated them. And for the fifteen years after, until he 
 finally left Cumberland, must have read, and heard, and 
 spoken of these Pastorals, like other people, as Relph's. 
 Moreover, there is internal evidence, not to be mistaken, as 
 I look over that first edition, in two of the Pastorals, at least, 
 of locality, where "Carlile" was the accustomed market 
 town, "Carrock" the overshadowing fell, and " Rosley-fair" 
 was the prime rural excitement. 
 
 So far, dates and probable inferences show the absence of 
 any claim or interest in the Pastorals adverse to that of Relph ; 
 which is enough for his fame. Beyond this there is nothing 
 positive but the name of Wetherald, on that Sunderland sheet, 
 which is a lamentable fact ; and in justice to him, it should 
 be said, is all that we have learnt really to his prejudice. We 
 can perceive that he lived forty or fifty years too soon for the
 
 RELPH. 247 
 
 appreciation of his mathematical teaching in the north ; and 
 respect the energy and versatile ingenuity with which, after 
 struggling hard, he found, and steadily pursued another line 
 of action — though the first was his passion, and probably his 
 forte, — for after death, he is styled. Mathematician. In his 
 early day the tide was strong which used to carry our young 
 men, desirous of better education, by the old classic Grammar- 
 school routine, to Oxford ; the reaction had not set in for 
 mathematical cultivation, by which the stream was afterwards 
 largely tui'ned towards Cambridge ; and at that time, men 
 afterwards famous, as John Slee of Terril, or John Dalton, 
 might not have been successful as teachers.* 
 
 It is therefore without regret that the effort is resigned at 
 further elucidation. We can neither know at what time, nor 
 by whom, nor for what motive that mysterious wrong was 
 done, at Wetherald's printing-press — if he did not do it him- 
 self. We cannot see why, if Relph was to be deprived of his 
 Pastorals, and no living person coveted their fame, they 
 should not have been given, as a series — to his shadowy 
 successor: why "Hay-Time," certainly not inferior, should 
 have been separated from "Harvest" : nor surmise what were 
 those alterations and improvements of which Sir F. Madden 
 had evidently been told, unless something to destroy the local 
 fidelity : but which the Dialect Society might ascertain by 
 comparison. We can only vaguely wonder whether for 
 practice in a new art, or for profit, or for love of the old 
 
 ■* In the list of Subscrihers to the first edition of Relph's Poems — some- 
 thing less than eight hundred — seventy-five are members of Queen's 
 College alone; Fellows, JI.A.'s, B. A.'s, Taberdars, Commoners, and 
 Students, — beside those of other Colleges in Oxford. To many of 
 these, doubtless, the author had been known at Appleby School ; then 
 in great repute, under Yates. By the rest his memory seems to have 
 been cherished, his themes and strains enjoyed, as only northmen were 
 capable of doing ; and as some of their siiccessors still enjoy a vaiiation 
 of Theociitus, or anything of human .nid geueral interest, into broad 
 Cumberland. One hundred and twenty names have the prefix 
 Revei-end, but few of Cambridge are given. Over 1000 copies seem to 
 have been at once subscribed for ; which, when it ia considered that the 
 public ta-ste also required the time for growth to the more natural 
 standard, may perhaps account for the long time that elapsed between 
 the first and second oditiuus.
 
 248 RELPH. 
 
 dialect, and the old scenes, the Pastorals were thus cheaply 
 put forth : whether the name of good Mr. Robert Nelson 
 was thought a suitable one to pass enquiry at Sunderland, 
 and a safe one as to consequences ; or it had some associations 
 with literature since the old school days — like that of the 
 monk Rowley, over the mind of poor Chatterton. For want 
 of a date, we do not know whether this imposture preceded, 
 or may have been suggested by the exploits and fame of 
 Chatterton. The Rowley Poems appeared in 1769, and he 
 died 1770 : when Wetherald had been eight years in Sunder- 
 land, and most likely before that, had a printing-press. But 
 it was only for his own compositions that the poor boy sought 
 a name of more weight and mterest ; his "forgeries," were on 
 a half- mythic name; and from our point of view, fall far short 
 of the enormity and audacity of a literary "riever," who takes 
 the best portion of a dead poet's long-printed works — casting 
 a shade on his trutli, and drags in another real name to cover 
 his crime. For such liberties with the dead, by whomsoever 
 taken, we know neither parallel nor excuse. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that those who do such things 
 regard them as so heinous. They know their value as 
 falsehoods of expediency, and expect them to die — after 
 serving their temporary purpose, perhaps without serious 
 harm, when they cease to be supported by other false- 
 hoods, — as they always do. The compiler of that Collec- 
 tion of Cumberland Pastorals knew well that its credit 
 must fail where the first edition of Relph's Poems, \vith 
 its long list of contemporary names and witnesses was known. 
 And he was right. A copy of that pamphlet cannot 
 now be obtained by advertising, in its own birthplace ; but 
 Relph's Poems, illustrated by Bewick, are in the Public 
 Library of Sunderland. Carlisle, 1798. Mitchell. The 
 name of Wetherald, it seems, is not now heard in either of its 
 old localities. Whether any division of responsibiUty is 
 indicated by a name mentioned in a late autobiography, in a 
 Penrith paper, I have no means of knowing. * ' Poor Tom
 
 RELPH. 249 
 
 Wetherell. a job printer, who used to work for Anthonv 
 Soulby and others. He died in Penrith, iSoq, and was said 
 to have seen better days, and once to have o\vned property in 
 ships in Sunderland." 
 
 It may seem unnecessary to say so much on this subject in 
 Cumberland ; where we have so many editions of Relph's 
 Poems, all containing the same pieces as the original one, 
 there could have been no doubt of the authorship. We do 
 not know that the Sunderland publication ever reached the 
 county : it probably was not intended to do so, and might 
 have been heard of no more, except for the copy which had 
 fallen into the hands of Sir Frederic Madden. But after such 
 comment in print, by an antiquarian authoritv — as if it had 
 been a correction of some former error, though without date 
 or evidence — it becomes one of those Curiosities of Literature 
 which a mere contradiction is insufficient to suppress. How 
 the story could have arisen, which seems to reflect discredit 
 on one or the other of the names thus put in opposition, is 
 naturally asked ; and it is only for us, who know these circum- 
 stances, and the equally honourable names involved, to show 
 that they were only so placed long after death, by some secret 
 hand, and for some unavowed purpose ; and to prevent further 
 question as to who was our first Pastoral Poet. 
 
 If we recall the time at which Relph wrote, we shall 
 form a better estimate of his claims to be remembered. 
 He is perhaps best known to the present generation through 
 the Collections of Songs and Ballads of Cumberland edited 
 by Sidney Gilpin ; and there, as I have lately been aware, 
 we hardly realise his distinction from the host of dialect 
 writers who have followed him. He died two years before 
 the Scottish Rebellion, when the country was comparatively 
 a waste as to cultivation and beauty, as we know it, and 
 when literature was as barren of picturesque description, or 
 the interests of rural life. Only Allan Ramsay, of the popular 
 Scottish poets, had then arisen; and to his "Gentle Shep- 
 herd," about twenty years older, the Pastorals have often been
 
 250 RELPH. 
 
 compared. The Jacobite poetry and music which afterwards 
 overflowed the Border, were not. Michael Bruce, who wrote 
 the " Cuckoo," was born three years after ; and Miss Blamire 
 four years after Relph's death (in the year in which his Poems 
 were published) ; Robert Burns twelve years later ; Gray, 
 Cowper, and Wordsworth, and other poets of nature and 
 simple life, had not been heard of ; nor Scott, Hogg, and the 
 numerous writers who on both sides of the Border have 
 popularized the northern tongue, and rural life and scenery. 
 From the tinge of classic association and nomenclature in 
 vogue, and the stiffness of Pope's day, Relph found a happy 
 escape into the free picturesque country, in his Pastorals ; 
 which are pure rustic Cumbrian in thought, word, and 
 imagery. The dialect is faithfully written, and is a mine of 
 old association, and of almost forgotten words and customs : 
 happily without the modern slang, and other introductions, 
 by which, in some later writers its fidelity seems, to the 
 dwellers in the old country — to be impaired. His Poems 
 could never have a wide circulation, as the best of them are 
 locked up in a dialect somewhat hard for strangers to under- 
 stand. They are few in number, and were written at too 
 early ?.n age to be more than a shadowing forth of what, with 
 prolonged years, Relph might have done for Cumberland : 
 but there is the greater reason for his own people to do him 
 full justice. 
 
 G. AND T. COWARD, PRINTERS, CARLISLE.
 
 Price 6s. Small Croion Svo. In extra Cloth binding. 
 
 LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE ENGLISH 
 
 LAKE COUNTRY. With copious Notes. By John 
 Pagen White, F.E.C.S. 
 
 The book ought to be classic iu the Lake Country.— TAe 
 AthencEum. 
 
 These laj^s and legends are modern versions — and generally 
 graceful versioas — of stories that have long been current iu 
 our Lake Country. With Murray's Handbook for excursions, 
 fine weather, and this volume at night iu the excursionist's 
 inn, a pleasant and profitable month may be passed iu that 
 charming district. — 2\^otes and Queries. 
 
 The marks of talent are evident on every page. — Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 The book is one that a touri.st should be glad to find in a 
 Lake Country inn. — The Academy. 
 
 A charming volume. — The Reliquary. 
 
 A book calculated to add raiich to the literary fame of Cum- 
 berland. — Liverpool Daily Albion. 
 
 We do not know that iu our Lake Rambles, enjoyed at 
 intervals for forty years, we ever met the gifted author, but 
 we do know that we have rarely met with a more instructive 
 and attractive book. — Liverpool Mail. 
 
 An offering to our local literature, which, for its faithfulness 
 of colouring, only a true Cumbrian could have made. — Carlisle 
 Daily Journcd. 
 
 A valuable contribution to local literature. — Carlisle Patriot. 
 
 Certain to become a treasured book in many a Cumberland 
 and Westmorland household. — Whitehaven N'ews. 
 
 Read apart from the prose sketches, the poetical versions 
 are gems of verse such as every true lover of poetry must 
 appreciate. — Kendal Mercury. 
 
 We very cordially recommend the book. — Wigton Advertiser. 
 
 An excellent companion to those who desire thoroughly to 
 enjoy the Lake District. — Ulverston Mirror. 
 
 We have read it through and through with great pleasure. — 
 Ulverston Advertiser. 
 
 CAELISLE : G. <k T. COWARD. LONDON : BEMROSE & SONS.
 
 SECOND EDITION REVISED. 
 
 In Three Series. Price 3s. 6(1. each, in Cloth binding. 
 
 THE SONGS & BALLADS OF CUMBERLAND 
 AND THE LAKE CODNTRY ; with Biographical 
 Sketches, Notes, and Glossary. Illustrated with 
 Portraits of Miss Blamibe and Robert Anderson. 
 Edited by Sidney Gilpin. 
 
 First Series contains Ancient Ballads — Cumberland Border 
 Ballads — Rev. Josiah Relph's Songs — Miss Blamire and Miss 
 Gilpin's Songs — Miscellaneous. 
 
 Second Series contains Songs and Ballads by Mark Lons- 
 dale — John Stagg — Robert Anderson — John Rayson — William 
 Wordsworth — Miscellaneous. 
 
 Third Series contains Songs and Ballads by John Wood- 
 cock Graves — John .James Lonsdale — Alexander Craig Gibson 
 — .John Pagen White — John Stauyan Bigg — .James Pritchett 
 Bigg — John Richardson — Peter Burn — William Dickinson — 
 George Dudson — Miscellaneous. 
 
 Cumberland is rich in dialect poetry and in the kind of 
 literature that is appreciated by an intelligent peasantry. 
 In the three volumes before us, Mr. Gilpin has given proof of 
 the literary wealth to be found in that romantic region. 
 The interest of some of the ballads is poetical, of others ■ 
 chiefly local or historical, but not one is undeserving the care 
 bestowed upon it by the editor. — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 One of the most interesting collections of poetry which have 
 been lately published. . . We advise the reader to buy the 
 book, and we feel sure that he, like ourselves, wiU be thanldul 
 to the editor. — Westminster Review. 
 
 We cannot recollect a better collection. — The Reader. 
 
 These Cumberland lyrics — till now scattered — are on the 
 whole well worth the pains spent on their collection. — The 
 A thenceum. 
 
 It is seldom a book compiled on the local principle contains 
 so much good matter as this collection. — The Scotsman. 
 
 There is much true and tender poetry in the book, and 
 much rough, natural vigour. — Morning Star. 
 
 CARLISLE : G. & T. COWARD. LONDON : BEMROSE & SONS.
 
 Second Edition. In Cloth binding, Price 3s. 6d. 
 THE FOLK-SPEECH OF CUMBERLAND 
 and some Districts Adjacent ; being short Stories and 
 Ehymes in the Dialects of the West Border Counties. 
 By Alex. Craig Gibson, F.S. A. 
 
 The tales are remarkable for their spirit and humour. The 
 poetry, too, is marked by the same characteristics. — West- 
 minster Revieiv. 
 
 The stories and rhymes have the freshness of nature about 
 them. — Contemporary Review. 
 
 Brimful of hiunour, homely wit and sense, and reflect the 
 character and life and ways of thought of an honest sturdy 
 people. — Spectator. 
 
 The stories, or prose pieces, are wonderfully clever and well 
 done. — Saturday Review. 
 
 Sinall Crown 8vo. In neat Cloth binding, Price 3s.6d. 
 
 "CUMMERLAND TALK;" being Short Tales 
 and Ehjrmes in the Dialect of that County. By .John 
 Richardson, of Saint John's. 
 
 A very good specimen of its class. The ordinary subscriber 
 to Mudie's would not for a moment dream of ever looking 
 into it, and yet Mr. Richardson possesses far more ability 
 than the generality of novelists who are so popular. — West- 
 minster Revieiv. 
 
 Good and pleasant. — Saturday Review. 
 
 There are both pathos and humour in the various stories 
 and ballads furnished by Mr. Richardson. We congratulate 
 Cumberland on having so many able chamijions and admirers 
 of her dialect. — Athenoium. 
 
 CARLISLE : G. & T. COWARD. LONDON : BEMROSE ifc SONS
 
 Price 2s. 6d. Sinall Crown 8vo. In extra Cloth binding. 
 
 ENGLISH BORDER BALLADS. 
 
 By peter BUEN. 
 
 Mr. Burn has already won a wide popularity as a local poet 
 in a most poetical county. The present volume will, we 
 think, extend his fame. It is genuine, and smacks of the soil 
 and dialect. — Westminster Review. 
 
 A book of unusual excellence, and of real and permanent 
 value. — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 The book is an interesting one, and a most creditable con- 
 tribution to the dialect literature of Cumberland. — Wigton 
 Advertiser. 
 
 All the best features of the old ballad minstrelsy are cleverly 
 caught. — Carlisle Journal. 
 
 A little volume of intrinsic merit. — Whitehaven Neios. 
 
 North country bards are almost as plentiful as blackberries 
 in autumn. Nevertheless, Mr. Burn must be considered a 
 distinct acquisition, and fully worth the having. — Kendal 
 Mercury. 
 
 Price 3s. 6d. in Cloth ; or 5s. in Extra Gilt Binding. 
 POEMS. By peter BURN. 
 
 A NEW AND COMPLETE EDITION. 
 
 If Mr. Burn's genius does not soar very high, she leads us 
 into many a charming scene in country and town, and imparts 
 moral truths and homely lessons. In many jioints our author 
 resembles Cow^er, notably in his humour and practical aim. 
 One end of poetry is to give pleasure, and wherever these 
 poems find their way they wiU both teach and delight. — 
 Literary World. 
 
 CARLISLE : G. & T. COWAKD. LONDON : BEMROSE & SONS.
 
 Price 3s. 6d. Svutll Crown 8vo. In extra Cloth bindmg. 
 
 PROGRESS, AND OTHER POEMS; the latter 
 including Poems on the Social Affections ; and Poems on 
 Life and Labour. By M. S., Author ot " An Essay on 
 Shakspeare," "Old Castles," &c. 
 
 We have read many pieces in which the true poetic fervour 
 was far less apparent than in those now before us. "Pro- 
 gress," the poem which forms the major ^mrt of the volume, 
 describes in well chosen language the various conditions 
 through which England has passed ; and the minor poems 
 treat in a pleasiug manner on subjects connected with life and 
 labour, aud home and the social ati'ections. " Marj' and Me" 
 is excellently rendered in the Oxonian dialect. — Oxford 
 Unicersity Herald. 
 
 We commend the volume to thoughtful, earnest-hearted 
 workers of every class. — Littrary World. 
 
 Small Croivn Svo. Price One Shillhiy. 
 
 FORNESS FOLK, the'r Savin's an' Dewin's; 
 
 or Sketches of Life and Character in Lonsdale North of 
 the Sands. By ROGER PIKETAH. 
 
 Contains : 
 
 Amaxg t' Row^ndheeads. 
 Poor Miners i' Forness. 
 
 Cockles an' Fleeaks. 
 Smugglin' an' Wreckin'. 
 
 Anecdotes. 
 
 ANNO UNCEMENT. 
 
 THE POPULAR POETRY OF CUMBERLAND 
 AND THE LAKE COUNTRY; with Biographical 
 Notes and Glossary. Edited by Sidney Gilpin. 
 
 This will form a companion volume to the Songs and Ballads 
 of Cumberland and the Lake Country. 
 
 CARLISLE : G. & T. COWARD. LONDON : BEMROSE & SONS.
 
 F. Cap 8vo. Price 2s.6d., in neat Cloth hindinq. 
 
 MISS BLAMIRE'S SONGS AND POEMS; 
 
 together ■w'itli Songs by her frieucl Miss Gilpin of 
 Scaleby Castle. With Portrait of Miss Blamire. 
 
 She was an anomaly in literature. She had far too modest an 
 opinion of herself ; an extreme seldom run into, and sometimes, 
 as in this case, attended like other extremes with disadvan- 
 tages. We are inclined, however, to tMnk that if we have 
 lost a great deal by her ultra-modesty, we have gained some- 
 thing. Without it, it is questionable whether she woiUd have 
 abandoned herself so entirely to her inclination, and left us 
 those exquisite lyrics which derive their charms from the 
 simple, undisguised thoughts which they contain. The char- 
 acteristic of her poetry is its simplicity. It is the simpUcity 
 of genuine pathos. It enters into all her compositions, and is 
 perhaps pre-eminent in her Scottish songs. 
 
 Carlisle Journal, 184^. 
 
 In her songs, whether in pure English, or in the Cumbrian 
 or Scottish dialect, she is animated, simple, and tender, often 
 touching a chord which thrills a sympathetic string deep in 
 the reader's bosom. It may, indeed, be confidently predicted 
 of several of these lyrics, that they will live with the best 
 productions of their age, and longer than many that were at 
 first allowed to rank more highly. — Chambers^ Journal, 1842- 
 
 F. Cap 8vo. Price 2s. , in neat Cloth binding. 
 
 ROBEET ANDERSON'S CUMBERLAND 
 BALLADS. 
 
 As a pourtrayer of rustic manners — as a relator of homely 
 incident — as a hander down of ancient customs, and of ways 
 of life fast wearing or worn out — as an exponent of the 
 feehngs, tastes, habits, and language of the most interesting 
 class in a most interesting district, and in some other respects, 
 we hold Anderson to be unequalled, not in Cumberland only, ' 
 but in England. As a description of a long, rapid, and varied 
 succession of scenes — every one a photograph — occurring at a 
 gathering of country people intent upon enjoying themselves 
 in their own imcouth roystering fashion, given in rattling, 
 jingling, regularly irregular rhymes, with a chorus that is of 
 itself a concentration of uproarious fim and revelry, we have 
 never read or heard anything Like Anderson's "Worton 
 Wedding. " — Whitehaven Herald. 
 
 CARLISLE: G. & T. COWARD. LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS.
 
 F. Cap Svo. Chth. Price 2s. fcl 
 
 SONGS AND BALLADS 
 
 By JOHN JAMES LONSDALE, 
 
 Author of "The Ship Boy's Letter," "Robin's R«tum," &c. 
 WITH A BRIEF MEMOIR. 
 
 From the A THEN^UM. 
 Mr. Lousdale's songs have not only great merit, but they 
 display the very variety of which he himself was sceptical. 
 His first lay, "Minna," might lay claim even to imagination ; 
 nevertheless, for completeness and delicacy of execution, we 
 prefer some of his shorter pieces. Of most of these it may be 
 said that they are the dramatic expressions of emotional ideas. 
 In many cases, however, these songs have the robust interest 
 of story, or that of character and picture. AATjen it is borne 
 in mind that by far the greater portion of these lays were 
 written for music, no small praise miist be awarded to the 
 poet, not only for the suitability of his themes to his purpose, 
 but for the pictvu-esqueness and fancy with which he has 
 invested them under difficult conditions. 
 
 Small Croion Svo. Cloth, Price 3s. Gd. 
 A GLOSSARY of the WORDS and PHRASES 
 
 OF FURNESS (North Lancashire), with Illustrative 
 Quotations, principally from the Old Northern Writers. 
 By J. P. MoRRPS, F.A.S.L. 
 
 We are thoroughly pleased with the creditable way in which 
 Mr. Morris has performed his task. We had marked a number 
 of words, the explanation of which struck us as being good 
 and to the point, but space unfortunately fails us. We com- 
 meud the Furness Glossary to all students of our dialects. — 
 Westminster Review. 
 
 The collection of words is remarkably good, and Mr. Morris 
 has most wisely and at considerable pains and trouble illustrated 
 them with extracts from old writers. — The Reliquary Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 CARLISLE : O. & T. COWARD. LONDON : liEMROSE & SONS.
 
 Price 2s. 6s. [Only a few Coi^ies left.] 
 
 NIGHT AND THE SOUL. A Dramatic Poem. 
 
 By JOHN STANYAN BIGG. 
 
 The author of " Night and the Soul" is a genuine poet. He 
 has original genius — prolific fancy — the resources, too, of an 
 ample scholarship — an unbounded command of poetic language 
 — and, above all, a deeply human, reverent, and pious spirit 
 breathing in his soul. On the future career of such an one, 
 there can rest no shadows of uncertainty. A little pruning, a 
 little more paius in_ elaboi^atiug, and the selection of an 
 interesting story for his future poems, are all he requires to 
 rank, by and by, with our foremost living poets. — GiUillan's 
 Gallery of Literary Portraits. 
 
 OLD CASTLES: Licluding Sketches of Carlisle, 
 CoEBY, and Linstock Castles. By M. S., Author 
 of "Progress, and other Poems." Price Is. Cloth; 
 6d. Paper Cover. 
 
 WISE WIFF. A Tale in the Cumberland Dialect 
 By the Author of "Joe and the Geologist." Price 3d. 
 
 THREE FURNESS DIALECT TALES. Price 3d. 
 Contains : — Siege o' Bi'ou'ton, Lobby Beck Dobby, 
 Invasion o' U'ston. 
 
 The songs and BALLADS of CUMBERLAND. 
 
 With Music by William Metcalfe. 
 
 1. D'YE KEN JOHN PEEL? Words by John Woodcock 
 
 Graves. Price 4s. 
 
 2. LAL DINAH GRAYSON ("M'appen I may"). Words 
 
 by Alex. Crais Gibson. Price 4s. 
 3 REED ROBIN. Words by Robert Anderson. Price 2s. 6d. 
 
 4. "WELCOME INTO CUMBERLAND." Words by the 
 
 Rev. T. EUwood. Price 3s. 
 
 5. THE WArFU' HEART. ^Vords by Miss Blamire. 
 
 Price 2s. 6d. 
 
 6. "JWOHNNY GIT GOT." Words by Alex. Craig Gibson. 
 
 Price 4s. 
 WELCOME INTO CUMBERLAND QUADRILLE. 
 
 Coloured Fi-ontispiece. Price 4s. 
 THE JOHN PEEL MARCH. Coloured Frontispiece. 
 
 Price 4s. 
 THE JOHN PEEL MARCH, as a Duet. Price 4s. 
 
 The above at Half -Price. 
 
 CARLISLE : G. AND T. COWARD.
 
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