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She lifts her head for endless spring,
For everlasting blossoming:
Both roses flourish, red and white:
In love and sisterly delight

The two that were at strife are blended,
And all old troubles now are ended.-
Joy! joy to both! but most to her
Who is the flower of Lancaster!
Behold her how she smiles to-day
On this great throng, this bright array!
Fair greeting doth she send to all
From every corner of the hall;
But chiefly from above the board,
Where sits in state our rightful lord,
A Clifford to his own restored!

They came with banner, spear, and shield,
And it was proved in Bosworth field.
Not long the avenger was withstood,
Earth helped him with the cry of blood:
St. George was for us, and the might
Of blessed angels crowned the right.
Loud voice the land has uttered forth,
We loudest in the faithful north:
Our fields rejoice, our mountains ring,
Our streams proclaim a welcoming;
Our strong abodes and castles see
The glory of their loyalty.

How glad is Skipton at this hour,
Though she is but a lonely tower!
To vacancy and silence left;

Of all her guardian sons bereft,—

Knight, squire, and yeoman, page and groom,
We have them at the feast of Brough'm.
How glad Pendragon, though the sleep
Of years be on her!-She shall reap
A taste of this great pleasure, viewing
As in a dream her own renewing.
Rejoiced is Brough, right glad, I deem,
Beside her little humble stream;
And she that keepeth watch and ward,
Her statelier Eden's course to guard;
They both are happy at this hour
Though each is but a lonely tower:
But here is perfect joy and pride
For one fair house by Fmont's side,

This day distinguished without peer
To see her master, and to cheer
Him and his lady-mother dear!
O, it was a time forlorn

When the fatherless was born-
Give her wings that she may fly,
Or she sees her infant die!

Swords that are with slaughter wild
Hunt the mother and the child.
Who will take them from the light?
Yonder is a man in sight-
Yonder is a house-but whose ?
No, they must not enter those.
To the caves and to the brooks,
To the clouds of heaven she looks;
She is speechless, but her eyes
Pray in ghostly agonies.
Blissful Mary, mother mild,
Maid and mother undefiled,

Save a mother and her child!

Now who is he that bounds with joy
On Carrock's side, a shepherd boy?

No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass
Light as the wind upon the grass.
Can this be he who hither came
In secret, like a smothered flame?
O'er whom such thankful tears were shed
For shelter and a poor man's bread!

God loves the child; and God hath willed
That those dear words should be fulfilled-
The lady's words, when forced away,
The last she to her babe did say:
'My own, my own, thy fellow-guest
I may not be; but rest thee, rest,
For lowly shepherd's life is best!'

Alas! when evil men are strong,
No life is good, no pleasure long.
The boy must part from Mosedale's groves,
And leave Blencathara's rugged coves,
And quit the flowers, that summer brings
To Glenderamakin's lofty springs;
Must yanish, and his careless cheer
Be turned to heaviness and fear.
-Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise!
Hear it, good man, old in days!

Thou tree of covert and of rest
For this young bird that is distrest;
Among thy branches safe he lay,
And he was free to sport and play,
When falcons were abroad for prey.

A recreant harp, that sings of fear
And heaviness in Clifford's ear!
I said, when evil men are strong,
No life is good, no pleasure long;
A weak and cowardly untruth!
Our Clifford was a happy youth,
And thankful through a weary time,
That brought him up to manhood's prime.
-Again he wanders forth at will,
And tends a flock from hill to hill:
His garb is humble; ne'er was seen
Such garb with such a noble mien ;
Among the shepherd-grooms no mate
Hath he, a child of strength and state!
Yet lacks not friends for solemn glee—
A spirit-soothing company,

That learned of him submissive ways,
And comforted his private days.
To his side the fallow-deer
Came and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty;
And both the undying fish that swim
Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him:
The pair were servants of his eye
In their immortality;

And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright,
Moved to and fro for his delight.
He knew the rocks that angels haunt,
Upon the mountains visitant,
He hath kenned them taking wing;
And into caves where faeries sing
He hath entered, and been told
By voices how men lived of old.
Among the heavens his eye can see
The face of thing that is to be;
And, if that men report him right,
He can whisper words of might.
-Now another day is come,
Fitter hope and nobler doom;

He hath thrown aside his crook,
And hath buried deep his book;
Armour rusting in his halls
On the blood of Clifford calls:
6 Quell the Scot!' exclaims the lance;
Bear me to the heart of France,
Is the longing of the shield;

Tell thy name, thou trembling field;
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!

Happy day, and happy hour,

When our shepherd, in his power,
Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,
To his ancestors restored,

Like a re-appearing star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war!"

Alas! the fervent harper did not know

That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed,
Who, long compelled in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the race,

Revenge and all ferocious thoughts, were dead: Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place The wisdom which adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales and every cottage-hearth;

The shepherd-lord was honoured more and more; And ages after he was laid in earth,

"The good Lord Clifford" was the name he bore.

RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE.

There was a roaring in the wind all night,
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright,
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods;
The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters,
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors ;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass
is bright with rain-drops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth,
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

I was a traveller then upon that moor;
I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar,
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
The pleasant season did my heart employ;
My old remembrances went from me wholly,
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go-
As high as we have mounted in delight,
In our dejection do we sink as low-

To me that morning did it happen so;

And fears and fancies thick upon me came,

Dim sadness and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

I heard the skylark warbling in the sky,
And I bethought me of the playful hare;
Even such a happy child of earth am I,
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare,
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me,
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,

Following the plough, along the mountain-side:

By our own spirits are we deified;

We poets in our youth begin in gladness,

But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.

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