PLEASING 't is, O modest moon !
Now the night is at her noon,
'Neath thy sway to musing lie,
While around the zephyrs sigh,
Fanning soft the sun-tann'd wheat,

Ripen'd by the summer's heat;

Picturing all the rustic's joy

When boundless plenty greets his eye.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

THE FORCE OF PRAYER;

OR, THE FOUNDING OF BOLTON PRIORY.

A TRADITION.

“What is good for a bootless bene?” With these dark words begins my tale;

And their meaning is, "Whence can comfort spring, When prayer is of no avail?”

And she made answer, "ENDLESS SORROW!"
For she knew that her son was dead.

She knew it by the falconer's words,

And from the look of the falconer's eye; And from the love which was in her soul For her youthful Romilly.

-Young Romilly through Barden Woods
Is ranging high and low;

And holds a greyhound in a leash,
To let slip upon buck or doe.

And the pair have reached that fearful chasm,

How tempting to bestride!

For lordly Wharf is there pent in

With rocks on either side.

This striding-place is called THE STRID,

A name which it took of yore:

A thousand years hath it borne that name,
And shall a thousand more.

He sprang in glee,-for what cared he

That the river was strong, and the rocks were steep

-But the greyhound in the leash hung back,

And checked him in his leap.

The boy is in the arms of Wharf,
And strangled by a merciless force;
For never more was young Romilly seen
Till he rose a lifeless corse.

THE FORCE OF PRAYER.

Now there is stillness in the vale,
And long unspeaking sorrow:
Wharf shall be to pitying hearts
A name more sad than Yarrow.

If for a lover the Lady wept,

A solace she might borrow

From death, and from the passion of death: Old Wharf might heal her sorrow.