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 Emont's side,
This day, distinguished without peer
To see her Master and to cheer-
Him and his Lady-mother dear!

'Oh! 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 where?
No, they must not enter there.

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 along 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 vanish, 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 the 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 simple glee,
Nor yet for higher sympathy.

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 which Angels haunt

Upon the mountains visitant;

He hath kenned them taking wing:
And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered; and been told

130

By Voices how men lived of old.

Among the heavens his eye can see

The face of thing that is to be;

135

And, if that men report him right,

His tongue could whisper words of might.

-Now another day is come,

Fitter hope, and nobler doom;

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!'

155

Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know
How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed :
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

160

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,

165

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; 170 And, ages after he was laid in earth,

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

GEORGE AND SARAH GREEN.

Who weeps for strangers? Many wept
For George and Sarah Green ;
Wept for that pair's unhappy fate,
Whose grave may here be seen.

By night, upon these stormy fells,

Did wife and husband roam;

Six little ones at home had left,
And could not find that home.

For any dwelling-place of man

As vainly did they seek.

He perished; and a voice was heard-
The widow's lonely shriek.

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