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(From Rokeby)
WHEN Denmark’s raven soared on high, | |
| Triumphant through Northumbrian sky, | |
| Till, hovering near, her fatal croak | |
| Bade Reged’s Britons dread the yoke, | |
| And the broad shadow of her wing | 5 |
| Blackened each cataract and spring, | |
| Where Tees in tumult leaves his source, | |
| Thundering o’er Caldron and High-Force; | |
| Beneath the shade the Northmen came, | |
| Fixed on each vale a Runic name, | 10 |
| Reared high their altar’s rugged stone, | |
| And gave their gods the land they won. | |
| Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine, | |
| And one sweet brooklet’s silver line, | |
| And Woden’s Croft did title gain | 15 |
| From the stern Father of the Slain; | |
| But to the Monarch of the Mace, | |
| That held in fight the foremost place, | |
| To Odin’s son and Sifia’s spouse, | |
| Near Stratforth high they paid their vows, | 20 |
| Remembered Thor’s victorious fame, | |
| And gave the dell the Thunderer’s name. | |
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| Yet Scald or Kemper erred, I ween, | |
| Who gave that soft and quiet scene, | |
| With all its varied light and shade, | 25 |
| And every little sunny glade, | |
| And the blithe brook that strolls along | |
| Its pebbled bed with summer song, | |
| To the grim god of blood and scar, | |
| The grisly King of Northern War. | 30 |
| O, better were its banks assigned | |
| To spirits of a gentler kind! | |
| For where the thicket-groups recede, | |
| And the rath primrose decks the mead, | |
| The velvet grass seems carpet meet | 35 |
| For the light fairies’ lively feet. | |
| Yon tufted knoll, with daisies strown, | |
| Might make proud Oberon a throne, | |
| While, hidden in the thicket nigh, | |
| Puck should brood o’er his frolic sly; | 40 |
| And where profuse the wood-vetch clings | |
| Round ash and elm, in verdant rings, | |
| Its pale and azure-pencilled flower | |
| Should canopy Titania’s bower. | |
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| Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade; | 45 |
| But, skirting every sunny glade, | |
| In fair variety of green | |
| The woodland lends its sylvan screen. | |
| Hoary, yet haughty, frowns the oak, | |
| Its boughs by weight of ages broke; | 50 |
| And towers erect, in sable spire, | |
| The pine-tree scathed by lightning-fire; | |
| The drooping ash and birch, between, | |
| Hang their fair tresses o’er the green, | |
| And all beneath, at random grow | 55 |
| Each coppice dwarf of varied show; | |
| Or, round the stems profusely twined, | |
| Fling summer odors on the wind. | |
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