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What is good for a bootless bené? | |
With these dark words begins my tale; | |
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring, | |
When prayer is of no avail? | |
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What is good, for a bootless bené? | 5 |
The falconer to the lady said; | |
And she made answer, Endless sorrow! | |
For she knew that her son was dead. | |
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She knew it by the falconers words, | |
And from the look of the falconers eye; | 10 |
And from the love which was in her soul | |
For her youthful Romilly. | |
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Young Romilly through Barden Woods | |
Is ranging high and low; | |
And holds a greyhound in a leash, | 15 |
To let slip up on buck or doe. | |
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The pair have reached that fearful chasm, | |
How tempting to bestride! | |
For lordly Wharf is there pent in | |
With rocks on either side. | 20 |
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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. | |
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And hither is young Romilly come, | 25 |
And what may now forbid | |
That he, perhaps for the hundredth time, | |
Shall bound across the Strid? | |
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He sprang in glee,for what cared he | |
That the river was strong, and the rocks were steep! | 30 |
But the greyhound in the leash hung back, | |
And checked him in his leap. | |
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The boy is in the arms of Wharf, | |
And strangled by a merciless force; | |
For never more was young Romilly seen | 35 |
Till he rose a lifeless corse. | |
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Now there is stillness in the vale, | |
And long unspeaking sorrow: | |
Wharf shall be, to pitying hearts, | |
A name more sad than Yarrow. | 40 |
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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. | |
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She weeps not for the wedding-day | 45 |
Which was to be to-morrow: | |
Her hope was a farther-looking hope, | |
And hers is a mothers sorrow. | |
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He was a tree that stood alone, | |
And proudly did its branches wave: | 50 |
And the root of this delightful tree | |
Was in her husbands grave! | |
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Long, long in darkness did she sit, | |
And her first words were, Let there be | |
In Bolton, on the field of Wharf, | 55 |
A stately Priory! | |
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The stately Priory was reared; | |
And Wharf, as he moved along, | |
To matins joined a mournful voice, | |
Nor failed at evensong. | 60 |
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And the lady prayed in heaviness | |
That looked not for relief! | |
But slowly did her succor come, | |
And a patience to her grief. | |
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Oh! there is never sorrow of heart | 65 |
That shall lack a timely end, | |
If but to God we turn and ask | |
Of Him to be our friend! | |
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