And fear and doubt away were driven
With bumpers full and foaming high:
Yet wicked looked the provost's eye,
But he laughed, and did not spare the sherry,
While the mayor and aldermen were merry.
But while they feast within, without
Hammers were heard, and then a shout
Told that the gibbet was finished then.
Forth came the mayor and aldermen,
And burghers all, and the provost stern,
Who had set his mind to make return
To the mayor for his hospitality;
And how 't was done you soon will see,
For on the gibbet, at his own door,
His worship swung in a moment more!
Bodrigan Castle.
BODRIGAN'S LEAP.
FROM Bosworth's gory field where lay
His king a mangled corse,
With many a dint Sir Harry came,
And spurred his blood-stained horse;
Which all that day in that fierce fray
Had borne him proudly through,
But still for leagues must carry him,
Since fast the foes pursue.
From night to dawn they still went on,
With followers few and faint;
Resting brief while in forest drear
By well of some old saint:
On, on from day to day they fared,
Shunning each bower and hall,
Until they sight one starry night
Bodrigan's castle wall.
The knight's shrill blast is answered fast,
And blithe the warder greets him;
And with a smile and with a kiss
His lady-love soon meets him:
And in that high embrasured tower
His war-worn limbs may rest;
For place like that for wealth and power
Was not in all the West.
And many a century it stood
To prove its ancient fame;
Though but some lowly walls now bear
Bodrigan's honored name.
Its princely hall, its bastions strong,
Its chapel turrets fair,
Are gone like cloud-built palaces,
And castles in the air.
Not long the respite: on his track
The Tudor bloodhounds follow;
Trevanion, Edgcumbe, with their pack
Creep through the woodland hollow:
And now they gather round the walls,
Nor care for Cornish kin;
Certain if they can seize the knight
His ample lands to win.
Ay, take the lands, but not the man!
He knows their purpose stern,
And not with his heart's blood that day
Shall they their wages earn.
Down by a secret way the knight
Has left his home for aye,
And for the cliff he makes that hangs
Over the Goran bay.
Fast, fast they spring upon his path,
He hears their footsteps nigh;
Bold from the cliff he leaps, while shrill
The baffled hunters cry.
In the dark sea they think him drowned,
As on the giddy steep
They stand and look, and only see
The waters wild and deep.
They looked and jeered, and made the shore Ring with their savage shout;
And still they looked, perchance to see
His dead bones tossed about:
And then they saw a boat dash through
The surge, and as she went
The rescued knight above the roar
ROM Bolton's old monastic tower
The bells ring loud with gladsome power; The sun shines bright; the fields are gay With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,
Through the vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way
Like cattle through the budding brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus in joyous mood they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.
What would they there?-full fifty years That sumptuous pile, with all its peers, Too harshly hath been doomed to taste The bitterness of wrong and waste: Its courts are ravaged; but the tower Is standing with a voice of power, That ancient voice which wont to call To mass or some high festival;
And in the shattered fabric's heart
Remaineth one protected part,
A chapel, like a wild-bird's nest,
Closely embowered and trimly drest;
And thither young and old repair,
This Sabbath-day, for praise and prayer.
Fast the churchyard fills; anon,
Look again, and they all are gone,
The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sat in the shade of the Prior's Oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard:
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel:
For 't is the sunrise now of zeal,
Of a pure faith the vernal prime,
In great Eliza's golden time.
A moment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy,
The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near.
When soft!—the dusky trees between, And down the path through the open green Where is no living thing to be seen,
And through yon gateway, where is found, Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
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