Proud Maisie is in the wood,

The tenant hath resign’dThe faded form To waste and worm-Corruption claims her kind.Through paths unknownThy soul hath flown,To seek the realms of woe,Where fiery painShall purge the stainOf actions done below.In that sad place,By Mary’s grace,Brief may thy dwelling beTill prayers and alms,And holy psalms,Shall set the captive free.

Her father’s God before her moved,An awful Guide, in smoke and flame.By day, along the astonished landsThe cloudy pillar glided slow;By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sandsReturned the fiery column’s glow.There rose the choral hymn of praise,And trump and timbrel answer’d keen,And Zion’s daughters pour’d their lays,With priest’s and warrior’s voice between.No portents now our foes amaze,Forsaken…

Sign it with cross, and sain it with bead,Sing the Ave, and say the Creed.For on Hollow-Mass Eve the Night-Hag will ride,And all her nine-fold sweeping on by her side.Whether the wind sing lowly or loud,Sailing through moonshine or swath’d in the cloud.The Lady she sate in St. Swithin’s Chair,The dew of the night has…

Full proudly may thy branches wave,Where loyalty lies low in death,And valour fills a timeless grave.And thou, brave tenant of the tomb!Repine not if our clime deny,Above thine honoured sod to bloom,The flowerets of a milder sky.These owe their birth to genial May;Beneath a fiercer sun they pine,Before the winter storm decay-And can their worth…

His fiery courser snuffs the morn,And thronging serfs their lord pursue.The eager pack, from couples freed,Dash through the bush, the brier, the brake;While answering hound, and horn, and steed,The mountain echoes startling wake.The beams of God’s own hallow’d dayHad painted yonder spire with gold,And, called sinful man to pray,Loud, long, and deep the bell had…

The Minstrel was infirm and old;His wither’d cheek, and tresses gray,Seem’d to have known a better day;The harp, his sole remaining joy,Was carried by an orphan boy.The last of all the Bards was he,Who sung of Border chivalry;For, welladay! their date was fled,His tuneful brethren all were dead;And he, neglected and oppress’d,Wish’d to be with…

Wake thy wild voice anew,Summon Clan Conuil!Come away, come away,Hark to the summons!Come in your war-array,Gentles and commons.Come from deep glen, andFrom mountain so rocky;The war-pipe and pennonAre at Inverlocky.Come every hill-plaid, andTrue heart that wears one,Come every steel blade, andStrong hand that bears one.Leave untended the herd,The flock without shelter;Leave the corpse uninterr’d,The bride…

And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.He staid not for brake, and he stopp’d not for stone,He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;But ere he alighted at…

The western hills have hid the sun,But mountain peak and village spireRetain reflection of his fire.Old Barnard’s towers are purple still,To those that gaze from Toller-hill;Distant and high, the tower of BowesLike steel upon the anvil glows;And Stanmore’s ridge, behind that lay,Rich with the spoils of parting day,In crimson and in gold array’d,Streaks yet awhile…

Thou whose rushing pinions stir ocean to madness,Thou the destroyer of herds, thou the scatterer of navies,Amidst the scream of thy rage,Amidst the scream be loud as the cry of a perishing nation,Though the rushing of thy wings be like the roar of ten thousand waves,Yet hear, in thine ire and thy haste,Hear thou the…

The lake return’d, in chasten’d gleam,The purple cloud, the golden beam:Reflected in the crystal pool,Headland and bank lay fair and cool;The weather-tinted rock and tower,Each drooping tree, each fairy flower,So true, so soft, the mirror gave,As if there lay beneath the wave,Secure from trouble, toil, and care,A world than earthly world more fair.But distant winds…

Oh, what can frame my mind to bearThe toil and turmoil, cark and care,New griefs, which coming hours unfold,And sad remembrance of the old?One hour with thee.One hour with thee! When burning JuneWaves his red flag at pitch of noon;What shall repay the faithful swain,His labor on the sultry plain;And, more than cave or sheltering…