A rout this morning left Sir Walter's hall, That, as they galloped, made the echoes roar; But horse and man are vanished, one and all: Such race, I think, was never seen before.

Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind,

Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain ; Blanch, Swift, and Music, noblest of their kind, Follow, and up the weary mountain strain.

The knight hallooed, he cheered and chid them on With suppliant gestures and upbraidings stern; But breath and eyesight fail; and, one by one,

The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern.

Where is the throng, the tumult of the race?
The bugles that so joyfully were blown ?
This chase it looks not like an earthly chase:
Sir Walter and the hart are left alone.

The poor hart toils along the mountain-side;
I will not stop to say how far he fled,
Nor will I mention by what death he died;

But now the knight beholds him lying dead.
Dismounting then, he leaned against a thorn;

He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy: He neither cracked his whip nor blew his horn, But gazed upon the spoil with silent joy.

A cunning artist will I have to frame
A basin for that fountain in the dell ;
And they who do make mention of the same,

From this day forth shall call it HART-LEAP WELL.

And, gallant stag! to make thy praises known,
Another monument shall here be raised;
Three several pillars, each a rough-hewn stone,
And planted where thy hoofs the turf have grazed.

And in the summer time, when days are long,
I will come hither with my paramour;
And, with the dancers and the minstrel's song,
We will make merry in that pleasant bower.

Till the foundations of the mountains fail,

My mansion with its arbour shall endure; The joy of them that till the fields of Swale, And them who dwell among the woods of Ure!"

Then home he went, and left the hart stone-dead,
With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring.
Soon did the knight perform what he had said,
And far and wide the fame thereof did ring.

Ere thrice the moon into her port had steered,
A cup of stone received the living well;
Three pillars of rude stone Sir Walter reared,

And built a house of pleasure in the dell.

And near the fountain, flowers of stature tall

With trailing plants and trees were intertwined;
Which soon composed a little sylvan hall,
A lofty shelter from the sun and wind.
And thither, when the summer days were long,
Sir Walter led his wondering paramour;
And, with the dancers and the minstrel's song,
Made merriment within that pleasant bower.

The knight Sir Walter died in course of time,
And his bones lie in his paternal vale :-
But there is matter for a second rhyme,
And I to this would add another tale.

PART SECOND.

THE moving accident is not my trade,
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts;
'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade,
To pipe a simple tale to feeling hearts.
As I from Hawes to Richmond did repair,
It chanced that I saw standing in a dell
Three aspens at three corners of a square,

And one, not four yards distant, near a well.

What this imported I could ill divine;

And pulling now the rein my horse to stop,

I saw three pillars standing in a line,
The last stone pillar on a dark hill-top.

The trees were grey, with neither arms nor head, Half-wasted the square mound of tawny green; So that you just might say, as I then said,

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'Here, in old time, the hand of man hath been."

I looked upon the hill both far and near,

More doleful place did never eye survey; It seemed as if the spring-time came not here, And Nature here were willing to decay.

I stood in various thoughts and fancies lostWhen one, who was in shepherd's garb attired, Came up the hollow. Him did I accost,

And what this place might be I then inquired. The shepherd stopped, and the same story told Which in my former rhyme I have rehearsed :— A jolly place," said he, " in times of old! But something ails it now-the place is curs'd. You see these lifeless stumps of aspen wood

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Some say that they are beeches, others elmsThese were the bower; and here a mansion stood, The finest palace of a hundred realms.

The arbour does its own condition tell;

You see the stones, the fountain, and the stream;
But as to the great lodge! you might as well
Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep,
Will wet his lips within that cup of stone;