MISCELLANEOUS VERSES. VU 



In a summer eve's decline, by Don's soft-flowing river, 

 As seemed like pulses through the sky, each fleece of light to qxiiver, 

 The hart-bell's muttering music, mid the copse's tangled ways, 

 Was heard where now the engine sounds the knell of feudal days. 



But not to Harry Tudor was the forest game so free, 

 As to bluff Saxon yeomen, like Clough and Cloudesly ; 

 Though countless ranger bands were sworn to guard the king's green- 

 wood, 

 They grudged no roving licence to the stalwart Kobin Hood. 



Mid the pathless tracks of Sherwood, down Newstead's pleasant glade, 

 By the Holy- well in Barnsdale's dell, that merry outlaw strayed ; 

 Past the lonely grave of Hengist, he roamed in morning's mist, 

 Gay was the vale of Welbeck when he gave his green-wood tryst. 



In his festive Lincoln kirtle, and some sheltered sylvan dell, 

 He was monarch of the revels and Maid Marian the belle ; 

 To neither boor nor yeoman was he churlish of his bounty ; 

 All had a cheery welcome, save the sheriff of the county. 



There the blind old man sat joyous, with his grandchild on his knee, 

 And the measure beat with tottering feet to the stirring minstrelsy ; 

 The frost of age seemed thawing within each withered vein, 

 As the taberer's shrill glee notes came wildering o'er his brain. 



Then the maidens joined the dances in their gayest russet vest, 

 While each youthful mother watched them with her baby at her 



breast ; 



Matrons gazed upon their striplings with hearts of honest pride, 

 And watched their sly love-glances and whisperings aside. 



Oft would linger at the banquet, beneath the silver moon, 

 The tumbler and the gleeman, the piper, and buffoon ; 

 And the Friday-hating friar bent o'er sirloin and buck-haunch, 

 And eyed the strolling dancer as he lined his rosy paunch. 



Peas might deck his hermit's table, and a cruise his pallet head, 

 He had pasty in the cupboard, and his Gascon 'neath the bed ; 

 Now in Rhenish he pledged Eobin, as he trolled a forest catch, 

 " This be my text, the eve when next* Jack Fletcher' lifts my latch.' 1 



" Well said, my good Franciscan," quoth Robin ; " on thy back 

 The sackcloth neat is mantle meet for one who carries sack ; 

 Leave peas and pulse, leave water, for Carmelitish serf, 

 Till the vespers, that thou doffest thy grey covering for green turf." 



Right well knew gallant Robin how over dale and mountain 

 Roamed on his bright bay hunter the Curtail Prior of Fountain ; 

 How the jolly Abbot Aylmer, as he called his hounds to cast 

 O'er the fallows on his bugle, right gaily wound a blast. 



