JOHN B. S. MORRITT, ESQ.,
THE SCENE OF WHICH IS LAID IN HIS BEAUTIFUL DEMESNE OF ROKEBY,
IN TOKEN OF SINCERE FRIENDSHIP,
ADVERTISEMENT TO FIRST EDITION, 1813.
THE scene of this poem is laid at Rokeby, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, and shifts to the adjacent fortress of Barnard Castle, and to other places in that vicinity.
The time occupied by the action is a space of Five Days, three of which are supposed to elapse between the end of the Fifth and beginning of the Sixth Canto.
The date of the supposed events is immediately subsequent to the great battle of Marston Moor, 3d July 1644. This period of public confusion has been chosen, without any purpose of combining the Fable with the Military or Political Events of the Civil War, but only as affording a degree of probability to the Fictitious Narrative now presented to the Public.
THE Moon is in her summer glow, But hoarse and high the breezes blow, And, racking o'er her face, the cloud Varies the tincture of her shroud; On Barnard's towers, and Tees's stream, She changes as a guilty dream,
When Conscience, with remorse and fear, Goads sleeping Fancy's wild career.
Her light seemed now the blush of shame, Seemed now fierce anger's darker flame, Shifting that shade, to come and go, Like apprehension's hurried glow; Then sorrow's livery dims the air, And dies in darkness, like despair. Such varied hues the warder sees Reflected from the woodland Tees, Then from old Baliol's tower looks forth, Sees the clouds mustering in the north, Hears, upon turret-roof and wall, By fits the plashing rain-drop fall, Lists to the breeze's boding sound, And wraps his shaggy mantle round.
Those towers, which in the changeful gleam Throw murky shadows on the stream, Those towers of Barnard hold a guest, The emotions of whose troubled breast, In wild and strange confusion driven, Rival the flitting rack of heaven. Ere sleep stern OSWALD's senses tied, Oft had he changed his weary side, Composed his limbs and vainly sought By effort strong to banish thought. Sleep came at length, but with a train Of feelings true and fancies vain, Mingling, in wild disorder cast, The expected future with the past
Conscience, anticipating time, Already rues the enacted crime, And calls her furies forth, to shake
The sounding scourge and hissing snake; While her poor victim's outward throes Bear witness to his mental woes,
And show what lesson may be read Beside a sinner's restless bed.
Thus Oswald's labouring feelings trace Strange changes in his sleeping face, Rapid and ominous as these
With which the moonbeams tinge the Tees. There might be seen of shame the blush, There anger's dark and fiercer flush, While the perturbed sleeper's hand Seemed grasping dagger-knife, or brand. Relaxed that grasp, the heavy sigh, The tear in the half-opening eye, The pallid cheek and brow confessed That grief was busy in his breast; Nor paused that mood-a sudden start Impelled the life-blood from the heart: Features convulsed, and mutterings dread, Show terror reigns in sorrow's stead. That pang the painful slumber broke, And Oswald with a start awoke.
He woke, and feared again to close His eyelids in such dire repose;
He woke,-to watch the lamp, and tell From hour to hour the castle-bell. Or listen to the owlet's cry,
Or the sad breeze that whistles by, Or catch, by fits, the tuneless rhyme With which the warder cheats the time, And envying think, how, when the sun Bids the poor soldier's watch be done, Couched on his straw, and fancy-free, He sleeps like careless infancy.
Far townward sounds a distant tread, And Oswald, starting from his bed, Hath caught it, though no human ear, Unsharpened by revenge and fear, Could e'er distinguish horse's clank, Until it reached the castle bank. Now nigh and plain the sound appears, The warder's challenge now he hears, Then clanking chains and levers tell, That o'er the moat the drawbridge fell, And, in the castle court below, Voices are heard, and torches glow,
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