And as I rode by Dalton Hall,
Beneath the turrets high,
A Maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily:

"O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen."

"If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me,
To leave both tower and town,
Thou first must guess what life lead we
That dwell by dale and down.

And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,

Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed,
As blythe as Queen of May."

Yet sang she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.

"I read you, by your bugle-horn
And by your palfrey good,

I read you for a Ranger sworn
To keep the king's greenwood."
A Ranger, lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night."

Yet sang she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay;

I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May.

"With burnished brand and musketoon
So gallantly you come,

I read you for a bold Dragoon
That lists the tuck of drum."
"I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.

"And O! though Brignall banks be fair, And Greta woods be gay,

Yet mickle must the maiden dare

66

Would reign my Queen of May!

Maiden! a nameless life I lead,

A nameless death I'll die!

The fiend, whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!

And when I'm with my comrades met,
Beneath the Greenwood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.

"Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green,

And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen."

Sir Walter Scott

ENTER THESE ENCHANTED WOODS

FROM The Woods of Westermain

E

NTER these enchanted woods,
You who dare.

Nothing harms beneath the leaves
More than waves a swimmer cleaves.
Toss your heart up with the lark,

Foot at peace with mouse and worm,
Fair you fare.

Only at a dread of dark

Quaver, and they quit their form:
Thousand eyeballs under hoods
Have you by the hair.

Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.

Here the snake across your path
Stretches in his golden bath :
Mossy-footed squirrels leap

Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep:
Yaffles on a chuckle skin

Low to laugh from branches dim:
Up the pine, where sits the star,
Rattles deep the moth-winged jar.
Each has business of his own;
But should you distrust a tone,
Then beware.

Shudder all the haunted roods,
All the eyeballs under hoods
Shroud you in their glare.
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.

THE TIGER

George Meredith

IGER, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned that fire within thine eyes?

On what wings dared he aspire?
What the hand dared seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

What the hammer, what the chain,

Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

William Blake

H

LINES

FROM The Faun

IST! there's a stir in the brush.

Was it a face through the leaves?

Back of the laurels a skurry and rush

Hillward, then silence except for the thrush That throws one song from the dark of the bush And is gone; and I plunge in the wood, and the swift soul cleaves

Through the swirl and the flow of the leaves, As a swimmer stands with his white limbs bare to the sun

For the space that a breath is held, and drops in

the sea;

And the undulant woodland folds round me, intimate, fluctant, free

Like the clasp and the cling of waters, and the reach and the effort is done,

There is only the glory of living, exultant to be. O goodly damp smell of the ground!

O rough sweet bark of the trees!

O clear sharp cracklings of sound!
O life that's athrill and a-bound

With the vigor of boyhood and morning, and the noon-tide's rapture of ease!

Was there ever a weary heart in the world? A lag in the body's urge or a flag of the spirit's wings?

Did a man's heart ever break

For a lost hope's sake?

For here there is lilt in the quiet and calm in the quiver of things.

LOCKUNG

Richard Hovey

ÖRST du nicht die Bäume rauschen

HÖRST

Draussen durch die stille Rund'?

Lockt's dich nicht, hinabzulauschen
Von dem Söller in den Grund,
Wo die vielen Bäche gehen
Wunderbar im Mondenschein,
Und die stillen Schlösser sehen
In den Fluss vom hohen Stein?

Kennst du noch die irren Lieder
Aus der alten, schönen Zeit?
Sie erwachen alle wieder
Nachts in Waldeseinsamkeit,

Wenn die Bäume traümend lauschen
Und der Flieder duftet schwül
Und im Fluss die Nixen rauschen -
Komm herab, hier ist's so kühl.

Joseph von Eichendorff