WORDSWORTH.

THE FOUNDING OF BOLTON PRIORY, OR

THE FORCE OF PRAYER.

"WHAT is good for a bootless bene?"

With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring
When prayer is of no avail ?

"What is good for a bootless bene ?" The Falconer to the Lady said;

And she made answer, "ENDLESS SORROW!"

For she knew that her Son was dead.

She knew it by the Falconer's words,
And from the look of the Falconer's eye;
And from the love which was in her soul
For her youthful Romilly.

-Young Romilly through Barden woods
Is ranging high and low;

And holds a Greyhound in a leash,
To let slip upon buck or doe.

The Pair have reach'd that fearful chasm,

How tempting to bestride!

For lordly Wharf is there pent in
With rocks on either side.

This Striding-place is call'd THE STRID,
A name which it took of yore:

A thousand years hath it borne that name,
And shall, a thousand more.

And hither is young Romilly come,
And what may now forbid

That he, perhaps for the hundredth time,
Shall bound across THE STRID?

He sprang in glee,-for what cared he

That the River was strong, and the rocks were steep!

-But the Greyhound in the leash hung back,
And check'd him in his leap.

The Boy is in the arms of Wharf,

And strangled by a merciless force;

For never more was young Romilly seen

Till he rose a lifeless Corse.

Now there is stillness in the Vale,
And long unspeaking sorrow:
Wharf shall be to pitying hearts
A name more sad than Yarrow.

If for a Lover the Lady wept,
A solace she might borrow

"rom death, and from the passion of death
Wharf might heal her sorrow.

She weeps not for the wedding-day
Which was to be to-morrow:

Her hope was a farther-looking hope,
And hers is a Mother's sorrow.

He was a Tree that stood alone,
And proudly did its branches wave;
And the Root of this delightful Tree
Was in her Husband's grave!

Long, long in darkness did she sit,
And her first words were, "Let there be
In Bolton, on the Field of Wharf,
A stately Priory!"

The stately Priory was rear'd;
And Wharf, as he moved along,
To Matins join'd a mournful voice,
Nor fail'd at Even-song.

And the Lady pray'd in heaviness
That look'd not for relief!

But slowly did her succour come,
And a patience to her grief.

Oh! there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,

If but to God we turn and ask
Of Him to be our Friend!

THE KIRK OF ULPHA.

THE KIRK OF ULPHA to the Pilgrim's eye
Is welcome as a Star, that doth present

Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent
Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:
Or as a fruitful palm-tree towering high

O'er the parched waste beside an Arab's tent;
Or the Indian tree whose branches, downward bent,
Take root again a boundless canopy.

How sweet were leisure! could it yield no more Than 'mid that wave-washed Church-yard to recline,

From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine;
Or there to pace, and mark the summits hoar
Of distant moon-lit mountains faintly shine,
Sooth'd by the unseen River's gentle roar.

THE YEW-TREE SEAT.

IF Thou be one whose heart the holy forms
Of young imagination have kept pure,

Stranger! henceforth be warn'd; and know, that pride,

Howe'er disguised in its own majesty,

Is littleness; that he who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties

Which he has never used; that thought with him
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye

Is ever on himself doth look on one,

The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds