For he must ride o'er many a hill,

Through bosky dales that stretch between, And plunge in many a foaming beck

That glitters in the copsewood green.

Once, twice, and thrice the lovers part,
But still their hands enclasped remain,
Once, twice, and thrice they turn and meet,
With lingering kisses nine or ten:

And then they parted once for all—

And never met again.

O'er many a moor, with heather dark,
Through many a forest dim rides he,

Round many raven-haunted crags

With ivy hung and rowan tree.

II.

She lived just o'er the village green :
Beside yon spreading sycamore,

A gate half hid with trailing vine

Still guards the path to the old house door.

The rooks from out the wooded slope

In eddying circles wheel aloof,

And round the hoary oaks that long

Have shed their acorns on the roof.

What once was the village Manor house,
Now fills a humbler place I ween;

It has a somewhat faded look,

That tells where better days have been.

Demurely stretch the quaint box hedges Round where the dial points the hours, And the prim beds and mouldering ledges Are haunted by old-fashioned flowers.

Much is the place misliked, and shunned
By wayward youngsters lingering late,
As they eye askance the griffins shaped
In the
yews that flank the garden gate.

The hall within is dark and low,

And its oaken wainscot is crowded o'er

With implements of sylvan sport

Hung up and left in days of yore.

Pass on behind the settle grim

That flanks the yawning fire-place,

And by the low and heavy door

That opens from the dim recess.

You are in the squire's parlour now—

Two portraits hang upon the wall: A blue-eyed girl of seventeen

A country youth, embrowned and tall.

The place has such a ghostly air,
You turn and listen, half afraid,

For the heavy tramp of a cavalier,
Or the rustling of stiff brocade.

III.

And yet for all the village tales

The truth has had its own to win

From that skeleton of ill-hung bones

Close wrapt within a parchment skin :---

The local antiquary-he

Long scouted

every rustic sage,

And set himself to read old tales

By the light of an enlightened age.

A man he was of hums and haws,

For trifles given to doubt and stickle; Go near enough, and, urchin like,

He bristled round with point and spike, And galled you with a prickle.

Ah me! I think I now him see,
His lanky form clad scantily

In clothes not very new.
His hat of drab, a trifle bent,
His green umbrella corpulent,

And long-tailed coat of blue;