The Knight, alone, in his ancient hold, Sat still as a stone: his blood ran cold. For his little maiden was his delight. Then forth he strode in the face of the night. His dogs were in kennel, his steeds in stall: His deer were lying about his hall: His swans beneath the Lord's Oak Tree: The silvery Rotha was flowing free. He set his brow towards Scandale hill: The vale was breathing, but all was still. He thought of the spirits the snow-winds rouse, The Piping Spirits of Sweden Hows, That wail to the Rydal Chiefs their fate-- That pipe as they whirl around lattice and gate, With their grey gaunt misty forms: but now, There was not a stir in the lightest bough: The winds in the mountain gorge were laid; No sound through all the moonlight stray'd. He turned again to his ancient Keep: There all was silence, and calm, and sleep. But all grew changed in the gloomy pile. His little maiden lost her smile. The menials fled: that knightly race Was left alone in its ancient place: The pride of its line of warriors quailed-- Those sworded knights once peerless hailed: To the earth broke down from its hold their shield. With its argent fret and its blood-red field: And they fled from the might of the powers that strode In the darkness through their old abode. And Sir Michael brooded an autumn day, As he looked on the slope at his child at play, On the green by the sounding water's fall: And often those words did he recall-- "We wait not long, our watch we keep; We all are singing, and none may sleep. When stone on stone nor roof remain, The unresting shall have rest again." And the Knight ordained, as he brooded alone-- "There shall not be left of it roof or stone." And Sir Michael said--"I will build my hall On the green by the sounding waterfall: And an arbour cool at its foot, beside. And I'll bury my shield in the crystal tide, To cleanse it from blood perchance, that so Peace, Plenty, and Wisdom again may flow Round old Flandrensis' honours and name." And the pile arose: and the sun's bright flame Was pleasant around it: and morn and even It lay in the light and the hues of heaven. And Sir Michael sat in the arbour cool, Where the waters leapt in the crystal pool; Saying--"Gone is yon keep to a grim decay. And now, my little one, loved alway! Whence came thy singing so wild and deep?"-- --"We all were singing, and none might sleep, Till all the Unmerciful heard their strain. But now the unresting have rest again."-- So the keep went down to the dust and mould. And the new pile bore the blazon of old-- The pride of the old ancestral shield-- The argent fret on the blood-red field; "Peace, Plenty, Wisdom" Beneath enscrolled. NOTES TO "THE SHIELD OF FLANDRENSIS."