"Caw! Caw!" O would the wise Monks had known Who slept his sleep in that barrow alone, When they gathered the bekan he made to grow, And bore it to bloom in the dell below. For they pulled at the heart of the mighty Dead; And they broke his peace in his narrow bed; And on fibre and root the Sorcerer's power Fasten'd the spell that changed the flower; From sweet to bitter its juices pass'd; And the deadly fruit on the poisoned blast Scattered its sorcery ages down. And where once with cowl and gown, Hymning the Imperial Queen of Light, Went forth the Monks--the shade of night Was spread more deadly than tongue can tell. Witchery walked where all had been well: Well with all that hymned and prayed; Well with Monk, and well with maid That sought the Abbey for solace and aid. But the lethal juices wrought their spell: One by one was rung their knell: One by one from choir and cell They floated up with a hoarse farewell; And the altars fell, and the Abbey bell Was hush'd in the Deadly Nightshade Dell. NOTES TO "THE ROOKS OF FURNESS." In the southern extremity of Furness, about half a mile to the west of Dalton, a deep narrow vale stretches itself from the north, and opens to the south with an agreeable aspect to the noonday sun; it is well watered with a rivulet of fine water collected from the adjacent springs, and has many convenient places for mills and fish-ponds. This romantic spot is the Vale of Deadly Nightshade, or, as it is sometimes called, Bekangs-Gill. The solitary and private situation of this dell being so well formed and commodious for religious retreat had attracted the attention of Evanus, or Ewanus, a monk, originally belonging to the monastery of Savigny in Normandy, from which he and a few associates had migrated, and had recently seated themselves at Tulket, near Preston in Amounderness, where Evanus was chosen to be their first abbot. Accordingly, they were induced to change their residence; and exactly three years and three days after their settling at Tulket on the fourth of the nones of July, 1124, they removed to the sequestered shades of Bekangs-Gill, and there began the foundation of the magnificent Abbey of St. Mary in Furness, in magnitude only second of those in England belonging to the Cistercian Monks, and the next in opulence after Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, being endowed with princely wealth and almost princely authority, and not unworthy of the style in which its charter records the gifts and grants, with all their privileges, of its Royal founder, "to God and St. Mary," in the following words:--