It woke when fell with sturdy stroke The Norman axe around, And builders' hands in fragments broke The Idol from the ground; And hewed therefrom that corner stone Which yet yon tower sustains, Where Wodin's Moth sits, grim and lone, And holds the dell in chains. There youth at love's sweet call oft glides By cloister, aisle, and nave, To stop above the stone that hides The beauteous Fleming's grave:-- Fair flower of Aldingham--the child Of old Sir William's days,-- Low where the Bekan straggling wild Its deadly arms displays. There in the quiet more profound Than sleep, than death more drear, Her shadow walks the silent ground When leaves are green or sere; When autumn with its cheerless sky Or winter with its pall, Puts all the year's fair promise by With fruits that fade and fall. And where the Bekan by the rill So bitter once, now sweet, Its lurid purples ripens still While ages onward fleet, She tastes the deadly flower by night,-- If yet its juices flow Sweet as of yore; for then to light And rest her soul shall go. Ah, blessed forth from far beyond The Jordan once he came,-- Her Red-cross Knight,--the marriage bond To twine with love and fame: His meed of valour, Beauty's charms, Pledged with one silvery word, Beneath the forest's branching arms And by the breezes stirred. Another week! and she would stand In Urswick's halls a bride: Another week! the marriage band Had round her life been tied: When wild with joyfulness of heart That beat not with a care, She carolled forth alone, to start The grim Moth from its lair. She bounded from his heart elate! But Urswick's halls of light, And Aldingham's embattled gate No more shall meet her sight. For her no happy bridal crowd Press out into the road, But Furness monks with dirges loud Bend round her last abode. To chase the moth that guards the flower That makes the dell its own, Flew forth the maid from hall and tower Through wood and glen alone. Where Odin's men had left their god In earth, long overgrown With tangled bushes rude, she trod Enchanted ground unknown. The abbey walls before her gaze At distance rising fair, While deep within the magic maze She wandered unaware: She loitered with the song untired Upon her lips, nor thought What foes against her peace conspired, While love his lost one sought! They found her with close-lidded eyes, Watched by that Moth unblest, Perched high between her and the skies, And nightshade on her breast. There lay she with her lips apart In peace; by Wodin's power Stilled into death her truest heart With Bekan's lurid flower.