I. 
The summer sun, whose early power 
Was wont to gild Matilda's bower, 
And rouse her with his matin ray 
Her duteous orisons to pay, 
That morning sun has three times seen 
The flowers unfold on Rokeby green, 
But sees no more the slumbers fly 
From fair Matilda's hazel eye; 
That morning sun has three times broke 
On Rokeby's glades of elm and oak, 
But, rising from their sylvan screen, 
Marks no grey turrets' glance between. 
A shapeless mass lie keep and tower, 
That, hissing to the morning shower, 
Can but with smouldering vapour pay 
The early smile of summer day. 
The peasant, to his labour bound, 
Pauses to view the blacken'd mound, 
Striving, amid the ruin'd space, 
Each well-remember'd spot to trace. 
That length of frail and fire-scorch'd wall 
Once screen'd the hospitable hall; 
When yonder broken arch was whole, 
â??Twas there was dealt the weekly dole; 
And where yon tottering columns nod, 
The chapel sent the hymn to God. 
So flits the world's uncertain span 
Nor zeal for God, nor love for man, 
Gives mortal monuments a date 
Beyond the power of Time and Fate. 
The towers must share the builder's doom; 
Ruin is theirs, and his a tomb: 
But better boon benignant Heaven 
To Faith and Charity has given, 
And bids the Christian hope sublime 
Transcend the bounds of Fate and Time. 

II. 
Now the third night of summer came, 
Since that which witness'd Rokeby's flame. 
On Brignall cliffs and Scargill brake 
The owlet's homilies awake, 
The bittern scream'd from rush and flag, 
The raven slumber'd on his crag, 
Forth from his den the otter drew, 
Grayling and trout their tyrant knew, 
As between reed and sedge he peers, 
With fierce round snout and sharpen'd ears 
Or, prowling by the moonbeam cool, 
Watches the stream or swims the pool;- 
Perch'd on his wonted eyrie high, 
Sleep seal'd the tercelet's wearied eye, 
That all the day had watch'd so well 
The cushat dart across the dell. 
In dubious beam reflected shone 
That lofty cliff of pale grey stone, 
Beside whose base the secret cave 
To rapine late a refuge gave. 
The crag's wild crest of copse and yew 
On Greta's breast dark shadows threw; 
Shadows that met or shunn'd the sight, 
With every change of fitful light; 
As hope and fear alternate chase 
Our course through life's uncertain race. 

III. 
Gliding by crag and copsewood green, 
A solitary form was seen 
To trace with stealthy pace the wold, 
Like fox that seeks the midnight fold, 
And pauses oft, and cowers dismay'd, 
At every breath that stirs the shade. 
He passes now the ivy bush, 
The owl has seen him, and is hush; 
He passes now the dodder'd oak, 
Ye heard the startled raven croak; 
Lower and lower he descends, 
Rustle the leaves, the brushwood bends; 
The otter hears him tread the shore, 
And dives, and is beheld no more; 
And by the cliff of pale grey stone 
The midnight wanderer stands alone. 
Methinks, that by the moon we trace 
A well-remember'd form and face! 
That stripling shape, that cheek so pale, 
Combine to tell a rueful tale, 
Of powers misused, of passion's force, 
Of guilt, of grief, and of remorse 
'Tis Edmund's eye, at every sound 
That flings that guilty glance around; 
'Tis Edmund's trembling haste divides 
The brushwood that the cavern hides; 
And, when its narrow porch lies bare, 
'Tis Edmund's form that enters there. 

IV. 
His flint and steel have sparkled bright, 
A lamp hath lent the cavern light. 
Fearful and quick his eye surveys 
Each angle of the gloomy maze. 
Since last he left that stern abode, 
It seem'd as none its floor had trod; 
Untouch'd appeared the various spoil, 
The purchase of his comrades' toil; 
Masks and disguises grimed with mud, 
Arms broken and defiled with blood, 
And all the nameless tools that aid 
Night-felons in their lawless trade, 
Upon the gloomy walls were hung, 
Or lay in nooks obscurely flung. 
Still on the sordid board appear 
The relics of the noontide cheer: 
Flagons and emptied flasks were there, 
And bench o'erthrown, and shatter'd chair; 
And all around the semblance show'd, 
As when the final revel glow'd, 
When the red sun was setting fast, 
And parting pledge Guy Denzil past. 
'To Rokeby treasure-vaults!' they quaff'd, 
And shouted loud and wildly laugh'd, 
Pour'd maddening from the rocky door, 
And parted-to return no more! 
They found in Rokeby vaults their doom, 
A bloody death, a burning tomb! 

V. 
There his own peasant dress he spies, 
Doff'd to assume that quaint disguise; 
And shuddering thought upon his glee, 
When prank'd in garb of minstrelsy. 
'0, be the fatal art accurst,' 
He cried, 'that moved my folly first;