“No other can obtain my love!
I would for thee the world resign!
Then let thy prompt obedience prove
That thou art truly, wholly mine.”
“And ever to her promise true,
No pleasure shall her soul elate,
For, yet her constant thoughts pursue
A wretched Outlaw’s hapless fate!
“In vain proud Ranulph[11] shall upbraid,
My Adelaide is still the same!
And, for thy sake, dear, lovely maid,
I will not curse the Norman name!
“Not, though my father’s large domains,
Are plunder’d by the murderous bands;
And my Northumbria’s fertile plains,
Lie wasted by their cruel hands;
“Though, as a son, I mourn the fate
Of those, to whom my life I owe;
And hate the hearts that thus create
The dimness of severest woe;
“Though I behold no friendly steel,
To give my Emma vengeance, drawn;
And though a brother’s pangs I feel,
To know her destitute, forlorn;
“Though, banish’d from the sight of day,
In dreary solitude I pine;
And, forc’d to feel a tyrant’s sway,
Each dear paternal right resign;
“Yet will I seal my lips; nor dare
To extricate my haughty foes:
The hateful, guilty root I spare,
Which can produce so fair a rose.
“But thou, my heart, wilt thou be calm?
Oh! tell me, can reflection cease;
And this fond bosom, now so warm,
Be ever tranquilliz’d to peace!
“Ah, no! a father’s scornful eye
Is ever present to my view;
And tells me, Herbert dar’d to die,
Though Normans could his son subdue.
“Each feeble plea his soul disdains,
They cannot for the fault atone;
Though, when I left Northumbria’s plains,
I had not fifteen summers known.
“And hear me, Herbert, when I swear
It was not fear that urg’d my flight;
A worthless life was not my care,
I thought but of a parent’s right.
“Then pardon that my youth comply’d,
To ease a mother’s anxious fears
That, when I rather would have died,
I yielded to a sister’s tears.
“Alas! a peasant’s humble shed,
Soon saw our sainted parents’ death,
Who, while our hearts in anguish bled,
With pious hopes resign’d her breath.
“When mists foretel the ev’ning near,
And clouds of chilling dew arise,
We sought the grave of her so dear,
And offer’d there our tears and
sighs.
“’Till mild reflection lent her aid,
And bade our filial sorrows cease;
The fever of our souls allay’d,
We sunk into a mournful peace.
“My pensive bosom strove to keep
A dying mother’s last request;
I let the thoughts of vengeance sleep,
And studied to make Emma blest.
“No longer shunning of the dawn,
Or seeking the sequester’d shade,
I call’d my sister to the lawn,
And trod with her the flow’ry glade.