SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE,
Reading edition
Upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honours of his Ancestors
Composed 1807.—Published 1807
[See the note. This poem was composed at Coleorton while I was walking to and fro along the path that led from Sir George Beaumont's Farmhouse, where we resided, to the Hall, which was building at that time.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate, And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.— The words of ancient time I thus translate, A festal strain that hath been silent long:— "From town to town, from tower to tower, 5 The red rose is a gladsome flower. Her thirty years of winter past, The red rose is revived at last; She lifts her head for endless spring, For everlasting blossoming:[A] 10 Both roses flourish, red and white: In love and sisterly delight The two that were at strife are blended, And all old troubles[1] now are ended.— Joy! joy to both! but most to her 15 Who is the flower of Lancaster! Behold her how She smiles to-day On this great throng, this bright array! Fair greeting doth she send to all From every corner of the hall; 20 But chiefly from above the board Where sits in state our rightful Lord, A Clifford to his own restored! "They came with banner, spear, and shield; And it was proved in Bosworth-field. 25 Not long the Avenger was withstood— Earth helped him with the cry of blood:[B] St George was for us, and the might Of blessed Angels crowned the right. Loud voice the Land has[2] uttered forth, 30 We loudest in the faithful north: Our fields rejoice, our mountains ring, Our streams proclaim a welcoming; Our strong-abodes and castles see The glory of their loyalty.[3] 35 "How glad is Skipton at this hour— Though lonely, a deserted Tower;[4] Knight, squire, and yeoman, page and groom:[5] We have them at the feast of Brough'm. How glad Pendragon—though the sleep 40 Of years be on her!—She shall reap A taste of this great pleasure, viewing As in a dream her own renewing. Rejoiced is Brough, right glad I deem Beside her little humble stream; 45 And she that keepeth watch and ward Her statelier Eden's course to guard; They both are happy at this hour, Though each is but a lonely Tower:— But here is perfect joy and pride 50 For one fair House by Emont's side, This day, distinguished without peer To see her Master and to cheer— Him, and his Lady-mother dear! "Oh! it was a time forlorn 55 When the fatherless was born— Give her wings that she may fly, Or she sees her infant die! Swords that are with slaughter wild Hunt the Mother and the Child. 60 Who will take them from the light? —Yonder is a man in sight— Yonder is a house—but where? No, they must not enter there. To the caves, and to the brooks, 65 To the clouds of heaven she looks; She is speechless, but her eyes Pray in ghostly agonies. Blissful Mary, Mother mild, Maid and Mother undefiled, 70 Save a Mother and her Child! "Now Who is he that bounds with joy On Carrock's side, a Shepherd-boy? No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass Light as the wind along the grass. 75 Can this be He who hither came In secret, like a smothered flame? O'er whom such thankful tears were shed For shelter, and a poor man's bread! God loves the Child; and God hath willed 80 That those dear words should be fulfilled, The Lady's words, when forced away The last she to her Babe did say: 'My own, my own, thy Fellow-guest I may not be; but rest thee, rest, 85 For lowly shepherd's life is best!' "Alas! when evil men are strong No life is good, no pleasure long. The Boy must part from Mosedale's groves, And leave Blencathara's rugged coves,[C] 90 And quit the flowers that summer brings[D] To Glenderamakin's lofty springs; Must vanish, and his careless cheer Be turned to heaviness and fear. —Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise! 95 Hear it, good man, old in days! Thou tree of covert and of rest For this young Bird that is distrest; Among thy branches safe he lay, And he was free to sport and play, 100 When falcons were abroad for prey. "A recreant harp, that sings of fear And heaviness in Clifford's ear! I said, when evil men are strong, No life is good, no pleasure long, 105 A weak and cowardly untruth! Our Clifford was a happy Youth, And thankful through a weary time, That brought him up to manhood's prime. —Again he wanders forth at will, 110 And tends a flock from hill to hill:[6] His garb is humble; ne'er was seen Such garb with such a noble mien; Among the shepherd grooms no mate Hath he, a Child of strength and state! 115 Yet lacks not friends for simple[7] glee, Nor yet for higher sympathy.[8] To his side the fallow-deer Came, and rested without fear; The eagle, lord of land and sea, 120 Stooped down to pay him fealty;[E] And both the undying fish that swim Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him;[F] The pair were servants of his eye In their immortality; 125 And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright, Moved to and fro, for his delight.[9] He knew the rocks which Angels haunt Upon[10] the mountains visitant; He hath kenned[11] them taking wing: 130 And into caves[12] where Faeries sing He hath entered; and been told By Voices how men lived of old. Among the heavens his eye can see The face of thing[13] that is to be; 135 And, if that men report him right, His tongue could whisper words of might.[14] —Now another day is come, Fitter hope, and nobler doom; He hath thrown aside his crook, 140 And hath buried deep his book; Armour rusting in his halls On the blood of Clifford calls;—[G] 'Quell the Scot,' exclaims the Lance— Bear me to the heart of France, 145 Is the longing of the Shield— Tell thy name, thou trembling Field; Field of death, where'er thou be, Groan thou with our victory! Happy day, and mighty hour, 150 When our Shepherd, in his power, Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword, To his ancestors restored Like a re-appearing Star, Like a glory from afar, 155 First shall head the flock of war!" Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed: How he, long forced in humble walks to go,[15] Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed. 160 Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in[16] the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills. In him the savage virtue of the Race, 165 Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead: Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place The wisdom which adversity had bred. Glad were the vales, and every cottage-hearth; The Shepherd-lord was honoured more and more; 170 And, ages after he was laid in earth, "The good Lord Clifford" was the name he bore.
The original text of this Song was altered but little in succeeding editions, and was not changed at all till 1836 and 1845. The following is Wordsworth's explanatory note, appended to the poem in all the editions:—
"Henry Lord Clifford, etc. etc., who is the subject of this Poem, was the son of John, Lord Clifford, who was slain at Towton Field,[H] which John, Lord Clifford, as is known to the Reader of English History, was the person who after the battle of Wakefield slew, in the pursuit, the young Earl of Rutland, Son of the Duke of York who had fallen in the battle, 'in part of revenge' (say the Authors of the History of Cumberland and Westmoreland); 'for the Earl's Father had slain his.' A deed which worthily blemished the author (saith Speed); But who, as he adds, 'dare promise any thing temperate of himself in the heat of martial fury? chiefly, when it was resolved not to leave any branch of the York line standing; for so one maketh this Lord to speak.' This, no doubt, I would observe by the bye, was an action sufficiently in the vindictive spirit of the times, and yet not altogether so bad as represented; 'for the Earl was no child, as some writers would have him, but able to bear arms, being sixteen or seventeen years of age, as is evident from this (say the Memoirs of the Countess of Pembroke, who was laudably anxious to wipe away, as far as could be, this stigma from the illustrious name to which she was born); that he was the next Child to King Edward the Fourth, which his mother had by Richard Duke of York, and that King was then eighteen years of age: and for the small distance betwixt her Children, see Austin Vincent in his book of Nobility, page 622, where he writes of them all. It may further be observed, that Lord Clifford, who was then himself only twenty-five years of age, had been a leading Man and Commander, two or three years together in the Army of Lancaster, before this time; and, therefore, would be less likely to think that the Earl of Rutland might be entitled to mercy from his youth.—But, independent of this act, at best a cruel and savage one, the Family of Clifford had done enough to draw upon them the vehement hatred of the House of York: so that after the Battle of Towton there was no hope for them but in flight and concealment. Henry, the subject of the Poem, was deprived of his estate and honours during the space of twenty-four years; all which time he lived as a shepherd in Yorkshire, or in Cumberland, where the estate of his Father-in-law (Sir Lancelot Threlkeld) lay. He was restored to his estate and honours in the first year of Henry the Seventh. It is recorded that, 'when called to parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely; but otherwise came seldom to London or the Court; and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his Castles, which had gone to decay during the late troubles.' Thus far is chiefly collected from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge, that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and its neighbourhood, his principal retreat, that, in the course of his shepherd life, he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject of those numerous and noble feudal Edifices, spoken of in the Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always been distinguished for an honourable pride in these Castles; and we have seen that after the wars of York and Lancaster they were rebuilt; in the civil Wars of Charles the First, they were again laid waste, and again restored almost to their former magnificence by the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, etc. etc. Not more than twenty-five years after this was done, when the Estates of Clifford had passed into the Family of Tufton, three of these Castles, namely Brough, Brougham, and Pendragon, were demolished, and the timber and other materials sold by Thomas Earl of Thanet. We will hope that, when this order was issued, the Earl had not consulted the text of Isaiah, 58th Chap. 12th Verse, to which the inscription placed over the gate of Pendragon Castle, by the Countess of Pembroke (I believe his Grandmother) at the time she repaired that structure, refers the reader. 'And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.' The Earl of Thanet, the present possessor of the Estates, with a due respect for the memory of his ancestors, and a proper sense of the value and beauty of these remains of antiquity, has (I am told) given orders that they shall be preserved from all depredations."
Compare the reference to the "Shepherd-lord" in the first canto of The White Doe of Rylstone, p. 116, and the topographical allusions there, with this Song. Compare also the life of Anne Clifford, in Hartley Coleridge's Lives of Distinguished Northerners.
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate, And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.
Brougham Castle, past which the river Emont flows, is about two miles out of Penrith, on the Appleby Road. It is now a ruin, but was once a place of importance. The larger part of it was built by Roger, Lord Clifford, son of Isabella de Veteripont, who placed over the inner door the inscription, "This made Roger." His grandson added the eastern part. The castle was frequently laid waste by the Scottish Bands, and during the Wars of the Roses. The Earl of Cumberland entertained James I. within it, in 1617, on the occasion of the king's last return from Scotland; but it seems to have "layen ruinous" from that date, and to have suffered much during the civil wars in the reign of Charles I. In 1651-52 it was repaired by Lady Anne Clifford, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, who wrote thus—"After I had been there myself to direct the building of it, did I cause my old decayed castle of Brougham to be repaired, and also the tower called the "Roman Tower," in the same old castle, and the court-house, for keeping my courts in, with some dozen or fourteen rooms to be built in it upon the old foundation." (Pembroke Memoirs, i. p. 216.) After the time of the Countess Anne, the castle was neglected, and much of the stone, timber, and lead disposed of at public sales: the wainscotting being purchased by the neighbouring villagers.
Her thirty years of winter past, The red rose is revived at last.
This refers to the thirty years interval between 1455 (the first battle of St. Albans in the wars of the Roses) and 1485 (the battle of Bosworth and the accession of Henry VII.)
Both roses flourish, red and white,
Alluding to the marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth, which united the two warring lines of York and Lancaster.
And it was proved in Bosworth-field.
The battle of Bosworth Field, in Leicestershire, was fought in 1485.
Not long the Avenger was withstood— Earth helped him with the cry of blood.
Henry VII.—who, as Henry, Earl of Richmond, last scion of the line of Lancaster, had fled to Brittany—returned with Morton, the exiled Bishop of Ely, landed at Milford, advanced through Wales, and met the royal army at Bosworth, where Richard was slain, and Henry crowned king on the battlefield. The "cry of blood" refers, doubtless, to the murder of the young princes in the Tower.
How glad is Skipton at this hour— Though lonely, a deserted Tower.
Skipton is the "capital" of the Craven district of Yorkshire, as Barrow is the capital of the Furness district of Lancashire and Westmoreland. The castle of Skipton was the chief residence of the Cliffords. Architecturally it is of two periods: the round tower dating from the reign of Edward II., and the rest from that of Henry VIII. From the time of Robert de Clifford, who fell at Bannockburn (1314), until the seventeenth century, the estates of the Cliffords extended from Skipton to Brougham Castle—seventy miles—with only a short interruption of ten miles. The "Shepherd-lord" Clifford of this poem was attainted—as explained in Wordsworth's note—by the triumphant House of York. He was "committed by his mother to the care of certain shepherds, whose wives had served her," and who kept him concealed both in Cumberland, and at Londesborough, in Yorkshire, where his mother's (Lady Margaret Vesci) own estates lay. The old "Tower" of Skipton Castle was "deserted" during these years when the "Shepherd-lord" was concealed in Cumberland.
How glad Pendragon—though the sleep Of years be on her!
Pendragon Castle, in a narrow dell in the forest of Mallerstang, near the source of the Eden, south of Kirkby-Stephen, was another of the castles of the Cliffords. Its building was traditionally ascribed to Uter Pendragon, of Stonehenge celebrity, who was fabled to have tried to make the Eden flow round the castle of Pendragon: hence the distich—
Let Uter Pendragon do what he can, Eden will run where Eden ran.
In the Countess of Pembroke's Memoirs (vol. i. pp. 22, 228), we are told that Idonea de Veteripont "made a great part of her residence in Westmoreland at Brough Castle, near Stanemore, and at Pendragon Castle, in Mallerstang." The castle was burned and destroyed by Scottish raiders in 1341, and for 140 years it was in a ruinous state. It is probably to this that reference is made in the phrase, "though the sleep of years be on her." During the attainder of Henry Lord Clifford, in the reign of Edward IV., part of this estate of Mallerstang was granted to Sir William Parr of Kendal Castle. It was again destroyed during the civil wars of the Stuarts, and was restored, along with Skipton and Brougham, by Lady Anne Clifford, in 1660, who put up an inscription "... Repaired in 1660, so as she came to lye in it herself for a little while in October 1661, after it had lain ruinous without timber or any other covering since 1541. Isaiah, chap. lviii. ver. 12." It was again demolished in 1685.
Rejoiced is Brough, right glad I deem Beside her little humble stream.
Brough—the Verterae of the Romans—is called, for distinction's sake, "Brough-under-Stainmore" (or "Stanemore"). The "little humble stream" is Hillbeck, formerly Hellebeck—(it was said to derive its name from the waters rushing or "helleing" down the channel)—which descends from Warcop Fell, runs through Market Brough, and joins the Eden below it. The date of the building of the castle of Brough is uncertain, but it is probably older than the Conquest. It was sacked by the Scottish King William in 1174. It was "one of the chief residences" of Idonea de Veteripont (above referred to); for "then it was in its prime." (Pemb. Mem., vol. i. p. 22.) Probably she rebuilt it, and changed it from a tower—like Pendragon—into a castle. In the Pembroke Memoirs (i. p. 108), we read of its subsequent destruction by fire. "A great misfortune befell Henry Lord Clifford, some two years before his death, which happened in 1521; his ancient and great castle of Brough-under-Stanemore was set on fire by a casual mischance, a little after he had kept a great Christmas there, so as all the timber and lead were utterly consumed, and nothing left but the bare walls, which since are more and more consumed, and quite ruinated." This same Countess Anne Pembroke began to repair it in April 1660, "at her exceeding great charge and cost." She put up an inscription over the gate similar to the one which she inscribed at Pendragon.
And she that keepeth watch and ward Her statelier Eden's course to guard.
Doubtless Appleby Castle. Its origin is equally uncertain. Before 1422, John Lord Clifford, "builded that strong and fine artificial gate-house, all arched with stone, and decorated with the arms of the Veteriponts, Cliffords, and Percys, which with several parts of the castle walls was defaced and broken down in the civil war of 1648." His successor, Thomas, Lord Clifford, "built the chiefest part of the castle towards the east, as the hall, the chapel, and the great chamber." This was in 1454. The Countess Anne Pembroke wrote of Appleby Castle thus (Pemb. Mem., vol. i. p. 187): "In 1651 I continued to live in Appleby Castle a whole year, and spent much time in repairing it and Brougham Castle, to make them as habitable as I could, though Brougham was very ruinous, and much out of repair. And in this year, the 21st of April, I helped to lay the foundation stone of the middle wall of the great tower of Appleby Castle, called "Cæsar's Tower," to the end it might be repaired again, and made habitable, if it pleased God (Is. lviii. 12), after it had stood without a roof or covering, or one chamber habitable in it, since about 1567," etc. etc.
One fair House by Emont's side.
Brougham Castle.
Him, and his Lady-mother dear!
Lady Margaret, daughter and heiress of Lord Vesci, who married John, Lord Clifford—the Clifford of Shakespeare's Henry VI. He was killed at Ferrybridge near Knottingley in 1461. Their son was Henry, "the Shepherd-lord." His mother is buried in Londesborough Church, near Market Weighton.
Now Who is he that bounds with joy On Carrock's side, a Shepherd-boy?
Carrock-fell is three miles south-west from Castle Sowerby, in Cumberland.
The Boy must part from Mosedale's groves, And leave Blencathara's rugged coves.
There are many "Mosedales" in the English Lake District. The one referred to here is to the north of Blencathara or Saddleback.
And quit the flowers that summer brings To Glenderamakin's lofty springs.
The river Glenderamakin rises in the lofty ground to the north of Blencathara.
—Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise! ······· Thou tree of covert and of rest For this young Bird that is distrest.
It was on Sir Lancelot Threlkeld's estates in Cumberland that the young Lord was concealed, disguised as a shepherd-boy. He was the "tree of covert" for the young "Bird" Henry Clifford. Compare The Waggoner, ll. 628-39 (vol. iii. p. 100)—
And see, beyond that hamlet small, The ruined towers of Threlkeld-hall, Lurking in a double shade, By trees and lingering twilight made! There, at Blencathara's rugged feet, Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat To noble Clifford; from annoy Concealed the persecuted boy, Well pleased in rustic garb to feed His flock, and pipe on shepherd's reed Among this multitude of hills, Crags, woodlands, waterfalls, and rills.
The old hall of Threlkeld has long been a ruin. Its only habitable part has been a farmhouse for many years.
And both the undying fish that swim Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him.
Bowscale Tarn is to the north of Blencathara. Its stream joins the Caldew river.
And into caves where Faeries sing He hath entered.
Compare the previous reference to Blencathara's "rugged coves." There are many such on this mountain.
Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed: How he, long forced in humble walks to go, Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.
After restoration to his ancestral estates, the Shepherd-lord preferred to live in comparative retirement. He spent most of his time at Barden Tower (see notes to The White Doe of Rylstone), which he enlarged, and where he lived with a small retinue. He was much at Bolton (which was close at hand), and there he studied astronomy and alchemy, aided by the monks. It is to the time when he lived at Threlkeld, however—wandering as a shepherd-boy, over the ridges and around the coves of Blencathara, amongst the groves of Mosedale, and by the lofty springs of Glenderamakin—that Wordsworth refers in the lines,
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
He was at Flodden in 1513, when nearly sixty years of age, leading there the "flower of Craven."
From Penigent to Pendle Hill, From Linton to long Addingham, And all that Craven's coasts did till, They with the lusty Clifford came.
Compare, in the first canto of The White Doe of Rylstone (p. 117)—
when he, with spear and shield, Rode full of years to Flodden-field.
He died in 1523, and was buried in the choir of Bolton Priory.
The following is Sarah Coleridge's criticism of the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, in the editorial note to her father's Biographia Literaria (vol. ii. ch. ix. p. 152, ed. 1847):—
"The transitions and vicissitudes in this noble lyric I have always thought rendered it one of the finest specimens of modern subjective poetry which our age has seen. The ode commences in a tone of high gratulation and festivity—a tone not only glad, but comparatively even jocund and light-hearted. The Clifford is restored to the home, the honours and estates of his ancestors. Then it sinks and falls away to the remembrance of tribulation—times of war and bloodshed, flight and terror, and hiding away from the enemy—times of poverty and distress, when the Clifford was brought, a little child, to the shelter of a northern valley. After a while it emerges from those depths of sorrow—gradually rises into a strain of elevated tranquillity and contemplative rapture; through the power of imagination, the beautiful and impressive aspects of nature are brought into relationship with the spirit of him, whose fortunes and character form the subject of the piece, and are represented as gladdening and exalting it, whilst they keep it pure and unspotted from the world. Suddenly the Poet is carried on with greater animation and passion: he has returned to the point whence he started—flung himself back into the tide of stirring life and moving events. All is to come over again, struggle and conflict, chances and changes of war, victory and triumph, overthrow and desolation. I know nothing, in lyric poetry, more beautiful or affecting than the final transition from this part of the ode, with its rapid metre, to the slow elegiac stanzas at the end, when, from the warlike fervour and eagerness, the jubilant strain which has just been described, the Poet passes back into the sublime silence of Nature, gathering amid her deep and quiet bosom a more subdued and solemn tenderness than he had manifested before; it is as if from the heights of the imaginative intellect, his spirit had retreated into the recesses of a profoundly thoughtful Christian heart."
Professor Henry Reed said of this poem—"Had he never written another ode, this alone would set him at the head of the lyric poets of England."—Ed.
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