time when biting old Boreas, True to his calling, the tempests impend; His hailstones in fury are pelting before us, Our fingers are smarting, and heads they are bent.

The cold winds do murmur, the bleak snow is falling, The beasts of the forest from hunger do call; There are desolate evenings, comfortless mornings, And gloomy noontides for one and for all.

Drear is thine aspect, tyrannical December, O hast thou no mercy for the pitiless poor; Christmas is thine, and well we remember, Though dark is thy visage, we honour thee more.

p. 67Bonnie Cliffe Castle.

p. 67

Oh, bonnie Cliffe Castle! what sight can be grander? Thou picture of beauty and joy to the eye, So noble and grand in thy beauty and splendour That envy must tremble as she passeth by.

And long may’st thou flourish and bloom like the heather, An honour to him who’s thy founder so great, And stand like an oak in both fair and foul weather, Till old Father Time hath forgotten thy date.

’Tis a pleasure to view thee from hill-top or level, From moorland, from meadow, or mountain afar, Where Roman pack-horsemen more safely could travel, In days when the Briton and Boman waged war.

In those days of yore, from Hawkcliffe to Rivoc, The wolf and the wild boar sought after their prey, But Briton’s brave sons amongst them made havoc, And thus for Cliffe Castle they opened the way.

Where erst were wild woods, crags, moorlands, and marshes, In days long gone by and whose dates are unknown, Is now the highway where stand thy proud arches, Oh, bonnie Cliffe Castle! thou pride of the town.

’Tis true that thy walls were not built for defence, Nor that thy equipments befit thee for war; A castle of love is thy only pretence, A name that is higher and nobler by far.

p. 68Thou ’mind’st me of five as kind-hearted brothers, As ever set sail on the deep ocean’s breast, Whose lives have been spent in love toward others, And while blessing others themselves have been blest.

p. 68

Like heroes of old, on horse or on vessel, On land or on water they fought and they won, And now thy grand towers, O bonnie Cliffe Castle! Tower up to the heavens, which answer, “Well done!”

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