Watch ye, and ward ye! a ship in sight,
And bearing down for Trebarra Height,
She folds her wings by that rocky strand:
Watch ye, and ward ye! a boat on land!

Hush! for they glide from yonder cave
To greet these strangers of the wave;
Wait! since they pace the seaward glen
With the measured tread of mourning men.

"Hold! masters, hold! ye tarry here,
What corse is laid on your solemn bier?
Yon minster-ground were a calmer grave
Than the roving bark, or the weedy wave!"

"Strong vows we made to our sister dead
To hew in fair France her narrow bed;
And her angry ghost will win no rest
If your Cornish earth lie on her breast."

They rend that pall in the glaring light:
By St. Michael of Carne! 'twas an aweful sight!
For those folded hands were meekly laid
On the silent breast of a shrouded maid.

"God speed, my masters, your mournful way!
Go, bury your dead where best ye may:
But the Norroway barks are over the deep,
So we watch and ward from our guarded steep."

Who comes with weapon? who comes with steed?
Ye may hear far off their clanking speed;
What knight in steel is thundering on?
Ye may know the voice of the grim Sir John.

"Saw ye my daughter, my Gwennah bright,
"Borne out for dead at the deep of night?"
"Too late! too late!" cried the warder pale,
"Lo! the full deck, and the rushing sail!"

They have roused that maid from her trance of sleep,
They have spread their sails to the roaring deep;
Watch ye and ward ye! with wind and tide,
Fitz-Walter hath won his Cornish bride.

Ah! happy spot, how still it seems
Where crowds of buried memories sleep;
How quiet Nature o’er them dreams,
’Tis but our troubled thoughts that weep.
Life’s book shuts here—its page is lost
With them, and all its busy claims,
The poor are from its memory crost,
The rich leave nothing but their names.

There rest the weary from their toil;
There lie the troubled, free from care;
Who through the strife of life’s turmoil
Sought rest, and only found it there.
With none to fear his scornful brow,
There sleeps the master with the slave;
And heedless of all titles now,
Repose the honoured and the brave.

There rest the miser and the heir,
Both careless who their wealth shall reap;
E’en love finds cure for heart-aches here,
And none enjoy a sounder sleep.
The fair one far from folly’s freaks,
As quiet as her neighbour seems,
Unconscious now of rosy cheeks,
Without a rival in her dreams.

Strangers alike to joy and strife,
Heedless of all its past affairs.
They’re blotted from the list of life,
And absent from its teazing cares.
Grief, joy, hope, fear, and all their crew
That haunt the memory’s living mind,
Ceased, when they could no more pursue,
And left a painless blank behind.

Life’s ignis fatuus light is gone,
No more to lead their hopes astray;
Care’s poisoned cup is drain’d and done,
And all its follies past away.
The bill’s made out, the reck’ning paid,
The book is cross’d, the business done;
On them the last demand is made,
And heaven’s eternal peace is won.