Rowena & Harold / A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst

In grateful remembrance of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria's unprecedentedly long, illustrious, and beneficent reign of sixty years (1837-97), and of fifty years of service (1847-97) in the cause of National Education by Her Majesty's most loyal and devoted servant,
THE AUTHOR.


Like some horrific Gorgon's mammoth skull, Thrown up by Titan spade, From out those caves Where saurians with mastodons had played, Before the sea had made their homes their graves, And scared their ghosts with screech of sea-born mew and gull,
Is Ragnor's beetling brow, the seaman's dread, That scowls by night and day On that same sea And with earth-shaking sound is heard to say,— Which sound the waves roll back with mocking glee— What! Not enough of life ye must e'en have the dead?
The ragged remnants of an ancient crown Adorn his kingly head: 'Tis Hastyngs' Tower. Here dwelt a maiden fair, so fair, 'tis said, That suitors rich and princely sought her bower, To sue in vain: whereat her father's haughty brow would frown.

Like Ragnor's rocks. He swore that she should wed Sir Ralph of Normanhurst, His sister's son. Would not the Holy Church deem her accursed, Dared she defy his will and marry one Of her own choice! Were't so, 'twere better she were dead!
Dear father, mine, Rowena pleaded sore, On bended knee, The heart Belongs to God. To wed where hallowed love can; have no part Were sin, deserving His all-chastening rod, Whose blessing on such tie 'twere impious to implore.