Rowena Harold

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Title: Rowena & Harold
A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst
Author: Wm. Stephen Pryer
Release Date: May 17, 2007 [EBook #21509]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROWENA &
HAROLD ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art--Old Ragnor's Crypt.]
[Frontispiece: Wm. Stephen Pryer]
DEDICATION.
DEO LAUS.
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.
ROWENA & HAROLD:
A Romance in Rhyme
Of an Olden Time,
Of Hastyngs and
Normanhurst.
by
WM. STEPHEN PRYER,
Author of "Thought Crystals in Verse," Etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS & PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.
London:
WARD, LOCK & CO.
Forest Gate, E.:
THE ELECTRIC PUBLISHING CO.
INDEX.
Old Ragnor's Cliffs
Sir Guy de Warre
Sir Harold Wynn
Sir
Harold Spurned
The Deserted Eyrie
Sir Harold Sails
Rowena's
Lonely Vigil
Rowena's Song
Sir Harold at Acre
The Saracen
Maid's Secret
The Secret Assassin
The Light in the Turret Tower

Death at Ragnor's Tower
Rowena's Grief
Rowena's Lament
The
Holy Friar's Consolation
Rowena Enters a Convent
Nigh unto
Death
The Demon Wrecker
Old Ragnor's Dungeons Grim
Eric
Entombed
The Rift in Hell Gate
The Crucified One
Eric Faithful
unto Death
Eric to be Crucified
To Die or Live
Eric Escapes

The Smuggler's Den
Rowena's Fiery Furnace
The Dungeon's Angel


Rediviva
Convalescent
Rowena's Te Deum
The Lights of
Home
The Lamp of Death
The Wreck of The "Holy Cross"
Grief
at Wynnwood Hall
Saved
Two Lives in One
The Lost Missive

Another Dungeon Tenant
Nemesis
The Demon Exorcised
Father
and Child
Reconciliation
A Royal Visitor
The Royal Pardon

The Deserted Brides
Heart Chords
Home, Sweet Home
ILLUSTRATIONS
Old Ragnor's Crypt . . . . . . . . . _Cover Art_
Wm. Stephen Pryer . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
The Castle, Hastyngs.
St. Hilda's Keep.
[Illustration: The Castle, Hastyngs.]
Old Ragnor's Cliffs.
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.
Sir Guy de Warre.
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."
"Sir Guy, my spouse, a mother's prayers, I too
Would blend with hers.
O yield,
Our only child,
Possession sweet of woman's holy field--

Affection's glebe--a virgin soil denied
When wedlock makes those
one whose hearts can ne'er beat true."
Sir Harold Wynn.
Sir Guy de Warre, the fair Rowena's sire,
Of haughty Norman birth,
With pure descent,
Held Saxon, high or low, as scum of earth;
And
deemed his name more worth and honour lent,
Than line directly
traced from Alfred could inspire.
Dark-visaged man, his countenance repelled;
His restless eyes flashed
fire;

His voice sent dread
Through every soul that felt his fearful ire.
At
its fell sound both beast and children fled.
Rowena, with her mother,
hid till it had quelled.
Sir Harold dared his daughter's hand to seek!
No word the fierce
knight spake
But ope'd the door,
And, scowling, said--"No Saxon churl shall make

Rowena wife; and dare he woo her more,
Upon him, would Sir
Guy a direful vengeance wreak."
Sir Harold Spurned.
To sue and lose, his knightly soul might bear;
But insult galled him
sore.
Should he imbrue
His puissant sword in her own father's gore?
That
were to do a deed he e'er must rue;
Unfit it for a place in his Walhalla
there.
No, better far to don the holy cross,
As valiant knight became;
Then if he fell,
He would at least have saved his honoured name;

Could say with life's last flitting breath--"'Tis well, For so to live or die,
to me were gain, not loss."
Yet spite of all, one parting word and kiss,
From dear Rowena's
lips.--