Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

And mournful hue; and the rough brier, stretch

ing

His straggling arms across the rivulet,

Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching

With his tenacious leaf, straws, wither'd boughs,
Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which
Swam with the current, and with these it hid
The poor Marcelia's death-bed.-Never may net
Of vent'rous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shorten'd breath
The brook, and panting flies th' unholy place,
And the white heifer lows and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there: and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the ev'ning mists,
And chequer'd as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen,
And fancy to myself that a sad voice,

Praying, comes moaning through the leaves, as 'twere,

For some misdeed. The story goes that some Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world Frown'd upon,) once stray'd thither, and 'twas thought

Cast herself in the stream: you may have heard Of one Marcelia, poor Molini's daughter, who Fell ill and came to want?-No! O she lov'd A wealthy man, who mark'd her not. He wed, And then the girl grew sick, and pin'd away, And drown'd herself for love.

MELROSE ABBEY.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Ir thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seems fram'd of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,
-Then go, but go alone the while-
Then view St David's ruin'd pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!

THE LAST SONG,

Supposed to be sung by a young and innocent Girl, who is dying of long-cherished and undisclosed Love.

PROCTER.

MUST it be? Then farewell,

Thou whom my woman's heart cherish'd so long: Farewell! and be this song

The last, wherein I say, "I lov'd thee well."

Many a weary strain

(Never yet heard by thee) hath this poor breath Utter'd, of love and death,

And maiden grief, hidden and chid in vain.

Oh! if in after years

The tale that I am dead shall touch thy heart,

Bid not the pain depart,

But shed over my grave a few sad tears.

Think of me-still so young,

Silent, though fond, who cast my life away,
Daring to disobey

The passionate spirit that around me clung.

Farewell again! and yet,

Must it indeed be so-and on this shore

Shall you and I no more

Together see the sun of summer set?

For me, my days are gone!

No more shall I, in vintage times, prepare
Chaplets to bind my hair,

As I was wont: O'twas for you alone!

But on my bier I'll lay

Me down in frozen beauty, pale and wan,
Martyr of love to man,

And, like a broken flower, gently decay.

TO MY CANDLE.

DR WOLCOT.

THOU lone companion of the spectred night,
I wake amid thy friendly, watchful light,

To steal a precious hour from lifeless sleepHark, the wild uproar of the winds! and hark, Hell's genius roams the regions of the dark,

And swells the thund'ring horrors of the deep.

From cloud to cloud the pale moon hurrying flies; Now blacken'd, and now flashing through her skies. But all is silence here-beneath thy beam,

I own I labour for the voice of praiseFor who would sink in dark Oblivion's stream? Who would not live in songs of distant days?

Thus while I wond'ring pause o'er Shakspeare's page,

I mark, in visions of delight, the sage

High o'er the wrecks of man, who stands su. blime;

A column in the melancholy waste,
(Its cities humbled, and its glories past),
Majestic 'mid the solitude of time.

Yet now to sadness let me yield the hour-
Yes, let the tears of purest friendship show'r.

I view, alas! what ne'er should die,
A Form that wakes my deepest sigh;

A Form that feels of death the leaden sleepDescending to the realms of shade,

I view a pale-eyed, panting maid,

I see the Virtues o'er their fav'rite weep.

Ah! could the Muse's simple prayer
Command the envied trump of Fame,
Oblivion should Eliza spare;

A world should echo with her name.

Art thou departing too, my trembling friend?
Ah! draws thy little lustre to its end?

Yes, on thy frame Fate too shall fix her soulO let me, pensive, watch thy pale decay; How fast that frame, so tender, wears away!

How fast thy life the restless minutes steal!

How slender now, alas! thy thread of fire!
Ah, falling, falling, ready to expire!

In vain thy struggles-all will soon be o'er.
At life thou snatchest with an eager leap;
Now round I see thy flame so feeble creep,
Faint, less'ning, quiv'ring, glimm'ring-now no
more !

Thus shall the sons of science sink away,
And thus of beauty fade the fairest flower-
For where's the giant who to Time shall say,
"Destructive tyrant, I arrest thy power?"

THE FAIRY'S INVITATION.

ANONYMOUS.

COME to my bower in Summer's vale,
Thy lonely dwelling it shall be,
Thy only visitant the gale,

That wanders from the moonlight sea.

But ev'n its wing of viewless air

The rustling boughs shall cease to move,
While Mercy to thy ev'ning prayer
Breathes her response in hymns of love.

And when the beams of rapture glow
Through the bright tear in Beauty's eye,
In that blest hour thy heart shall know
An angel's kindling ecstasy.

« AnteriorContinuar »