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As in his scrip we dropt our little store, And sighed to think that little was no more, He breathed his prayer, "Long may such goodness live!

'Twas all he gave, 'twas all he had to give. Angels, when Mercy's mandate winged their flight, [sight. Had stopt to dwell with pleasure on the

MEMORY.

HAIL, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless
mine,
[shine!
From age to age unnumbered treasures
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call
obey,
[sway.

And Place and Time are subject to thy
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone,
The only pleasure we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions die
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
1 Lo! Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away;
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her
flight,

Pour round her path a stream of living light, And gild those pure and perfect realms of [blest.

rest.

Where Virtue triumphs and her sons are

THE BOY OF EGREMOND.

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"SAY, what remains when Hope is fled?"
She answered, Endless weeping,"
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.
At Embsay rang the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Barden-fell,
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest green,
With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The Boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song-a song of yore;
But where the rock is rent in two
And the river rushes through,
His voice was heard no more.*
'Twas but a step! the gulf he passed,
But that step,-it was his last!

* The slid over the river Wharfe.

As through the mist he winged his way
(A cloud that hovers night and day),
The hound hung back, and back he drew
The master and his merlin too,
That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of life.
There now the matin-bell is rung,
The "Miserere" duly sung;
And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood,
But what avail they, ruthless lord?
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless, and the innocent.
Sit now, and answer groan for groan,-
The child before thee is thine own!
And she who wildly wanders there
The mother in her long despair,
Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,
Of those who by the Wharfe are weeping:
Of those who would not be consoled
When red with blood the river rolled.

GINEVRA.

IF thou shouldst ever come to Modena,
Stop at a palace near the Reggio Gate
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And numerous fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; but before thou go,
Enter the house-prithee, forget it not-
And look awhile upon a picture there.

"

'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth;She sits inclining forward as to speak, Her lips half open, and her finger up, As though she said Beware!"-her vest of gold [head to footBroidered with flowers, and clasped from An emerald stone in every golden clasp; And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, A coronet of pearls. But then her face, So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, The overflowings of an innocent heartIt haunts me still, though many a year has fled,

Like some wild melody !—Alone it hangs Over a mouldering heirloom, its companion, An oaken chest, half eaten by the worm.

She was an only child; from infancy
The joy the pride of an indulgent sire.
Her mother dying of the gift she gave,
That precious gift, what else remained to
him?

The young Ginevra was his all in life,
Still as she grew, for ever in his sight.
She was all gentleness, all gaiety,
Her pranks the favourite theme of every
tongue.
[hour;
But now the day was come, the day, the
And in the lustre of her youth she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.

Great was the joy; but at the bridal feast, When all sat down, the bride was wanting there

Nor was she to be found! Her father cried, "Tis but to make a trial of our love!" And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook, [spread. And soon from guest to guest the panic 'Twas but that instant she had left Fran[still, Laughing and looking back, and flying Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger. But now, alas! she was not to be found; Nor from that hour could anything be guessed,

cesco,

seen

But that she was not! Weary of his life, Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith Flung it away in battle with the Turk. Orsini lived; and long might'st thou have [thing, An old man wandering as in quest of someSomething he could not find--he knew not what. [awhile When he was gone, the house remained Silent and tenantless, then went to strangers,

Full fifty years were past, and all forgot, When on an idle day, a day of search 'Mid the old lumber in the gallery, That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said [Ginevra,

By one as young, as thoughtless, as "Why not remove it from its lurkingplace?" [way

'Twas done as soon as said; but on the It burst-it fell; and lo! a skeleton; And here and there a pearl,an emerald stone, A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold: All else had perished-save a nuptial ring, And a small seal, her mother's legacy, Engraven with a name, the name of both"GINEVRA."-There then had she found a grave! [self, Within that chest had she concealed herFluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy; [there, When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush Fastened her down for ever!

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When he had better far have stretched his limbs

Beside a brook in mossy forest dell,
By sun or moonlight, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements,
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful. So his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the
spring

In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs

O er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My Friend, and thou, our Sister, we have learned

A different lore: we may not thus profane Natures sweet voices, always full of love And joyance. Tis the merry nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburden his full soul Of all its music!

And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups, grow within the paths,

But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's songs,

With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug-jug; And one, low piping, sounds more sweet than all,

Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost [bushes,

Forget it was not day. On moonlight Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, You may perchance behold them on the twigs, [bright and full, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.

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'Tis the cool evening hour:
The tamarind from the dew
Sheathes its young fruit, yet green.
Before their tent the mat is spread;
The old man's solemn voice
Intones the holy book.

What if beneath no lamp-illumined dome,
Its marble walls bedecked with flourished
truth,
[word

Azure and gold adornment? Sinks the With deeper influence from the Imam's voice

Where, in the day of congregation, crowds
Perform the duty-task?
Their father is their priest,

The stars of heaven their point of prayer,
And the blue firmament

The glorious temple, where they feel
The present Deity.

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THE sultry summer day is done,
The western hills have hid the sun,
But mountain peak and village spire
Retain reflection of his fire.

Old Barnard's towers are purple still,
To those that gaze from Toller Hill;
Distant and high, the towers of Bowes
Like steel upon the anvil glows,
And Stanmore's ridge, behind that lay,
Rich with the spoils of parting day,
In crimson and in gold arrayed,
Streaks yet awhile the closing shade,
Then slow resigns to darkening heaven
The tints which brighter hours had given.

Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till Memory lends her light no more.
The eve, that slow on upland fades,
Has darker closed on Rokeby's glades,
Where, sunk within their banks profound,
Her guardian streams to meeting wound.
The stately oaks, whose sombre frown
Of noontide made a twilight brown,
Impervious now to fainter light,
Of twilight make an early night.
Hoarse into middle air arose
The vespers of the roosting crows,
And with congenial murmurs seem
To wake the Genii of the stream;
For louder clamoured Greta's tide,
And Tees in deeper voice replied.
And fitful waked the evening wind,
Fitful in sighs its breath resigned.
Wilfrid, whose fancy-nurtured soul
Felt in the scene a soft control,
With lighter footstep pressed the ground,
And often paused to look around;
And, though his path was to his love,
Could not but linger in the grove,
To drink the thrilling interest dear
Of awful pleasure checked by fear.
Such inconsistent moods have we,
Even when our passions strike the key.
Now through the woods dark mazes past,
The opening lawn he reached at last,
Where, silvered by the moonlight ray,
The ancient Hall before him lay.
Those martial terrors long were fled,
That frowned of old around its head;
The battlements, the turrets gray,
Seemed half abandoned to decay:
On barbican and keep of stone

Stern Time the foeman's work had done.
Where banners the invader braved,
The harebell now and wallflower waved;
In the rude guard-room, where of yore
Their weary hours the warders wore,
Now, while the cheerful fagots blaze,
On the paved floor the spindle plays;
The flanking guns dismounted lie,
The moat is ruinous and dry,
The grim portcullis gone, and all
The fortress turned to peaceful hall.

A LANDSCAPE.

FAR in the chambers of the west, The gale had sighed itself to rest;

The moon was cloudless now and clear,
But pale, and soon to disappear.
The thin gray clouds wax dimly light
On Brusleton and Houghton height;
And the rich dale, that eastward lay,
Waited the wakening touch of day,
To give its woods and cultured plain,
And towers and spires, to light again.
But, westward, Stanmore's shapeless swell,
And Lunedale wild, and Kelton Fell,
And rock-begirdled Gilmanscar,
And Arkingarth, lay dark afar,
While, as a livelier twilight falls
Emerge proud Barnard's bannered walls;
High-crowned he sits in dawning pale,
The sovereign of the lovely vale.
What prospects from his watch-tower high
Gleam gradual on the warder's eye!—
Far sweeping to the east, he sees
Down his deep woods the course of Tees,
And tracks his wanderings by the steam
Of summer vapours from the stream;
And ere he paced his destined hour
By Brackenbury's dungeon-tower,
These silver mists shall melt away,
And dew the woods with glittering spray ;
Then in broad lustre shall be shown
That mighty trench of living stone,
And each huge trunk that, from the side,
Reclines him o'er the darksome tide,
Where Tees, full many a fathom low,
Wears with his rage no common foe;
For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
Nor clay-mound checks his fierce career,
Condemned to mine a channeled way
O'er solid sheets of marble gray.
Nor Tees alone, in dawning bright,
Shall rush upon the ravished sight;
But many a tributary stream

Each from its own dark dell shall gleam;
Staindrop, who, from her sylvan bowers,
Salutes proud Raby's battled towers;
The rural brook of Egliston,
And Balder, named from Odin's son;
And Greta, to whose banks ere long
We lead the lovers of the song;
And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild,
And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child,
And last and least, but loveliest still,
Romantic Deepdale's slender rill.

101

KING JAMES IV.

AN easy task it was, I trow,
King James's manly form to know.
Although, his courtesy to show,
He doffed to Marmion bending low,

His broidered cap and plume. For royal was his garb and mien; His cloak, of crimson velvet piled, Trimmed with the fur of martin wild; His vest of changeful satin sheen,

The dazzled eye beguiled;

His gorgeous collar hung adown, [crown,
Wrought with the badge of Scotland's
The thistle brave, of old renown:
His trusty blade, Toledo right,
Descended from a baldric bright;
White were his buskins, on the heel
His spurs inlaid of gold and steel;
His bonnet, all of crimson fair,
Was buttoned with a ruby rare:
And Marmion deemed he ne'er had seen
A prince of such a noble mien.

The monarch's form was middle size;
For feat of strength, or exercise,
Shaped in porportion fair;
And hazel was his eagle eye,
And auburn of the darkest dye

His short curled beard and hair.
Light was his footstep in the dance,

And firm his stirrup in the lists;
And, oh! he had that merry glance
That seldom lady's heart resists.
Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
And loved to plead, lament, and sue
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

I said he joyed in banquet bower; But, 'mid his mirth, 'twas often strange, How suddenly his cheer would change, His look o'ercast and lower,

If, in a sudden turn, he felt
The pressure of his iron belt,

That bound his breast in penance pain,
In memory of his father slain.
Even so 'twas strange how, evermore,
Soon as the passing pang was o'er,
Forward he rushed, with double glee,
Into the stream of revelry:

Thus, dim-seen object of affright
Startles the courser in his flight,
And half he halts, half springs aside;
But feels the quickening spur applied,
And, straining on the tightened rein,
Scours doubly swift o'er hill and plain.

CHRISTMAS.

HEAP on more wood!-the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will,

We'll keep our Christmas merry still.

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