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

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

A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature s 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 tearful 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.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

1774-1843.

THE TENT OF MOATH.

NOR rich nor poor was Moath; God had given

Enough, and blest him with a mind content. No hoarded gold disquieted his dreams; But ever round his station he beheld Camels that knew his voice,

And home-birds, grouping at Oneiza's call, And goats that, morn and eve,

Came with full udders to the damsel's hand. Dear child! the tent beneath whose shade they dwelt

It was her work; and she had twined
His girdle's many hues;
And he had seen his robe
Grow in Oneiza's loom.
How often with a memory-mingled joy,
Which made her mother live before his
[woof;

sight,

He watched her nimble fingers thread the Or at the hand-mill, when she knelt and toiled,

Tossed the thin cake on spreading palm, Or fixed it on the glowing oven's side With bare wet arm, and safe dexterity.

Up his curled pipe inhales

The tranquillizing herb.

So listen they the reed of Thalaba,
While his skilled fingers modulate
The low, sweet, soothing, melancholy tones.
Or if he strung the pearls of poesy,
Singing with agitated face

And eloquent arms, and sobs that reach the heart,

A tale of love and woe;

[face, Then, if the brightening moon that lit his In darkness favoured hers,

Oh! even with such a look, as fables say,
The mother ostrich fixes on her egg,
Till that intense affection
Kindle its light of life,

[ness

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.

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.

-0

CHRISTMAS.

HEAP on more wood!-the wind is chill;

But let it whistle as it will,

We'll keep our Christmas merry still.

Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer:
Even, heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did drain ;
High on the beach his galleys drew,
And feasted all his pirate crew.
Then in his low and pine-built hall,
Where shields and axes decked the wall,
They gorged upon the half-dressed steer,
Caroused in seas of sable beer;
While round, in brutal jest, were thrown
The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone;
Or listened all, in grim delight,

While Scalds yelled out the joys of fight.
Then forth in frenzy would they hie,
While wildly loose their red locks fly,
And dancing round the blazing pile,
They make such barbarous mirth the while
As best might to the mind recall
The boisterous joys of Odin's Hall.

And well our Christian sires of old
Loved when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all his hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night;

On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas Eve the mass was sung:
That only night in all the year
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry men go
To gather in the mistletoe.

Then opened wide the baron's hall
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of "post and pair."*
All hailed with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night,
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.

The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn
By old blue-coated serving-man;

* An old game at cards.

Then the grim boar's head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell
How, when, and where the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high tide, her savoury goose.
Then came the merry maskers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;

White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made;
But oh, what maskers richly dight
Can boast of bosoms half so light?
England was merry England when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest
ale;

'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the
year.

Still linger, in our northern clime,
Some remnants of the good old time;
And still, within our valleys here,
We hold the kindred title dear,
Even when, perchance, its far-fetched claim
To Southron ear sounds empty name;
For course of blood, our proverbs deem,
Is warmer than the mountain stream.
And thus my Christmas still I hold
Where my great grandsire came of old,
With amber beard and flaxen hair,
And reverend apostolic air-
The feast and holy-tide to share,
And mix sobriety with wine,

And honest mirth with thoughts divine.
Small thought was his in after-time
E'er to be hitched into a rhyme.
The simple sire could only boast
That he was loyal to his cost;
The banished race of kings revered,
And lost his land,-but kept his beard.

In these dear halls, where welcome kind Is with fair liberty combined, Where cordial friendship gives the hand, And flies constraint the magic wand Of the fair dame that rules the land,

Little we heed the tempest drear, While music, mirth, and social cheer Speed on their wings the passing year.

THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN
FIELD.

AND why stands Scotland idly now,
Dark Flodden, on thy airy brow,
Since England gains the pass the while,
And struggles through the deep defile?
What checks the fiery soul of James?
Why sits that champion of the dames
Inactive on his steed,

And sees, between him and his land,
Between him and Tweed's southern strand,
His host Lord Surrey lead?
What 'vails the vain knight-errant's brand?
-Oh, Douglas, for thy leading wand!

Fierce Randolph, for thy speed!
Oh for one hour of Wallace wight,
Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight,
And cry-"Saint Andrew and our right!"
Another sight had seen that morn,
From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn,
And Flodden had been Bannockbourne !-
The precious hour has passed in vain,
And England's host has gained the plain;
Wheeling their march, and circling still
Around the base of Flodden hill.

Ere yet the bands met Marmion's eye,
Fitz-Eustace shouted loud and high,
"Hark! hark! my lord, an English drum!
And see ascending squadrons come

Between Tweed's river and the hill, Foot, horse, and cannon :-hap what hap, My basnet to a prentice cap,

Lord Surrey's o'er the Till. Yet more! yet more!-how far arrayed They file from out the hawthorn shade, And sweep so gallant by; With all their banners bravely spread,

And all their armour flashing high! St. George might waken from the dead, To see fair England's standards fly. "Stint in thy prate," quoth Blount, "thou'dst best,

And listen to our lord's behest."

Himself he swift on horseback threw,
Scarce to the Abbot bade adieu-
Far less would listen to his prayer
To leave behind the helpless Clare.
Down to the Tweed his band he drew,
And muttered, as the flood they view,
"The pheasant in the falcon's claw
He scarce will yield to please a daw:
Lord Angus may the Abbot awe,

So Clare shall bide with me.'
Then on that dangerous ford, and deep,
Where to the Tweed Leat's eddies creep,
He ventured desperately;

And not a moment will he bide
Till squire or groom before him ride;
Headmost of all he stems the tide,

And stems it gallantly.

Eustace held Clare upon her horse,
Old Hubert led her rein;

Stoutly they braved the current's course,
And, though far downward driven perforce,
The southern bank they gain;
Behind them, straggling, came to shore,
As best they might, the train:
Each o'er his head his yew bow bore,
A caution not in vain;-

Deep need that day that every string,
By wet unharmed, should sharply ring.
A moment then Lord Marmion stayed,
And breathed his steed, his men arrayed,
Then forward moved his band,
Until, Lord Surrey's rear-guard won,
He halted by a Cross of Stone
That, on a hillock standing lone,
Did all the field command.

[west,

Hence might they see the full array
Of either host for deadly fray:
Their marshalled lines stretched east and
And fronted north and south,
And distant salutation passed

From the loud cannon mouth;
Not in the close successive rattle
That breathes the voice of modern battle,
But slow and far between.-

The hillock gained, Lord Marmion stayed: "Here by this Cross," he gently said,

"You well may view the scene.
Here shalt thou tarry, lovely Clare:
Oh, think of Marmion in thy prayer!
Thou wilt not?-well, no less my care
Shall, watchful, for thy weal prepare.-
You, Blount and Eustace, are her guard,
With ten picked archers of my train;
With England if the day go hard,

To Berwick speed amain.
But if we conquer, cruel maid,
My spoils shall at your feet be laid