And they to whom her bounty came,
They who would dwell upon her name
With raptured voice, as if they found
Hope-comfort-riches in the sound,
Have ceased to think how Ellen fled ;-
Why should they sorrow for the dead?
Perhaps around the festive board
Some aged chroniclers record
Her hopes, her virtues, and her tomb;
And then a sudden silent gloom
Creeps on the lips that smiled before,
And jest is still, and mirth is o'er.
She was so beauteous in her dress
Of unaffected loveliness,
So bright, and so beneficent,
That you might deem some fairy sent
To hush the helpless orphan's fears,
And dry the widow's gushing tears:
She moved in beauty, like the star
That shed its lustre from afar,
To tell the wisest on the earth
The tidings of a Saviour's birth;
So pure, so cheering, was her ray :
So quickly did it die away!
There came a dark infectious pest
To break the hamlet's tranquil rest;
It came, it breathed on Ellen's face;
And so she went to death's embrace,
A blooming and a sinless bride;
And how I knew not-but she died.
I was the inmate of her home,
And knew not why she did not come
To cheer my melancholy mood;
Her father wept in solitude;
The servants wore a look of woe,
Their steps were soft, their whispers low; And when I asked them why they sighed, They shook their heads, and turned aside.
I entered that forbidden room :
All things were still!—a death-like gloom Stole on me, as I saw her lie
In her white vest of purity.
She seemed to smile! her lips were wet,
The bloom was on her features yet:
I looked, at first I thought she slept ;
But when her accents did not bless,
And when her arms did not caress,
· And when I marked her quiet air
And saw that soul was wanting there,-
I sat me on the ground, and wept !
"Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!
They grow still, too, from all parts they are coming, As if we kept a fair here."
THE sun hath shed a mellower beam,
Fair Thames, upon thy silver stream,
And air and water, earth and heaven,
Lie in the calm repose of even.
How silently the breeze moves on,
Flutters, and whispers, and is gone!
How calmly does the quiet sky
Sleep in its cold serenity!
Alas! how sweet a scene were here
For shepherd, or for sonnetteer;
How fit the place, how fit the time,
For making love, or making rhyme!
But though the sun's descending ray
Smiles warmly on the close of day,
'Tis not to gaze upon his light
That Eton's sons are here to-night;
And though the river, calm and clear,
Makes music to the poet's ear,
'Tis not to listen to the sound
That Eton's song are thronging round:
Blue eyes send out a brighter shine;
The wave may cease its gurgling moan—
Glad voices have a sweeter tone;
For in our calendar of bliss
We have no hour so gay as this,
When the kind hearts and brilliant eyes
Of those we know, and love, and prize,
Are come to cheer the captive's thrall,
And smile upon his festival.
Stay, Pegasus !—and let me ask
Ere I go onward in my task,-
Pray, Reader, were you ever here,
Just at this season of the year?
No? then the end of next July
Should bring you, with admiring eye,
To hear us row, and see us row,
And cry, "How fast them boys does go!"
For Father Thames beholds to-night
A thousand visions of delight;
Tearing and swearing, jeering, cheering,
Lame steeds to right and left careering,
Displays, dismays, disputes, distresses,
Ruffling of temper and of dresses;
Wounds on the heart—and on the knuckles;
Losing of patience-and of buckles.
An interdict is laid on Latin,
And scholars smirk in silk and satin,
And Dandies start their thinnest pumps,
And Michael Oakley's in the dumps;
And there is nought beneath the sun
But dash and splash, and falls, and fun.
Lord! what would be the Cynic's mirth,
If Fate would lift him to the earth,
And set his tub, with magic jump,
Squat down beside the Brocas Clump!
What scoffs the sage would utter there
From his unpolished elbow-chair,
To see the sempstress' handiwork,
The Greek confounded with the Turk,
Parisian mixed with Piedmontese,
And Persian joined to Portuguese;
And mantles short, and mantles long,
And mantles right, and mantles wrong,
Mis-shaped, miscoloured, and misplaced
With what the tailor calls a taste!
And then the badges and the boats,
The flags, the drums, the paint, the coats;
But more than these, and more than all,
The puller's intermitted call-
"Easy!"—"Hard all !"—"Now pick her up!"— "Upon my life, how I shall sup !"
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