No dread of death, if with us die our foes,
Save that it seems even duller than repose:
Come when it will,—we snatch the life of life-
When lost-what recks it, by disease or strife?
Let him who crawls enamoured of decay
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away,
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head ;
Ours, the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed.
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,
Ours with one pang, one bound, escapes control.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,
And they who loathed his life may gild his grave:
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
For us, even banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that crowns our memory;
And the brief epitaph in danger's day,
When those who win at length divide the prey,
And cry, remembrance saddening o'er each brow,
How had the brave who fell exulted now!

Lord Byron.

123

A SONG OF THE SEA

A WET sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail
And bends the gallant mast;
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While like the eagle free

Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.

Oh for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze
And white waves heaving high;

And white waves heaving high, my lads,
The good ship tight and free-
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
But hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud;

The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashes free-

While the hollow oak our palace is,

Our heritage the sea.

Allan Cunningham.

124

ROSABELLE

(The Lay of the Last Minstrel.)

OH listen, listen, ladies gay!

No haughty feat of arms I tell ;

Soft is the note, and sad the lay

That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

'Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,

Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

'The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

'Last night the gifted Seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round lady gay; Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch; Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?'

"Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my lady-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

"Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle.'

O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'Twas broader than the watch-fire's light, And redder than the bright moonbeam.

It glared on Roslin's castled rock,

It ruddied all the copse-wood glen; 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak, And seen from caverned Hawthornden.

Seemed all on fire that chapel proud
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,

And glimmered all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high Saint Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold-

But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each Saint Clair was buried there,

With candle, with book, and with knell;

But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

Sir Walter Scott.

125

TO A SKYLARK

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire,

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her

bower:

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy

winged thieves.