O'er many a warrior, many a maiden's grave Rocks hang unmarking them, and rivers wave; The land that boasted of her steel-clad knights The wanderer stops, and greets the nightingale, And views, indifferent, from the plain below, The raven's shadowy wings glance o'er Plinlimmon's snow. FYTTE SECOND. Chiefs of Napoleon's host, your day has sooner past, Your sway was far too fierce; too bright your fame to last; A magic ring your elfin Emperor drew; It spanned the world, and those invoked were you! Brilliant, and bright, and beautiful were ye, No dazzle on the sea, no shadow on the shore ! She dims the mirror; she removes the token; She cures the breaking heart; by her the wand is broken: What Time himself would spare, that spares she not, The associations of a hallowed spot. Ay! men shall stand by Lodi's running water, Nor deem its waves yet tinged with the red hue of slaughter. Arcoli's bridge, Marengo's heaving plain, When scorching winds shall raise up Egypt's sands, Amid her ruins as the traveller stands, From the hot poisonous blasts he'll shield his eyes, Nor deem whose ashes with each whirlwind rise : Armies shall trample Russia's snows once more, With hearts unthrilling to the march of yore. On Bernard's heights the eagle they shall view, Chiefs of Napoleon's host, without one thought of you! THE SCOTTISH SACRAMENTAL SABBATH : FRAGMENT OF AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. BY THE LATE MR. HISLOP.* How dear that early dream! I still behold The ancient kirk, the plane-trees o'er it spread; And seated 'mong the graves, the young, the old, The same as in the days for ever fled : To deck my dream, the grave gives up its dead, The pale precentor sings as then he sung; * Poor James Hislop was a schoolmaster in a king's ship: I never saw him without thinking on Gray's lines: "A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown, Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth." He died of consumption in his 24th year. L Pours forth his pious counsels to the young, And dear ones from the dust to life are sprung. Lost friends return from realms beyond the main, And childhood's cherish'd comrades all are there : The blanks in friendly circles fill'd again, No seats seem empty round the house of prayer. The sound of psalms hath vanish'd in the air, Borne up to Heaven upon the mountain breeze; The patriarchal priest with silvery hair, In tent erected 'neath the fresh green trees, Spreads forth the Book of God with holy pride, and sees The silent eyes of thousands on him fixed.— The kirk-yard scarce contains the mingling mass Of kindred congregations round him mix'd, Close seated on the grave-stones and the grass. Some climb the garden-wall: a wealthier class |