I grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past
And willingly have laid thee here at last:
For thou hadst lived till every thing that cheers
In thee had yielded to the weight of years;
Extreme old age had wasted thee away,
And left thee but a glimmering of the day;
Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees,-
I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze,
Too weak to stand against its sportive breath,
And ready for the gentlest stroke of death.
It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed;
Both Man and Woman wept when Thou wert dead
Not only for a thousand thoughts that were,
Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy sha
But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee,
Found scarcely anywhere in like degree!
For love, that comes to all the holy sense,
Best gift of God-in thee was most intense,
A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind,
A tender sympathy, which did thee bind
Not only to us Men, but to thy Kind:
Yea, for thy Fellow-brutes in thee we saw
The soul of Love, Love's intellectual law:-
Hence, if we wept, it was not done in shame;
Our tears from passion and from reason came,
And, therefore, shalt thou be an honoured name!

In the School of

is a Tablet, on which are insenti

in gilt letters, the Names of the several Persons who have be Schoolmasters there since the Foundation of the School, w the Time at which they entered upon and quitted their Off Opposite to one of those Names the Author wrote the follow Lines.

Ir Nature, for a favourite Child,
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.

-When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye
Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And, if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make,
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,
Is silent as a standing pool;
Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

We rose up from the fountain-side;
And down the smooth descent
Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went;

And, ere we came to Leonard's rock,
He sang those witty rhymes
About the crazy old church clock,
And the bewildered chimes.

"The principial feature in takes
from that of my prind Routing.
A CHARACTER.

I MARVEL how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
There's thought and no thought, and there's palene
and bloom

And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

There's weakness, and strength, both redundant at vain;

Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,
Would be rational peace - a philosopher's ease

There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs
Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy,
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

So far, so sweet, withal so sensitive,

Waid that the little flowers were born to live, Conscious of half the pleasure which they give;

That to this mountain-daisy's self were known The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown On the smooth surface of this naked stone!

And what if hence a bold desire should mount
Egn as the sun, that he could take account
Of all that issues from his glorious fount!

So might he ken how by his sovereign aid
These delicate companionships are made;
And how he rules the pomp of light and shade;

And were the sister-power that shines by night
So privileged, what a countenance of delight
Would through the clouds break forth on human sight

Fond fancies! wheresoe'er shall turn thine eye
On earth, air, ocean, or the starry sky,
Converse with Nature in pure sympathy;

All vain desires, all lawless wishes quelled, Be thou to love and praise alike impelled, Whatever boon is granted or withheld.

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHER-
SON'S OSSIAN.

Or have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,
Fragments of far-off melodies,
With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul:
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that Heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished strains!
Away with counterfeit remains!

An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.

Spirit of Ossian! if imbound

In language thou may'st yet be found,

If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim

Of old gray stone, and high-born name,

That cleaves to rock or pillared cave,
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,

Let Truth, stern Arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,

And for presumptuous wrongs atone;
Authentic words be given, or none!

Time is not blind; —yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the Stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.

No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Museus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,`
Mute as a Lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The Music, and extinct the Lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb

Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Franticelse how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice

Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,

Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty Genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;

In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in Soul! though distant times
Produced you, nursed in various climes,
Ye, when the orb of life had waned,
A plenitude of love retained;
Hence, while in you each sad regret
By corresponding hope was met,
Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top!

Such to the tender-hearted Maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged Chief
By Fortune crushed, or tamed by grief,
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,

BENEATH the concave of an April sky,

When all the fields with freshest green were dight,
Appeared, in presence of that spiritual eye
That aids or supersedes our grosser sight,
The form and rich habiliments of One

Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun,
When it reveals, in evening majesty,
Features half lost amid their own pure light.
Poised like a weary cloud, in middle air
He hung, then floated with angelic ease
(Softening that bright effulgence by degrees)
Till he had reached a summit sharp and bare,

Where oft the venturous heifer drinks the noon-tide

"The melancholy gates of Death

66

'Respond with sympathetic motion;
"Though all that feeds on nether air,
"Howe'er magnificent or fair,
"Grows but to perish, and intrust
"Its ruins to their kindred dust;

"Yet, by the Almighty's ever-during care,
"Her procreant vigils Nature keeps
"Amid the unfathomable deeps;

"And saves the peopled fields of earth
"From dread of emptiness or dearth.
"Thus, in their stations, lifting tow'rd the sky
"The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty,
"The shadow-casting race of Trees survive:
"Thus, in the train of Spring, arrive

"Sweet Flowers;—what living eye hath viewed "Their myriads? - endlessly renewed, "Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray;

3.

O, nursed at happy distance from the cares
Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral Muse!
That, to the sparkling crown Urania wears,
And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath,
Prefer'st a garland culled from purple heath,
Or blooming thicket moist with morning dews;
Was such bright Spectacle vouchsafed to me'
And was it granted to the simple ear
Of thy contented Votary
Such melody to hear!

Him rather suits it, side by side with thee,
Wrapped in a fit of pleasing indolence,
While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthorn tree
To lie and listen, till o'er-drowsed sense
Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence,
To the soft murmur of the vagrant Bee.

-A slender sound! yet hoary Time

Doth to the Soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years; · -a company
Of ages coming, ages gone;
(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison
With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;
Where She, a statist prudent to confer
Upon the public weal; a warrior bold, —
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,
And armed with living spear for mortal fight;
A cunning forager