Far mountain-tops in visible glory drest,

Where 'twixt yon purple hills the sight is free
To search the regions of the dim northwest.
But shadowy bars have crossed thee, - suddenly
Thou 'rt fallen among strange clouds; yet not the less
Thy presence know we, by the radiancy

That doth thy shroud with golden fringes dress;
Even as hidden love to faithful eye

Brightens the edges of obscure distress.

Henry Alford.

Butleigh.

EPITAPH IN BUTLEIGH CHURCH.

DIVIDED

IVIDED far by death were they whose names,
In honor here united as in birth,

This monumental verse records. They drew
In Dorset's healthy vales their natal breath,
And from these shores beheld the ocean first,
Whereon in early youth, with one accord,
They chose their way of fortune; to that course
By Hood and Bridport's bright example drawn,
Their kinsmen, children of this place, and sons
Of one who in his faithful ministry

Inculcated within these hallowed walls
The truths in mercy to mankind revealed.
Worthy were these three brethren each to add
New honors to the already honored name;

But Arthur, in the morning of his day,

Perished amid the Caribbean Sea,

When the Pomona, by a hurricane

Whirled, riven, and overwhelmed, with all her crew

Into the deep went down. A longer date

To Alexander was assigned,

for hope,

For fair ambition, and for fond regret,
Alas, how short! for duty, for desert,
Sufficing; and, while Time preserves the roll
Of Britain's naval feats, for good report.

A boy, with Cooke he rounded the great globe;
A youth, in many a celebrated fight

With Rodney had his part; and having reached
Life's middle stage, engaging ship to ship,
When the French Hercules, a gallant foe,
Struck to the British Mars his three-striped flag,
He fell, in the moment of his victory.
Here his remains, in sure and certain hope,
Are laid, until the hour when earth and sea
Shall render up their dead. One brother yet
Survived, with Keppel and with Rodney trained
In battles, with the Lord of Nile approved,
Ere in command he worthily upheld
Old England's high prerogative. In the East,
The West, the Baltic and the Midland Seas,
Yea, wheresoever hostile fleets have ploughed
The ensanguined deep,- his thunders have been heard,
His flag in brave defiance hath been seen;
And bravest enemies at Sir Samuel's name
Felt fatal presage, in their inmost heart,

Of unavertible defeat foredoomed.

Thus in the path of glory he rode on,
Victorious alway, adding praise to praise,
Till, full of honors, not of years, beneath
The venom of the infected clime he sunk,
On Coromandel's coast, completing there
His service, only when his life was spent.

To the three brethren, Alexander's son,
(Sole scion he in whom their line survived,)
With English feeling, and the deeper sense
Of filial duty, consecrates this tomb.

Robert Southey.

Buxton.

WRITTEN AT BUXTON IN A RAINY SEASON.

ROM these wild heights, where oft the mists descend

FROM

In rains that shroud the sun and chill the gale,

Each transient gleaming interval we hail,

And rove the naked valleys, and extend

Our gaze around where yon vast mountains blend
With billowy clouds that o'er their summits sail,
Pondering how little Nature's charms befriend
The barren scene, monotonous and pale.
Yet solemn when the darkening shadows fleet
Successive o'er the wide and silent hills,
Gilded by watery sunbeams: - then we meet
Peculiar pomp of vision. Fancy thrills;
And owns there is no scene so rude and bare
But nature sheds or grace or grandeur there.

Anna Seward.

IF

Cadland.

CADLAND, SOUTHAMPTON RIVER.

ever sea-maid, from her coral cave,

Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved To pass delighted from her green abode,

And, seated on a summer bank, to sing
No earthly music; in a spot like this

The bard might feign he heard her, as she dried
Her golden hair, yet dripping from the main,
In the slant sunbeam.

So the pensive bard
Might image, warmed by this enchanting scene,
The ideal form; but though such things are not,
He who has ever felt a thought refined;
He who has wandered on the sea of life,
Forming delightful visions of a home

Of beauty and repose; he who has loved
With filial warmth his country, will not pass
Without a look of more than tenderness
On all the scene; from where the pensile birch
Bends on the bank, amid the clustered group
Of the dark hollies; to the woody shore
That steals diminished, to the distant spires
Of Hampton, crowning the long lucid wave.
White in the sun beneath the forest-shade
Full shines the frequent sail, like Vanity,
As she goes onward in her glittering trim,

Amid the glances of life's transient morn,

Calling on all to view her!

Vectis' there,

That slopes its greensward to the lambent wave
And shows through softest haze its woods and domes,
With gray St. Catherine's creeping to the sky,

Seems like a modest maid, who charms the more
Concealing half her beauties.

To the east,
Proud, yet complacent, on its subject realm,
With masts innumerable thronged, and hulls
Seen indistinct, but formidable, mark

Albion's vast fleet, that, like the impatient storm,
Waits but the word to thunder and flash death
On him who dares approach to violate
The shores and living scenes that smile secure
Beneath its dragon-watch!

Long may they smile!

And long, majestic Albion (while the sound
From East to West, from Albis to the Po,
Of dark contention hurtles), mayst thou rest,
As calm and beautiful this sylvan scene

Looks on the refluent wave that steals below.
William Lisle Bowles.

1 The Isle of Wight.