Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beam ing; Far down the long aisle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall. But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature, To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, When, wilder'd, he drops from some cliff huge in stature, And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam. THE POACHER. WELCOME, grave Stranger, to our green retreats, And long'd to send them forth as free as when When musket, pistol, blunderbuss, combined, La Douce Humanité approved the sport, For great the alarm indeed, yet small the hurt; And Seine reëcho'd Vive la Liberté ! But mad Citoyen, meek Monsieur again, With some few added links resumes his chain. Then since such scenes to France no more are known, Come, view with me a hero of thine own! One, whose free actions vindicate the cause Of silvan liberty o'er feudal laws. Seek we yon glades, where the proud oak o'ertops Wide-waving seas of birch and hazel copse, Leaving between deserted isles of land, Where stunted heath is patch'd with ruddy sand; In earthly mire philosophy may slip. Step slow and wary o'er that swampy stream, Till, guided by the charcoal's smothering steam, |