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And ape, in manly step and tone,
The majesty of Oberon:

And she is gone, whose lovely face
Is but her least and lowest grace;

Though if to Sylphid Queen 'twere given,
To show our earth the charms of heaven,
She could not glide along the air,
With form more light, or face more fair.
No more the widow's deafened ear
Grows quick, that lady's step to hear:
At noontide she expects her not,
Nor busies her to trim the cot;
Pensive she turns her humming wheel,
Or pensive cooks her orphan's meal;
Yet blesses, ere she deals their bread,
The gentle hand by which they're fed.

From Yair,-which hills so closely Lind,
Scarce can the Tweed his passage find,
Though much he fret, and chafe, and wii,
Till all his eddying currents boil,
Her long-descended lord is gone,
And left us by the stream alone.
And much I miss those sportive boys,
Companions of my mountain joys,
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
Close to my side, with what delight,
They pressed to hear of Wallace wight,
When, pointing to his airy mound,
I called his ramparts holy ground!
Kindled their brows to hear me speak;
And I have smiled, to feel my cheek,
Despite the difference of our years,
Return again the glow of theirs.
Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure,
They will not, cannot long endure;
Condemned to stem the world's rude tilo,
You may not linger by the side;

For Fate shall thrust you from the shore,
And Passion ply the sail and oar,
Yet cherish the remembrance still,
Of the lone mountain, and the rill;

For trust, dear boys, the time will come,
When fiercer transport shall be dumb,
And you will think right frequently,
But, well I hope, without a sigh,

On the free hours that we have spent,
Together, on the brown hill's bent.

When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone,
Something, my friend, we yet may gain,
There is a pleasure in this pain:
It soothes the love of lonely rest,
Deep in each gentler heart impressed,
"Tis silent amid worldly toils,
And stifled soon by mental broils;
But, in a bosom thus prepared,
Its still small voice is often heard,
Whispering a mingled sentiment,
"Twixt resignation and content.
Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone St Mary's silent lake;

Thou know'st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand

Marks where the water meets the land,
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour:
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,

Where living thing concealed might lie;

Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,

Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell There's nothing left to fancy's guess,

You see that all is loneliness:

And silence aids-though these steep hills

Send to the lake a thousand rills;

In summer tide, so soft they weep,

The sound but lulls the ear asleep;

Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear, But well I ween the dead are near; For though, in feudal strife, a foe

Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,
Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant restshim from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passions' strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,

Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,

Where Milton longed to spend his age.
"Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died
On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
To say, "Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave as dark, forlorn, and grey;"
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruined tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower.
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings,
"Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,

To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That wizard Priest's whose bones are thrust

From company of holy dust;

On which no sun-beam ever shines

(So superstition's creed divines,)

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,

Heave her broad billows to the shore;

And mark the wild swans mount the gale, Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,

And ever stoop again, to lave

Their bosoms on the surging wave:
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire,

And light my lamp, and trim my fires
There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,
And in the bittern's distant shriek
I heard unearthly voices speak,

And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!

And bade my busy fancy range,
To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I cleared,
And smiled to think that I had feared.

But, chief, 'twere sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune's strife,)
Something most matchlessgood, and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice;

And deem each hour, to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease,

Such peaceful solitudes displease:
He loves to drown his bosom's jar
Amid the elemental war:

And my black Palmer's choice had been

Some ruder and more savage scene,

Like that which frowns round dark Lochske,
There eagles scream from isle to shore;
Down all the rocks the torrents roar;
O'er the black waves incessant driven,
Dark mists infect the summer heaven;
Through the rude barriers of the lake,
Away its hurrying waters break,
Faster and whiter dash and curl,
Till down yon dark abyss they hurl
Rises the fog-smoke white as snow,
Thunders the viewless stream below,
Diving, as if condemned to lave
Some demon's subterranean cave,
Who, prisoned by enchanter's spell,
Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell,

And well that Palmer's form and mien

Had suited with the stormy scene,

Just on the edge, straining his ken

To view the bottom of the den,

Where, deep deep down, and far within,
Toils with the rocks the roaring linn;
Then, issuing forth one foamy wave,
And wheeling round the Giant's Grave,
White as the snowy charger's tail,.
Drives down the pass of Moffatdale.

Marriot, thy harp, on Isis strung,
To many a Border theme has rung:
Then list to me, and thou shalt know
Of this mysterious Man of Woe.

اسف

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THE breeze, which swept away the smoke,
Round Norham Castle rolled;
When all the loud artillery spoke,
With lightning-flash, and thunder-stroke,
As Marmion left the Hold.

It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze;
For, far upon Northumbrian seas,

It freshly blew, and strong,

Where, from high Whitby's cloistered pile, Bound to Saint Cuthbert's Holy Isle,

It bore a bark along.

Upon the gale she stooped her side,
And bounded o'er the swelling tide,

As she were dancing home;

The merry seamen laughed, to see
Their gallant ship so lustily

Furrow the green sea-foam.

Much joyed they in their honoured freight;

For, on the deck, in chair of state,

The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed,

With five fair nuns, the galley graced.

II.

"Twas sweet to see these holy maids,
Like birds escaped to green-wood shades,
Their first flight from the cage,

How timid, and how curious too,
For all to them was strange and new,
And all the common sights they view,

Their wonderment engage.

One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail,
With many a benedicite;

One at the rippling surge grew pale,

And would for terror pray;

Then shrieked, because the sea-dog, nigh,
His round black head, and sparkling cys
Reared o'er the foaming spray;

And one would still adjust her veil,
Disordered by the summer gale,

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