A gentle hill its side inclines, As silently and sweetly still As when, at evening, on that hill, While summer's wind blew soft and low, Gaze on the Abbey's ruined pile : Still tells, in melancholy glory, The Percy's proudest border story. Wild roses by the Abbey towers Are gay in their young bud and bloom : They were born of a race of funeral flowers That garlanded, in long-gone hours, A templar's knightly tomb. He died, the sword in his mailèd hand, On the holiest spot of the Blessed Land, Where the Cross was damped with his dying breath, When blood ran free as festal wine, And the sainted air of Palestine Was thick with the darts of death. Wise with the lore of centuries, What tales, if there be "tongues in trees," Since on their boughs the startled bird I wandered through the lofty halls From him who once his standard set That last half stanza-it has dashed From my warm lip the sparkling cup; The light that o'er my eyebeam flashed, The power that bore my spirit up Above this bank-note world—is gone; And Alnwick's but a market town, And this, alas! its market day, And beasts and borderers throng the way; Oxen and bleating lambs in lots, Northumbrian boors and plaided Scots, Men in the coal and cattle line; From Teviot's bard and hero land, From royal Berwick's beach of sand, From Wooller, Morpeth, Hexham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These are not the romantic times So dazzling to the dreaming boy: The Douglas in red herrings; The age of bargaining, said Burke, (Sleep, Richard of the lion heart! For Greece and fame, for faith and heaven, You'll ask if yet the Percy lives In the armed pomp of feudal state.. Of Hotspur and his "gentle Kate" A chambermaid, whose lip and eye, And one, half groom, half seneschal, Who bowed me through court, bower, and hall, For ten-and-sixpence sterling. JOHN GARDNER CALKINS BRAINARD. [Born in 1796, died in 1828. In his brief career he was first called to the bar; then undertook the editorship of a weekly gazette; and consumption closed a somewhat desultory and melancholy life]. SONNET TO THE SEA-SERPENT. "Hugest that swims the ocean stream." WELTER upon the waters, mighty one And stretch thee in the ocean's trough of brine; Heave thy deep breathings to the ocean's din, And bound upon its ridges in thy pride: Or dive down to its lowest depths, and in The krakens sheltering under Norway's lee; GEORGE P. MORRIS. [Born in 1801, died towards 1865. A general in the army, dramatist, and miscellaneous writer; especially popular for his songs, one of which is the universally known "Woodman, spare that tree"]. THE RETORT. OLD NICK, who taught the village school, She was playful as a rabbit. Poor Jane had scarce become a wife, Before her husband sought to make her The pink of country polished life, And prim and formal as a Quaker. One day the tutor went abroad, And simple Jenny sadly missed him ; She slyly stole, and fondly kissed him. The husband's anger rose-and red And white his face alternate grew. "Less freedom, ma'am !"-Jane sighed and said, JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. [Born in 1808 at Haverhill, Massachusetts, where his ancestors, of the Quaker denomination, had long been settled. Mr. Whittier was early engaged in farming operations; and afterwards as a political, and more especially a protectionist, journalist. In 1836 he became one of the secretaries of the Anti-Slavery Society and some of his most vigorous and rousing poems are devoted to that noble cause. He has also written various prose works; one of the chief among which is Supernaturalism in New England, published in 1847. The bulk of Mr. Whittier's poetical writings is considerable. His name stands high in the United States, and ought in England to be better known than as yet it is. An upright manly energy, and the tenderness of a strong yet delicate nature, are constantly conspicuous in his writings. These fine qualities are mostly associated with a genuine poetic grace, and in many instances with art truly solid and fine]. THE DEMON OF THE STUDY. THE Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, 1 In this case and another (see Park Benjamin), where I say "towards 1865" as the date of death, I have reason to infer that the authors were alive in 1863, but have died since then, though the precise year of death is uncertain to me: 1865 is named as an approximation. The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him But the demon that cometh day by day No bearer of burdens like Caliban, No runner of errands like Ariel, A stout old man with a greasy hat Slouched heavily down to his dark red nose, And two grey eyes enveloped in fat, Looking through glasses with iron bows. He comes with a careless "How d'ye do?" And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat, And then he reads from paper and book, The price of stocks, the auction sales, |