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Far adown 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 to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

A SCENE IN BRANKSOME TOWER.

MANY a valiant knight is here;
But he, the chieftain of them all,
His sword hangs rusting on the wall,
Beside his broken spear!

Bards long shall tell,

How Lord Walter fell!
When startled burghers fled, afar,
The furies of the Border war;
When the streets of high Dunedin
Saw lances gleam, and falchions redden,
And heard the slogan's deadly yell-
Then the Chief of Branksome fell!

Can piety the discord heal,

Or stanch the death-feud's enmity?
Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal,
Can love of blessed charity?
No! vainly to each holy shrine,

In mutual pilgrimage, they drew;
Implored, in vain, the grace divine

For chiefs, their own red falchions slew, While Cessford owns the rule of Car,

While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott, The slaughter'd chiefs, the mortal jar, The havoc of the feudal war,

Shall never, never be forgot!
In sorrow o'er Lord Walter's bier,
The warlike foresters had bent;
And many a flower and many a tear,

Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent:
But, o'er her warrior's bloody bier,
The Layde dropp'd nor sigh nor tear!
Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain,
Had lock'd the source of softer wo;
And burning pride, and high disdain,
Forbade the rising tear to flow;
Until, amid his sorrowing clan,

Her son lisp'd from the nurse's knee"And, if I live to be a man,

My father's death revenged shall be !" Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek.

FAREWELL TO THE MUSE.

ENCHANTRESS, farewell! who so oft has decoy'd me, At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam,

Where the forester, lated, with wonder espied me Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. Farewell! and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking,

The language alternate of rapture and wo; Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking

The pang that I feel at our parting can know.

Each joy thou couldst double, and when there

came sorrow,

Or pale disappointment to darken my way, What voice was like thine, that could sing of to

morrow,

Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day! But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning,

The grief, queen of numbers, thou canst not

assuage;

Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet re

maining,

The languor of pain, and the chillness of age. "T was thou that once taught me, in accents bewailing,

To sing how a warrior lay stretch'd on the plain; And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing, And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain : As vain those enchantments, O queen of wild numbers,

To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er, And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers,Farewell then, enchantress! I meet thee no more!

MELROSE ABBEY.

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight:
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And cach shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery.

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave;
Then go!-but go alone the while-
Then view St. David's ruin'd pile!
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

JAMES MONTGOMERY is the most popular of the religious poets who have written in England since the time of CoWPER, and he is more exclusively the poet of devotion than even the bard of Olney. Probably no writer is less indebted to a felicitous selection of subjects, since the themes of nearly all his longer productions are unpleasing and unpoetical; but for half a century he has been slowly and constantly increasing in reputation, and he has now a name which will not be forgotten, while taste and the religious sentiment exist together.

Mr. MONTGOMERY is the oldest son of a Moravian clergyman, and was born at Irvine, in Scotland, on the fourth of November, 1771. At a very early age he was placed by his parents, who had determined to educate him for the Moravian ministry, at one of the seminaries of their church, where he remained ten years. At the end of this period, he decided not to study the profession to which he had been destined, and was in consequence placed with a shopkeeper in Yorkshire. Ill satisfied with his employment, he abandoned it at the end of a few months, and when but sixteen made his first appearance in London, with a manuscript volume of poems, of which he vainly endeavoured to procure the publication. In 1792 he went to Sheffield, where he was soon after engaged as a writer for a weekly gazette published by a Mr. Gales, and in 1794, on the flight of his employer from England to avoid a political prosecution, he himself became publisher and editor, and changing the name of the paper to "The Iris," conducted it with much taste, ability, and moderation. It was still, however, obnoxious to the government, and Mr. MONTGOMERY was prosecuted for printing in it a song commemorative of the destruction of the Bastile, fined twenty pounds, and imprisoned three months in York Castle. On resuming his editorial duties he carefully avoided partisan politics, but after a brief period he was arrested for an offensive passage in an account which he gave of a riot in Sheffield, and was again imprisoned. It was during

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his second imprisonment, that he wrote his Prison Amusements, which appeared in 1797. From this time his poems followed each other in rapid succession. In 1805 he published the Ocean, in 1806 the Wanderer of Switzerland, in 1810 the West Indies, in 1812 the World before the Flood, in 1819 Greenland, in 1822 Songs of Zion, in 1827 the Pelican Island, and in 1835 A Poet's Portfolio, or Minor Poems. Beside these, he has written Songs to Foreign Music, and several smaller volumes of miscellaneous pieces. Mr. MONTGOMERY had published but few of these works before his reputation was established as a poet of a high order. The Wanderer of Switzerland was severely criticised in the Edinburgh Review, and the West Indies was received by the critics with less favour than it merited. Greenland was more popular than his earlier works; the subject more in unison with his devotional cast of thought; and the poem is full of graphic descriptions, and rich and varied imagery. The patient and earnest labours of the Moravian missionaries are described in it with a sympathetic and genuine enthusiasm.

The minor poems of Mr. MONTGOMERY, his little songs and cabinet pieces, will be the most frequently read, and the most generally admired. They have the antique simplicity of pious GEORGE WITHERS, a natural unaffected earnestness, joined to a pure and poetical diction, which will secure to them a permanent place in English literature. The character of his genius is essentially lyrical; he has no dramatic power, and but little skill in narrative. His longest and most elaborate works, though they contain beautiful and touching reflections, and descriptions equally distinguished for minuteness, fidelity, and beauty, are without incident or method; but his shorter pieces are full of devotion to the Creator, sympathy with the suffering, and a cheerful, hopeful philosophy.

Mr. MONTGOMERY is now seventy-four years of age. He resides in Sheffield, where he is regarded by all classes with respect and affection.

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For friendship's gold.

"Seek the true treasure, seldom found, Of power the fiercest griefs to calm; And soothe the bosom's deepest wound

With heavenly balm. "Did WOMAN's charm thy youth beguile,And did the fair one faithless prove? Hath she betray'd thee with a smile,

And sold thy love? "LIVE! "Twas a false bewildering fire; Too often love's insidious dart Thrills the fond soul with wild desire,But kills the heart. "Thou yet shall know how sweet, how dear, To gaze on listening beauty's eye; To ask, and pause in hope and fear

Till she reply.

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THE head that oft this pillow press'd,
That aching head, is gone to rest;
Its little pleasures now no more,
And all its mighty sorrows o'er,
For ever, in the worm's dark bed,
For ever sleeps that humble head!

My friend was young, the world was new;
The world was false, my friend was true;
Lowly his lot, his birth obscure,
His fortune hard, my friend was poor;
To wisdom he had no pretence,
A child of suffering, not of sense;
For Nature never did impart
A weaker or a warmer heart.
His fervent soul, a soul of flame,
Consumed its frail terrestrial frame;
That fire from Heaven so fiercely burn'd,
That whence it came it soon return'd:
And yet, O Pillow! yet to me,
My gentle friend survives in thee;
In thee, the partner of his bed,
In thee, the widow of the dead.

On Helicon's inspiring brink,
Ere yet my friend had learn'd to think,
Once as he pass'd the careless day
Among the whispering reeds at play,
The Muse of Sorrow wander'd by ;
Her pensive beauty fix'd his eye;
With sweet astonishment he smiled;
The Gipsy saw-she stole the child;
And soft on her ambrosial breast
Sang the delighted babe to rest;
Convey'd him to her inmost grove,
And loved him with a mother's love.
Awaking from his rosy nap,
And gayly sporting on her lap,
His wanton fingers o'er her lyre
Twinkled like electric fire:
Quick and quicker as they flew,
Sweet and sweeter tones they drew;
Now a bolder hand he flings,

And dives among the deepest strings;
Then forth the music brake like thunder;
Back he started, wild with wonder.
The Muse of Sorrow wept for joy,
And clasp'd and kiss'd her chosen boy.

Ah! then no more his smiling hours
Were spent in childhood's Eden-bowers;
The fall from infant-innocence,
The fall to knowledge drives us thence:
O Knowledge! worthless as the price,
Bought with the loss of Paradise.
As happy ignorance declined,

And reason rose upon his mind,
Romantic hopes and fond desires
(Sparks of the soul's immortal fires)
Kindled within his breast the rage
To breathe through every future age,
To clasp the flitting shade of fame,
To build an everlasting name,
O'erleap the narrow vulgar span,
And live beyond the life of man.

Then Nature's charms his heart possess'd,
And Nature's glory fill'd his breast:
The sweet spring-morning's infant rays,
Meridian summer's youthful blaze,
Maturer autumn's evening mild,
And hoary winter's midnight wild,
Awoke his eye, inspired his tongue;
For every scene he loved, he sung.
Rude were his songs, and simple truth,
Till boyhood blossom'd into youth;
Then nobler themes his fancy fired,
To bolder fights his soul aspired;
And as the new moon's opening eye
Broadens and brightens through the sky.
From the dim streak of western light
To the full orb that rules the night;
Thus, gathering lustre in its race,
And shining through unbounded space,
From earth to heaven his genius soar'd,
Time and eternity explored,
And hail'd where'er its footsteps trod,
In Nature's temple, Nature's God:
Or pierced the human breast, to scan
The hidden majesty of man;
Man's hidden weakness too descried,
His glory, grandeur, meanness, pride:
Pursued along their erring course
The streams of passion to their source:
Or in the mind's creation sought
New stars of fancy, worlds of thought.
-Yet still through all his strains would flow
A tone of uncomplaining wo,

Kind as the tear in Pity's eye,
Soft as the slumbering infant's sigh,

So sweetly, exquisitely wild.

It spake the Muse of Sorrow's child.

O Pillow! then, when light withdrew,
To thee the fond enthusiast flew;
On thee, in pensive mood teclined,
He pour'd his contemplative mind,
Till o'er his eyes with mild control
Sleep like a soft enchantment stole,
Charm'd into life his airy schemes,
And realized his waking dreams.

Soon from those waking dreams he woke, The fairy spell of fancy broke;

In vain he breathed a soul of fire
Through every chord that strung his lyre.
No friendly echo cheer'd his tongue;
Amidst the wilderness he sung;
Louder and bolder bards were crown'd,
Whose dissonance his music drown'd;
The public ear, the public voice,
Despised his song, denied his choice,
Denied a name,—a life in death,
Denied a bubble and a breath.

Stript of his fondest, dearest claim,
And disinherited of fame.
To thee, O Pillow! thee alone,
He made his silent anguish known;
His haughty spirit scorn'd the blow
That laid his high ambition low;
But, ah! his looks assumed in vain
A cold ineffable disdain,

While deep he cherish'd in his breast
The scorpion that consumed his rest.
Yet other secret griefs had he,
O Pillow! only told to thee;
Say, did not hopeless love intrude
On his poor bosom's solitude?
Perhaps on thy soft lap reclined,
In dreams the cruel Fair was kind,
That more intensely he might know
The bitterness of waking wo.

Whate'er those pangs from me conceal'd,
To thee in midnight groans reveal'd,
They stung remembrance to despair;
"A wounded spirit who can bear?"
Meanwhile disease, with slow decay,
Moulder'd his feeble frame away;
And as his evening sun declined,
The shadows deepen'd o'er his mind.
What doubts and terrors then possess'd
The dark dominion of his breast!
How did delirious fancy dwell
On madness, suicide, and hell!
There was on earth no power to save
-But, as he shudder'd o'er the grave,
He saw from realms of light descend
The friend of him who has no friend,
Religion!-Her almighty breath
Rebuked the winds and waves of death;
She bade the storm of phrensy cease,
And smiled a calm, and whisper'd peace:
Amidst that calm of sweet repose,
To heaven his gentle spirit rose.

FRIENDS.

FRIEND after friend departs;
'Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts,

That finds not here an end; Were this frail world our only rest, Living, or dying, none were blest. Beyond the flight of Time,

Beyond this vale of death, There surely is some blessed clime Where life is not a breath, Nor life's affections transient fire, Whose sparks fly upward to expire.

There is a world above,

Where parting is unknownA whole eternity of love,

Form'd for the good alone; And faith beholds the dying here Translated to that happier sphere.

Thus star by star declines,
Till all are passed away,-
As morning high and higher shines
To pure and perfect day:

Nor sink those stars in empty night,
-They hide themselves in heaven's own light.

DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF AMERICA.

THEN first Columbus, with the mighty hand
Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land;
The floods o'erbalanced :-where the tide of light,
Day after day, roll'd down the gulf of night,
There scem'd one waste of waters :-long in vain
His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main;
When sudden, as creation burst from nought,
Sprang a new world through his stupendous thought,
Light, order, beauty!-While his mind explored
The unveiling mystery, his heart adored;
Where'er sublime imagination trod,

He heard the voice, he saw the face, of God.
The winds were prosperous, and the billows bore
The brave adventurer to the promised shore;
Far in the west, array'd in purple light,
Dawn'd the new world on his enraptured sight:
Not Adam, loosen'd from the encumbering earth,
Waked by the breath of God to instant birth,
With sweeter, wilder wonder gazed around,
When life within, and light without, he found;
When, all creation rushing o'er his soul, [whole.
He seem'd to live and breathe throughout the
So felt Columbus, when, divinely fair,
At the last look of resolute despair,

The Hesperian isles, from distance dimly blue,
With gradual beauty open'd on his view.
In that proud moment, his transported mind
The morning and the evening worlds combined,
And made the sea, that sunder'd them before,
A bond of peace, uniting shore to shore.

Vain, visionary hope! rapacious Spain
Follow'd her hero's triumph o'er the main,
Her hardy sons in fields of battle tried,
Where Moor and Christian desperately died.
A rabid race, fanatically bold,

And steel'd to cruelty by lust of gold,
Traversed the waves, the unknown world explored,
The cross their standard, but their faith the sword;
Their steps were graves; o'er prostrate realms

they trod;

[God. They worshipp'd Mammon while they vow'd to Let nobler bards in loftier numbers tell How Cortez conquer'd, Montezuma fell; How fierce Pizarro's ruffian arm o'erthrew The sun's resplendent empire in Peru; How, like a prophet, old Las Casas stood,' And raised his voice against a sea of blood, Whose chilling waves recoil'd, while he foretold His country's ruin by avenging gold. -That gold, for which unpitied Indians fell, That gold, at once the snare and scourge of hell, Thenceforth by righteous Heaven was doom'd to Unmingled curses on the spoiler's head; For gold the Spaniard cast his soul awayHis gold and he were every nation's prey.

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