"SAY what remains when Hope is fled ?"
She answered," Endless weeping !"'
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.
At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Bardon-fell;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest-green,
With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The Boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song, a song of yore,
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,
His voice was heard no more!
'Twas but a step! the gulph he passed!
But that step-it was his last!
As through the mist he wing'd his way,
(A cloud that hovers night and day,)
The hound hung back, and back he drew
The Master and his merlin too.
That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of life!
There now the matin-bell is rung; The "Miserere!" duly sung;
And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood.
But what avail they? Ruthless Lord,
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless and the înnocent.
Sit now and answer groan for groan,-
The child before thee is thy own :
And she who wildly wanders there,
The mother in her long despair,
Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,
Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping;
Of those who would not be consoled
When red with blood the river rolled.
ON THE APPROACH OF WINTER.
WHAT time the once unnoticed tide,
Fast swelling rolls a torrent wide;
What time the fields are frequent strown
With scattered leaves of yellow brown;
What time the hawthorn berries glow,
And, touch'd by frost, the ripen'd sloe
Less crudely tastes; and when the sheep
Together in the vallies keep;
And all the smaller birds appear
In flocks, and mourn the alter'd year;
The careful rustic marks the signs
Of winter, marks them and repines;
Swift to the neighb'ring wood he goes,
Its branches fall beneath his blows,
And, as they fall, his healthy brood
In bundles tie the sapless wood,
And bear it on their heads away,
As fuel for the wintry day.
At length the chilling mists arise
Wide o'er the earth, and veil the skies;
The feather'd shower falls quickly down,
And deeper seems dark winter's frown;
The north-wind hollow murm'ring blows,
And drives in heaps the falling snows;
While Fancy, (now without her flowers
Her wand'ring streams, her mystic bowers)
Delighted, rides upon the wind,
And shapes the wild forms to her mind,-
Me, when the rising morning breaks
The rear of night with ruddy streaks,
She calls the alter'd scenes to view,
And fill the soul with features new.
How chang'd, how silent is the grove,
Late the gay haunt of youth and love!
Its tangling branches now are shorn
Of leafy honours, and upborne
By their close tops, the snow has made
Beneath a strange and solemn shade,
Here oft with careless ease I lay
On the green lap of genial May:
Dear was the stream whose bottom shone
With fragments rude of sculptur'd stone,
Which, from yon abbey's ivy'd wall,
Shook by the wind, would often fall;
Dear was the sound its waters made,
As down the pebbled slope they play'd.
I hear not now its mimic roar,
Seized by the frost it sounds no more;
But dreary, mute, and sad it stands,
Torpid beneath chill Winter's hands.
Stern power! be mine with wary feet,
On the bleak heath thy form to meet
Full oft, but only when the day
Of half its terrors robs thy sway;
Ne'er be my daring footsteps found
On aught but closely shelter'd ground,
When Thou and Night, disastrous pair!
With fear and darkness fill the air.
"Twas the hour when rites unholy
Call'd each Paynim voice to pray'r, And the star that faded slowly
Left to dews the freshen'd air.
Day her sultry fires had wasted,
Calm and sweet the moonlight rose:
E'en a captive's spirit tasted
Half oblivion of his woes.
Then 'twas from an Emir's palace
Came an eastern lady bright:
She, in spite of tyrants jealous,
Saw and loved an English knight.
"Tell me, captive, why in anguish
"Foes have dragg'd thee here to dwell, "Where poor Christians as they languish "Hear no sound of sabbath bell?"
""Twas on Transylvania's Bannat
"When the crescent shone afar,
"Like a pale disastrous planet
“O'er the purple tide of war-
"In that day of desolation,
"Lady, I was captive made;
66 Bleeding for my Christian nation
"By the walls of high Belgrade."
"Captive! could the brightest jewel
"From my turban set thee free ?”-
Lady, no:-the gift were cruel,
"Ransom'd, yet if reft of thee.
Say, fair princess: would it grieve thee "Christian climes should we behold?" Nay, bold knight! I would not leave thee "Were thy ransom paid in gold !"
Now in Heaven's blue expansion
Rose the midnight star to view,
When to quit her father's mansion,
Thrice she wept, and bade adieu!
"Fly we then, while none discover! "Tyrant barks, in vain ye ride!" Soon at Rhodes the British lover Clasp'd his blooming Eastern bride.
|