The only tears that ever burst Because I may not stain with grief YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND, A NAVAL ODE. YE Mariners of England! That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, Your glorious standard launch again And sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, The spirits of your fathers Shall start from every wave! For the deck it was their field of fame, Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, Britannia needs no bulwark, Her march is o'er the mountain waves, With thunders from her native oak, As they roar on the shore, When the stormy tempests blow; The meteor flag of England Till danger's troubled night depart, When the storm has ceased to blow; LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING A SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE. AT the silence of twilight's contemplative hour, I have mused in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, Where the home of my forefathers stood. All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree; And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea. Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, Where the flower of my forefathers grew. Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion by fancy combined, With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain, May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate! Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again; To bear is to conquer our fate. SIR WALTER SCOTT. EXTRACT FROM MARMION. ON THE DEATH OF MR PITT AND MR FOX. To mute and to material things The mind that thought for Britain's weal, Where Glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine, Deep graved in every British heart, Short, bright, resistless course was given; Nor mourn ye less his perish'd worth, And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws. Had'st thou but lived, though stripp'd of power, Thy thrilling trump had roused the land, Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne: Now is the stately column broke, The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still, The warder silent on the hill! (a) Copenhagen. |