AY set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loop-hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.
The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze
In lines of dazzling light.
St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray
Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.
The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warder kept his guard,
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient border-gathering song.
A distant tramping sound he hears;
He looks abroad and soon appears,
O'er Horncliff hill, a plump of spears
Beneath a pennon gay:
A horseman, darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade,
That closed the castle barricade,
His bugle-horn he blew;
The warder hasted from the wall,
And warned the captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.
'WAS night-our anchored vessel slept
Out on the glassy sea;
And still as heaven the waters kept,
And golden bright—as he,
The setting sun, went sinking slow
Beneath the eternal wave;
And the ocean seemed a pall to throw
Over the monarch's grave.
There was no motion of the air
To raise the sleeper's tress,
And no wave-building winds were there
On ocean's loveliness;
But ocean mingled with the sky
With such an equal hue,
That vainly strove the 'wildered eye
To part their gold and blue.
And ne'er a ripple of the sea
Came on our steady gaze,
Save when some timorous fish stole out
To bathe in the woven blaze-
When, flouting in the light that played
All over the resting main,
He would sink beneath the wave, and dart
To his deep, blue home again.
Yet, while we gazed, that sunny eve,
Across the twinkling deep,
A form came ploughing the golden wave,
And rending its holy sleep;
It blushed bright red, while growing on
Our fixed, half-fearful gaze;
But it wandered down with its glow of light,
And its robe of sunny rays.
It seemed like molten silver, thrown
Together in floating flame;
And as we looked, we named it then,
The fount whence all colors came :
There were rainbows furled with a careless grace
And the brightest red that glows;
The purple amethyst there had place,
And the hues of a full-blown rose.
And the vivid green, as the sun-lit grass
Where the pleasant rain hath been;
And the ideal hues, that, thought-like, pass
Through the minds of fanciful men ;
They beamed full clear-and that form moved on,
Like one from a burning grave;
And we dared not think it a real thing,
But for the rustling wave.
The sun just lingered in our view,
From the burning edge of ocean,
When by our bark that bright one passed
With a deep, disturbing motion:
The far down waters shrank away,
With a gurgling rush upheaving,
And the lifted waves grew pale and sad,
Their mother's bosom leaving.
Yet, as it passed our bending stern,
In its throne-like glory going,
It crushed on a hidden rock, and turned
Like an empire's overthrowing.
The uptorn waves rolled hoar—and, huge,
The far-thrown undulations
Swelled out in the sun's last, lingering smile,
And fell like battling nations.
MOUNT WASHINGTON; THE LOFTIEST PEAK OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
OUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height
The tall rocks brighten in the ether air,
And spirits from the skies come down at
night,
To chant immortal songs to freedom there!
Thine is the rock of other regions; where
The world of life which blooms so far below
Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes appear,
Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow
eneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow.
Thine is the summit where the clouds repose,
Or, eddying wildly, round thy cliffs are borne;
When tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws
His billowy mist amid the thunder's home!
Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come,
And bow the forests as they sweep along;
While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb,
The storms come forth-and, hurrying darkly on,
Amid the echoing peaks, the revelry prolong!
And, when the tumult of the air is fled,
And quenched in silence all the tempest flame,
There come the dim forms of the mighty dead,
Around the steep which bears the hero's name.
The stars look down upon them—and the same
Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave,
Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame,
And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave—
The richest, purest tear, that memory ever gave!
Mount of the clouds, when winter round thee throws
The hoary mantie of the dying year,
Sublime, amid thy canopy of snows,
Thy towers in bright magnificence appear!
'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear
Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue; When, lo! in softened grandeur, far, yet clear, Thy battlements stand clothed in heaven's own hue, To swell as freedom's home on man's unbounded view. GRENVILLE Mellen.
OW, upon Syria's land of roses Softly the light of eve reposes, And, like a glory, the broad sun Hangs over sainted Lebanon, Whose head in wintry grandeur towers, And whitens with eternal sleet, While summer, in a vale of flowers, Is sleeping rosy at his feet.
To one who looked from upper air O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls;
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich, restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam
Of the warm west—as if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
The unclouded skies of Peristan!
And then, the mingling sounds that com
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,
Banqueting, through the flowery vales‚-And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales!
'O claim the Arctic came the sun
With banners of the burning zone.
Unrolled upon their airy spars,
They froze beneath the light of stars;
And there they float, those streamers old,
Those northern lights, forever coid!
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TAYLOA
HOULD fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles: 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste, as in the city full;
And where he vital breathes, there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey: there, with new powers,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns,
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better scill,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in him, in light ineffable;
Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise,
JAMES THOMSON.
AIL, mildly pleasing solitude,
Companion of the wise and good,
But, from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herd of fools and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whispered talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.
A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now rapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain.
Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born;
And while meridian fervors beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening scenes decay,
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.
Descending angels bless thy train,
The virtues of the sage, and swain;
Plain innocence, in white arrayed,
Before thee lifts her fearless head:
Heligion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with 'ight divine :
About thee sports sweet liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.
Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell!
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.
JAMES THOMSON.
IT couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee!
Magnificent prison inclosing the free!
With rock-wall encircled-with precipice
crowned-
Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound.
Mid the fern and the heather, kind nature doth keep
One bright spot of green for her favorite's sleep;
And close to that covert, as clear as the skies
When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies,
Where the creature at rest can his image behold,
Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold!
How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife
With the stir of enjoyment-the spirit of life.
The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake, Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake! As if in his soul the bold animal smiled
To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild.
Yes! fierce looks thy nature, e'en hushed in repose-
In the depths of thy desert regardless of foes,
Thy bold antlers call on the hunter afar,
With a haughty defiance to come to the war!
No outrage is war to a creature like thee!
The bugle-horn fills thy wild spirit with glee,
As thou barest thy neck on the wings of the wind,
And the laggardly gaze hound is toiling behind.
In the beams of thy forehead that glitter with death—
In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath-
Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings,
And away in the midst of his roundelay springs;
'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than
The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf—
Then starts from his labor, unwearied and gay,
And circling his antlers, booms far, far away.
While high up the mountains, in silence remote,
The cuckoo unseen is repeating his note;
The mellowing echo, on watch in the skies,
Like a voice from the loftier climate replies.
With wide-spreading antlers, a guard to his breast,
There lies the wild creature, e'en stately in rest!
'Mid the grandeur of nature, composed and serene,
And proud in his heart of the mountainous scene.
He lifts his calm eye to the eagle and raven,
At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven,
In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar-
In the cliff that, once trod, must be trodden no more
Thy trust, 'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign!
But what if the stag on the mountain be slain?
On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay,
Like a victor that falls at the close of the day:
While hunter and hound in their terror retreat
From the death that is spurned from his furious feet;
And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies,
As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.
IKE fragments of an uncompleted world.
From bleak Alaska, bound in ice and spray
To where the peaks of Darien lie curled
In clouds, the broken lands loom bold an
gray;
The seamen nearing San Francisco Bay
Forget the compass here; with sturdy hand
They seize the wheel, look up, then bravely lay
The ship to shore by rugged peaks that stand,
The stern and proud patrician fathers of the land.
They stand white stairs of heaven-stand a line Of lifting, endless, and eternal white;
They look upon the far and flashing brine,
Upon the boundless plains, the broken height
Of Kamiakin's battlements. The flight
Of time is underneath their untopped towers;
They seem to push aside the moon at night,
To jostle and to lose the stars. The flowers
Of heaven fall about their brows in shining showers.
They stand a line of lifted snowy isles,
High held above a tossed and tumbled sea-
A sea of wood in wild unmeasured miles;
White pyramids of faith where man is free;
White monuments of hope that yet shall be
The mounts of matchless and immortal song.
I look far down the hollow days; I see
The bearded prophets, simple-souled and strong, That strike the sounding harp and thrill the heeding throng.
Serene and satisfied! supreme! as lone
As God, they loom like God's archangels churled : They look as old as kings upon a throne;
The mantling wings of night are crushed and curled
As feathers curl. The elements are hurled
From off their bosoms, and are bidden go,
Like evil spirits, to an under-world;
They stretch from Cariboo to Mexico,
FT have I walked these woodland paths,
Without the blest foreknowing
That underneath the withered leaves
The fairest buds were growing.
To-day the south wind sweeps away The types of autumn's splendor, And shows the sweet arbutus flowers, Spring's children, pure and tender.
O prophet-flowers !-with lips of bloom,
Outvying in your beauty
The pearly tints of ocean shells-
Ye teach me faith and duty!
"Walk life's dark ways," ye seem to say, "With love's divine foreknowing, That where man sees but withered leaves, God sees sweet flowers growing." ALBERT L.AIGHTON,
A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.
THE SEA BREEZE AND THE SCARF.
'UNG on the casement that looked o'er the main,
Fluttered a scarf of blue;
'AIL to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And a gay, bold breeze paused to flatter and And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
This trifle of delicate hue;
"You are lovelier far than the proud skies are,"
He said, with a voice that sighed ;
"You are fairer to me than the beautiful sea;
Oh, why do you stay here and hide?
"You are wasting your life in this dull, dark room;" And he fondled her silken folds.
"O'er the casement lean but a little, my queen,
And see what the great world holds !
How the wonderful blue of your matchless hue,
Cheapens both sea and sky!
You are far too bright to be hidden from sight;
Come, fly with me, darling, fly!”
Tender his whisper and sweet his caress,
Flattered and pleased was she,
The arms of her lover lifted her over
The casement out to sea;
Close to his breast she was fondly pressed,
Kissed once by his laughing mouth;
Then dropped to her grave in the cruel wave,
While the wind went whistling south.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
In the golden lightning
Of the setting sun,
O'er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground'
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then as I am listening now.
WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING
HEN the hounds of spring are on winter's
The mother of months in meadow or pla
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces⚫
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamor of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet!
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees and cling?
O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to be
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing
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