The Violet. [1797-]

THE violet in her greenwood bower, Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle, May boast itself the fairest flower

In glen or copse or forest dingle.

Though fair her gems of azure hue,

Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining, I've seen an eye of lovelier blue,

More sweet through watery lustre shining. The summer sun that dew shall dry

Ere yet the day be past its morrow, Nor longer in my false love's eye Remained the tear of parting sorrow.

To a Lady.

WITH FLOWERS FROM A ROMAN WALL.

[1797-]

TAKE these flowers which, purple waving,
On the ruined rampart grew,

Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.
Warriors from the breach of danger
Pluck no longer laurels there;
They but yield the passing stranger
Wild-flower wreaths for Beauty's hair.

The Bard's Encantation.

WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION IN

THE AUTUMN OF 1804.

THE forest of Glenmore is drear,

It is all of black pine and the dark oaktree;

And the midnight wind to the mountain deer

Is whistling the forest lullaby: The moon looks through the drifting storm, But the troubled lake reflects not her form, For the waves roll whitening to the land, And dash against the shelvy strand.

There is a voice among the trees

That mingles with the groaning oak – That mingles with the stormy breeze, And the lake-waves dashing against the rock;

There is a voice within the wood,
The voice of the bard in fitful mood;
His song was louder than the blast,
As the bard of Glenmore through the forest
past.

'Wake ye from your sleep of death,
Minstrels and bards of other days!
For the midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly blaze:
The Spectre with his Bloody Hand
Is wandering through the wild woodland;
The owl and the raven are mute for dread,
And the time is meet to awake the dead!

'Souls of the mighty, wake and say

To what high strain your harps were strung,

When Lochlin ploughed her billowy way And on your shores her Norsemen flung?

Her Norsemen trained to spoil and blood,
Skilled to prepare the raven's food,
All by your harpings doomed to die
On bloody Largs and Loncarty.

'Mute are ye all? No murmurs strange
Upon the midnight breeze sail by,
Nor through the pines with whistling
change

Mimic the harp's wild harmony! Mute are ye now? - Ye ne'er were mute When Murder with his bloody foot, And Rapine with his iron hand, Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

'O, yet awake the strain to tell, By every deed in song enrolled, By every chief who fought or fell,

For Albion's weal in battle bold: From Coilgach, first who rolled his car Through the deep ranks of Roman war, To him of veteran memory dear Who victor died on Aboukir.

'By all their swords, by all their scars, By all their names, a mighty spell! By all their wounds, by all their wars,

Arise, the mighty strain to tell! For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain, More impious than the heathen Dane, More grasping than all-grasping Rome, Gaul's ravening legions hither come!'

The wind is hushed and still the lake

Strange murmurs fill my tinkling ears, Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,

At the dread voice of other years-
'When targets clashed and bugles rung,
And blades round warriors' heads were
flung,

The foremost of the band were we
And hymned the joys of Liberty!'

Hellvellyn. [1805.]

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;

All was still save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Redtarn was bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain heather,

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay,

Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather

Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.

AIR

The Norman Horse-Shoe.

[1806.]

"The War-Song of the Men of Glamorgan."

RED glows the forge in Striguil's bounds,
And hammers din, and anvil sounds,
And armorers with iron toil

Barb many a steed for battle's broil.
Foul fall the hand which bends the steel
Around the courser's thundering heel,
That e'er shall dint a sable wound
On fair Glamorgan's velvet ground!

From Chepstow's towers ere dawn of morn
Was heard afar the bugle-horn,

And forth in banded pomp and pride
Stout Clare and fiery Neville ride.
They swore their banners broad should
gleam

In crimson light on Rymny's stream;
They vowed Caerphili's sod should feel
The Norman charger's spurning heel.