His fertile banks with herbage green, His vales with golden plenty swell; Where'er his purer streams are seen, The gods of health and pleasure dwell. Let me thy clear, thy yielding wave With naked arm once more divide, In thee my glowing bosom lave, And cut the gently rolling tide.
CCLVI. JOHN PH. KEMBLE, 1757-1823.
TO THE MEMORY OF MR INCHBALD.
What time the weak-eyed owl, on twilight wing Slow borne, her vesper screamed to eve, and roused The lazy wing of bat,
With beetle's sullen hum,
Friendship, and she, the maid of pensive mien, Pale Melancholy, point my sorrowing steps To meditate the dead,
And give my friend a tear. Here let me pause-and pay that tear I owe: Silent it trickles down my cheek, and drops Upon the recent sod
That lightly clasps his heart:
But ah! how vain!-Nor Flattery's power, nor Wealth's, Nor Friendship's tear, nor widowed Anna's voice, Sweet as the harps of heaven, Can move the tyrant Death. Hence, ye impure!-for hark! around his grave The Sisters chaste, the Sisters whom he loved, In nine-fold cadence chaunt Immortal harmony.
'Tis done-'tis done the well-earned laurel spreads Its verdant foliage o'er his honoured clay : Again the Muses sing- Thalia's was the deed.
Thou honest man, farewell! I would not stain Thy worth with praise, yet not the bright-haired King, Who woos the rosy morn,
And westering skirts the sky
With ruddy gold and purple, e'er shall see Thy likeness-nor yon paly Crescent call Her weeping dews to kiss
A turf more loved than thine.
CCLVII. WILL. SOTHEBY, 1757—1833. 1. ROME.
Rome, thou art doom'd to perish, and thy days, Like mortal man's, are number'd, number'd all, Ere each fleet hour decays.
Though pride yet haunts thy palaces, though art Thy sculptur'd marbles animate:
Though thousands and ten thousands throng thy gate; Though kings and kingdoms with thy idol mart
Yet traffic, and thy throned priest adore ;
Thy second reign shall pass-pass like thy reign of yore! 2. GROTTO OF EGERIA.
Seek in the glen, yon heights between, A rill more pure than Hippocrene, That from a sacred fountain fed
The stream that filled its marble bed. Its marble bed long since is gone,
And the stray water struggles on,
Brawling through weeds and stones its way. There, when o'erpowered at blaze of day, Nature languishes in light,
Pass within the gloom of night,
Where the cool grot's dark arch o'ershades Thy temples, and the waving braids Of many a fragrant brier that weaves Its blossom through the ivy leaves. Thou too, beneath that rocky roof, Where the moss mats its thickest woof, Shalt hear the gather'd ice-drops fall Regular, at interval,
Drop after drop, one after one, Making music on the stone, While every drop, in slow decay,
Wears the recumbent nymph away.
Thou too, if e'er thy youthful ear Thrilled the Latian lay to hear, Lulled to slumber in that cave,
Shalt hail the nymph that held the wave; A goddess, who there deigned to meet A mortal from Rome's regal seat, And o'er the gushing of her fount Mysterious truths divine to earthly ears recount.
CCLVIII. ROBERT BURNS, 1759—1796, 1. LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Now Nature hangs her mantle green On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white Out owre the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight That fast in durance lies.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, Aloft on dewy wing;
The merlè, in his noontide bower, Makes woodland echoes ring; The mavis mild, wi' mony a note, Sings drowsy day to rest: In love and freedom they rejoice, Wi' care nor thrall opprest, Now blooms the lily by the bank, The primrose down the brae: The hawthorn's budding in the glen, And milk-white is the slae: The meanest hind in fair Scotland May rove their sweets amang; But I, the queen of a' Scotland, Maun lie in prison strang. I was the queen o' bonnie France, Where happy I hae been,
Fu' lightly rose I in the morn. As blythe lay down at e'en :
Lock Leven Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned.
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