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Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me,-rise, oh, ever rise;
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth;
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

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ROBERT SOUTHEY.

(1774-1843.)

In

BORN in Bristol, where his father was a linen-draper, and educated at Westminster and Balliol College, Oxford. After quitting Oxford, he associated much with Coleridge and a young Bristol quaker, named Lovell, and the three young men married three sisters. In their enthusiasm, Southey, Coleridge, and Lovell had formed a plan to go out together to the wilds of North America, and set up what they called a Pantisocrasy, in which they were to return to the patriarchal mode of life. This scheme, however, they never attempted to carry into effect. the early part of the present century Southey settled at Greta, near Keswick, where he continued to reside till his death. In 1813, was appointed Poet Laureate, and in 1835, a pension of £300 a year was bestowed upon him by the Government of Sir Robert Peel. Died in 1843, and was buried in Crosthwaite churchyard, where had been already interred his first wife and some of his children. Southey's chief poetical works are :Thalaba the Destroyer; The Curse of Kehama; Joan of Arc; The Vision of Judgment, and numerous ballads and minor pieces.

THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS, AND HOW HE GAINED THEM.

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,* "The few locks which are left you are grey;

You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, "I remembered that youth would fly fast;

And abused not my health and my vigour at first,
That I never might need them at last."

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "And pleasures with you pass away,

And yet you

lament not the days that are gone :

Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, "I remembered that youth could not last; I thought of the future, whatever I did, That I never might grieve for the past."

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "And life must be hastening away;

You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death, Now tell me the reason, I pray."

“I am cheerful, young man," Father William replied, "Let the cause thy attention engage :

In the days of my youth I remembered my God,
And He has not forgotten my age."

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done ;
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;

And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round,
That he beside the rivulet,

In playing there, had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

H

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,
And with a natural sigh,

"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory.

I find them in the garden, for
There's many here about,
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out;
For many
thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in the great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they killed each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"That put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by,

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,

And many a childing mother then,
And new-born infant died.

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

They say it was a shocking sight

After the field was won ;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won
And our good Prince Eugene.-"
"Why 'twas a very wicked thing !”
Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay-nay-my little girl," quoth he,
"It was a famous victory.

And everybody praised the Duke
Who such a fight did win."

"But what good came of it at last?".
Quoth little Peterkin.

66

Why that I cannot tell," said he ; "But 'twas a famous victory."

THE INCHCAPE ROCK.

No stir on the air, no swell on the sea,
The ship was still as she might be :
The sails from heaven received no motion;
The keel was steady in the ocean.

With neither sign nor sound of shock,
The waves flowed o'er the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell,

The pious abbot of Aberbrothock

Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On the waves of the storm it floated and swung, And louder and louder its warning rung.

When the rock was hid by the tempest swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the abbot of Aberbrothock.

The float of the Inchcape Bell was seen,
A darker spot on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walked the deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.

His eye was on the bell and float,-
Quoth he, "My men, put down the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,—
I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothock. "

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go.
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And cut the bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the bell with a gurgling sound;
The bubbles rose, and burst around.
Quoth he, "Who next comes to the rock
Won't bless the priest of Aberbrothock. "

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;
He scoured the sea for many a day :
And now, grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his way for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day ;
At evening it hath died away.

"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? For yonder methinks should be the shore. Now, where we are, I cannot tell,

I wish we heard the Inchcape Bell."

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