A subterranean host had given.
Watching their leader's beck and will,
All silent there they stood, and still,
Like the loose crags, whose threatening mass
Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass,
As if an infant's touch could urge
Their headlong passage down the verge,
With step and weapon forward flung,
Upon the mountain-side they hung.
The Mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,
Then fix'd his eye and sable brow
Full on Fitz-James-"How say'st thou now?
These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;
And, Saxon,-I am Roderick Dhu!"
Fitz-James was brave:-Though to his heart
The life-blood thrill'd with sudden start,
He mann'd himself with dauntless air,
Returned the Chief his haughty stare,
His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before:-
"Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."
Sir Roderick mark'd-and in his eyes
Respect was mingled with surprise,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
Short space he stood-then waved his hand
Down sunk the disappearing band;
Each warrior vanish'd where he stood,
In broom or bracken, heath or wood;
Sunk brand and spear and bended bow,
In osiers pale and copses low;
It seem'd as if their mother Earth
Had swallowed up her warlike birth.
The wind's last breath had toss'd in air,
Pennon, and plaid, and plumage fair,-
The next but swept a lone hill-side,
Where heath and fern were waving wide
The sun's last glance was glinted back,
From spear and glaive, from targe and jack,--
The next, all unreflected, shone
On bracken green, and cold grey stone
THE "Christian poet," as he has been aptly termed, was born at Irvine in Ayrshire, 4th November 1771. His father was a Moravian missionary, who, leaving his son at Fulneck in Yorkshire to be educated, went to Tobago in the West Indies, in the pursuit of his duties, where he died. At the age of twelve, Montgomery began to write verses; and after being sent first to Mirfield, and afterwards to Wath, to earn his bread as a shopkeeper, he became so averse to his employment that he set off for London on foot, with his poems in his pocket, in the hope of obtaining a publisher for them. He was unsuccessful in this, but at last obtained a situation in a bookseller's shop, which he retained till the death of his employer. After some wanderings, Montgomery obtained a situation as clerk in Mr Gale's, the publisher of the "Sheffield Register." Here his talent found due exercise in writing for, and conducting the paper. His master had ultimately to fly for fear of a prosecution by Government, and Montgomery, by the aid of some friends, was enabled to retain the office, and bring out a newspaper, the "Sheffield Iris," which he conducted till 1825. Montgomery's life as an editor was at first very unfortunate. In his.paper he advocated liberal politics and religious freedom, and thus was brought under the notice of the Government, who in these troublous times, acted with great tyranny; an old song on the destruction of the Bastile, which had been standing in type in the office for some time, had been reprinted unknown to him by one of his men; words applicable inoffensively to the circumstances of 1789 were now interpreted into a seditious libel, and a prosecution was most basely pushed on against him for a crime he never committed, and he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in York Castle. In 1795 he was tried for another imputed political offence, and such was the temper of the times that the jury brought him in guilty, and he was incarcerated for six months. The history of this little affair is one of the most interesting episodes in his life. He beguiled his time by writing poems, afterwards published under the title of "Prison Amusements." But the affairs of the poet were now more satisfactory. He had often written little pieces in his newspaper; but in 1806 he issued "The Wanderer of Switzerland." It was honoured with a withering criticism by the " Edinburgh Review," but in spite of this, it went rapidly through several editions. In 1807 appeared "The West Indies;" in 1813," The World before the Flood," in 1819, "Greenland;" and in 1827, "The Pelican Island," the finest of his poems. But the name of Montgomery as a poet does not rest alone on these: his religious pieces, contributed to periodicals and hymn books, are to be found in every collection, and will be used with those of Watts, Cowper, and Newton, as long as the English language exists. In 1846 Government conferred on him the well-merited pension of £150 a-year, which he enjoyed till his death, on 30th April 1854.
FROM THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD."
THE Giants reach'd their camp :-the night's alarms
Meanwhile had startled all their slaves to arms;
They grasp'd their weapons as from sleep they sprang,
From tent to tent the brazen clangour rang:
The hail, the earthquake, the mysterious light
Unnerved their strength, o'erwhelm'd them with affright, "Warriors! to battle-summon all your powers;
Warriors! to conquest-Paradise is ours;"
Èxclaim'd their monarch;-not an arm was raised.
In vacancy of thought, like men amazed,
And lost amidst confounding dreams, they stood,
With palsied eyes, and horror-frozen blood.
The Giants' rage to instant madness grew;
The king and chiefs on their own legions flew,
Denouncing vengeance;-then had all the plain
Been heap'd with myriads by their leaders slain,
But ere a sword could fall, by whirlwinds driven,
In mighty volumes, through the vault of heaven,
From Eden's summit, o'er the camp accurst,
The darting fires with noonday splendour burst;
And fearful grew the scene above, below,
With sights of mystery and sounds of woe.
The embattled Cherubim appear'd on high,
And coursers, wing'd with lightning, swept the sky;
Chariots, whose wheels with living instinct roll'd,
Spirits of unimaginable mould,
Powers, such as dwell in heaven's serenest light,
Too pure, too terrible for mortal sight,
From depth of midnight suddenly reveal'd,
In arms, against the Giants took the field.
On such an host Elisha's servant gazed,
When all the mountain round the prophet blazed:
With such an host, when war in heaven was wrougnt,
Michael, against the Prince of Darkness fought.
Roused by the trumpet, that shall wake the dead,
The torpid foe in consternation fled;
The Giants headlong in the uproar ran,
The king himself the foremost of the van,
Nor e'er his rushing squadrons led to fight
With swifter onset than he led that flight.
Homeward the panic-stricken legions flew ;
Their arms, their vestments from their limbs they threw ;
O'er shields and helms the reinless camel strode,
And gold and purple strew'd the desert road.
LISTENING, as oft he listens in a shell
To the mock tide's alternate fall and swell,
He kneels upon the ice,-inclines his ear,
And hears-or does he only seem to hear!-
A sound, as though the Genius of the Deep
Heaved a long sigh, awaking out of sleep.
He starts;-'twas but a pulse within his brain!
No-for he feels it beat through every vein;
Groan following groan (as from a giant's breast,
Beneath a burying mountain, ill at rest),
With awe ineffable his spirit thrills,
And rapture fires his blood, while terror chills.
The keen expression of his eye alarms
His mother; she has caught him in her arms,
And learn'd the cause ;-that cause, no sooner known,
From lip to lip, o'er many a league is flown ;
Voices to voices, prompt as signals, rise
In shrieks of consternation to the skies;
Those skies, meanwhile, with gathering darkness scowl
Hollow and winterly the bleak winds howl.
From morn till noon had ether smiled serene,
Save one black-belted cloud, far eastward seen,
Like a snow-mountain ;-there in ambush lay
The undreaded tempest, panting for his prey.
That cloud by stealth hath through the welkin spread,
And hangs in meteor-twilight overhead;
At foot, beneath the adamantine floor,
Loose in their prison-house the surges roar.
To every eye, ear, heart, the alarm is given,
And landward crowds (like flocks of sea-fowl driven,
When storms are on the wing), in wild affright,
On foot, in sledges, urge their panic flight,
In hope the refuge of the shore to gain
Ere the disruption of the struggling main,
Foretold by many a stroke, like lightning sent
In thunder, though the unstable continent.
I LOVE Thee, O my native Isle !
Dear as my mother's earliest smile,
Sweet as my father's voice to me,
Is all I hear, and all I see,
When, glancing o'er thy beauteous land,
In view thy public virtues stand,
The guardian-angels of thy coast,
Who watch the dear domestic host,
The heart's affections, pleased to roam
Around the quiet heaven of home.
I love thee,-when I mark thy soil
Flourish beneath the peasant's toil,
And from its lap of verdure throw
Treasures which neither Indies know.
I love Thee,-when I hear around
Thy looms, and wheels, and anvils sound.
Thine engines heaving all their force,
Thy waters labouring on their course,
And arts, and industry, and wealth,
Exulting in the joys of health.
I love Thee,-when I trace thy tale
To the dim point where records fail;
Thy deeds of old renown inspire
My bosom with our fathers' fire;
A proud inheritance I claim
In all their sufferings, all their fame:
Nor less delighted, when I stray
Down History's lengthening, widening way.
And hail thee in thy present hour,
From the meridian arch of power,
Shedding the lustre of thy reign,
Like sunshine, over land and main.
ONCE in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man:-and who was he!
-Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast.
That man resembled thee.
Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown:
His name hath perish'd from the earth.
This truth survives alone:---
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