Before the mansion lay a lucid lake
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around the wild fowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed :
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood.
Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes-like an infant made
Quiet-sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allay'd,
Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue, According as the skies their shadows threw.
A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile,
(While yet the church was Rome's), stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle; These last had disappear'd-a loss to art:
The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil,
And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,
Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march,
In gazing on that venerable arch.
Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,
Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone:
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,
But in the war which struck Charles from the throne,
When each house was a fortalice-as tell
The annals of full many a line undone,
The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.
But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,
The Virgin Mother of the God-born child,
With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round,
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd;
She made the earth below seem holy ground.
This may be superstition, weak or wild,
But even the faintest relics of a shrine,
Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine.
A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass, of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun, like seraph's wings,
Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.
But in the noontide of the moon, and when
The wind is winged from one point of heaven,
There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then
Is musical-a dying accent driven
Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given
Back to the night wind by the waterfall,
And harmonized by the old choral wall:
Others that some original shape or form,
Shaped by decay, perchance, hath given the power (Though less than that of Memnon's statue, warm In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fix'd hour)
To this grey ruin, with a voice to charm.
Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower:
The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such
The fact:-I've heard it,—once perhaps too much.
Amidst the court a gothic fountain play'd,
Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint-
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,
And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:
The spring gush'd through grim mouths, of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man's vain glories, and his vainer troubles.
STANZAS.
By THOMAS MOORE.
Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears,
When he who sheds them inly feels
Some lingering stain of early years
Effaced by every drop that steals.
Leave me to sigh o'er hours that flew,
More idly than the summer's wind,
And while they pass'd, a fragrance threw,
But left no trace of sweets behind.
The fruitless showers of worldly woe,
Fall dark to earth, and never rise,
While tears that from repentance flow,
In bright exhalement reach the skies.
THE world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on its outward parts.
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!
And these assume but valour's excrement,
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crisped, snaky, golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness often known
To be the dowry of a second head;
The skull that bred them, in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.
FRIENDSHIP, LOVE AND TRUTH.
By JAMES MONTGOMERY.
WHEN Friendship, Love and Truth abound
Among a band of brothers,
The cup of joy goes gaily round,
Each shares the bliss of others.
Sweet roses grace the thorny way
Along this vale of sorrow;
The flowers that shed their leaves to-day
Shall bloom again to-morrow.
How grand in age, how fair in youth,
Are holy Friendship, Love and Truth!
On halcyon wings our moments pass,
Life's cruel cares beguiling;
Old Time lays down his scythe and glass,
In gay good-humour smiling;
With ermine beard and forelock grey,
His reverend front adorning,
He looks like Winter turn'd to May,
Night soften'd into morning.
How grand in age, how fair in youth,
Are holy Friendship, Love and Truth!
From these delightful fountains flow
Ambrosial rills of pleasure:
Can man desire, can heaven bestow,
A more resplendent treasure?
Adorn'd with gems so richly bright,
We'll form a constellation,
Where every star, with modest light,
Shall gild his proper station.
How grand in age, how fair in youth,
Are holy Friendship, Love and Truth!
One of the finest of our National Lyrics, composed by THOMAS CAMPBELL. What a spirit stirs in every line. It is a song rather to be shouted than sung.
YE mariners of England!
That guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again,
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave!-
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests, blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks-
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak,
She quells the floods below,
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy tempests blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy tempests blow.
The meteor flag of England,
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the stormi has ceased to blow.
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