THE kiss that would make a maid's cheek flush,
Wroth, as if kissing were a sin
Amidst the Argus eyes and din
And tell-tale glare of noon,
Brings but a murmur and a blush,
Beneath the modest moon.
never to come back,
When love returned entranced me so,
That still its pictures move and glow
In the dark chamber of my heart;
Leave not my memory's future track-
I will not let you part.
'T was moonlight, when my earliest love
First on my bosom dropt her head;
A moment then concentrated
The bliss of years, as if the spheres
Their course had faster driven,
And carried, Enoch-like above,
A living man to Heaven.
'Tis by the rolling moon we measure
The date between our nuptial night
And that blest hour which brings to light
The pledge of faith the fruit of bliss;
When we impress upon the treasure
A father's earliest kiss.
The Moon's the Earth's enamored bride;
True to him in her very changes,
To other stars she never ranges:
Though, crossed by him, sometimes she dips
Her light, in short offended pride,
And faints to an eclipse.
The fairies revel by her sheen;
'Tis only when the Moon's above
The fire-fly kindles into love,
And flashes light to show it:
The nightingale salutes her Queen
Of Heaven, her heavenly poet.
Then ye that love-by moonlight gloom
Meet at my grave, and plight regard.
O could I be the Orphéan bard
Of whom it is reported,
That nightingales sung o'er his tomb,
Whilst lovers came and courted.
SET TO MUSIC BY CHARLES NEATE, ESQ.
VICTORIA'S Sceptre o'er the deep
Has touched, and broken slavery's chain:
Yet, strange magician! she enslaves
Our hearts within her own domain.
Her spirit is devout, and burns.
With thoughts averse to bigotry;
Yet she herself, the idol, turns
Our thoughts into idolatry.
CORA LINN, OR THE FALLS OF THE CLYDE.
WRITTEN ON REVISITING IT IN 1837.
THE time I saw thee, Cora, last,
"T was with congenial friends;
And calmer hours of pleasure past ---
My memory seldom sends.
It was as sweet an Autumn day
As ever shone on Clyde,
And Lanark's orchards all the way
Put forth their golden pride;
Even hedges, busked in bravery,
Looked rich that sunny morn;
The scarlet hip and blackberry
So pranked September's thorn.
In Cora's glen the calm how deep!
That trees on loftiest hill
Like statues stood, or things asleep,
All motionless and still.
The torrent spoke, as if his noise
Bade earth be quiet round,
And give his loud and lonely voice
A more commanding sound.
His foam, beneath the yellow light
Of noon, came down like one
Continuous sheet of jaspers bright,
Broad rolling by the sun.
Dear Linn! let loftier falling floods
Have prouder names than thine;
And king of all, enthroned in woods,
Let Niagara shine.
Barbarian, let him shake his coasts
With reeking thunders far,
Extended like the array of hosts
In broad, embattled war!
His voice appals the wilderness:
Approaching thine, we feel
A solemn, deep melodiousness,
That needs no louder peal.
More fury would but disenchant
Thy dream-inspiring din;
Be thou the Scottish Muse's haunt,
Romantic Cora Linn!
CHAUCER AND WINDSOR.
LONG shalt thou flourish, Windsor ! bodying forth
Chivalric times, and long shall live around
Thy Castle the old oaks of British birth,
Whose gnarled roots, tenacious and profound,
As with a lion's talons grasp the ground.
But should thy towers in ivied ruin rot,
There's one, thine inmate once, whose strain renowned
Would interdict thy name to be forgot;
For Chaucer loved thy bowers and trode this very spot.
Chaucer! our Helicon's first fountain-stream,
Our morning star of song that led the way
To welcome the long-after coming beam
Of Spenser's light and Shakspeare's perfect day.
Old England's fathers live in Chaucer's lay,
As if they ne'er had died. He grouped and drew
Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay,
That still they live and breathe in Fancy's view,
Fresh beings fraught with Truth's imperishable hue.
SUGGESTED BY THE STATUE OF ARNOLD VON WINKELRIED,*
INSPIRING and romantic Switzers' land,
Though marked with majesty by Nature's hand,
What charm ennobles most thy landscape's face ?-
The heroic memory of thy native race,
Who forced tyrannic hosts to bleed or flee,
And made their rocks the ramparts of the free;
Their fastnesses rolled back the invading tide
Of conquest, and their mountains taught them pride.
Hence they have patriot names in Fancy's eye,
Bright as their glaciers glittering in the sky;
Patriots who make the pageantries of kings
Like shadows seem and unsubstantial things.
Their guiltless glory mocks oblivion's rust,
Imperishable, for their cause was just.
*For an account of this patriotic Swiss, and his heroic death at the battle of Sempach, see Dr. Beattie's "Switzerland Illustrated," vol. ii. pp. 111-115. See also note at the end of this volume.
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