Far other craft our prouder river shows,

Hoys, pinks, and sloops; brigs, brigantines, and snows:
Nor angler we on our wide stream descry,
But one poor dredger where his oysters lie:
He, cold and wet, and driving with the tide,
Beats his weak arms against his tarry side,
Then drains the remnant of diluted gin,
To aid the warmth that languishes within;
Renewing oft his poor attempts to beat
His tingling fingers into gathering heat.

George Crabbe.

THE HEATH.

O! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,

From thence a length of burning sand appears,
Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;
Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye:
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war;
There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;

O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade;
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendor vainly shines around.

George Crabbe.

TO THE SEA.

WRITTEN ON THE BEACH AT ALDBOROUGH.

THOU awful sea! upon this shingly beach

Of Aldborough I pace: my gazing eye

Thy world of waters lost in the dim sky
Admiring, and thy echoing waves, that teach,
In voice of thunder, more than tongue can preach;
The knell of ages past and passing by;

And claim their ancient empire o'er the dry

And solid earth; each animating each.

Of towns long sunk, o'er which thy wild waves roar,

Of sea to land, of land to ocean turned,

I muse and mourn, that who could amplest pour
Homeric tones on thy resounding shore
Porson is dead!—that sea of Grecian lore
Unbounded, in the abyss of fate inurned.

Capel Lofft.

Aldershot.

CRIMEAN INVALID SOLDIERS REAPING AT ALDERSHOT.

REAP ye the ripe, ripe corn,

Ye have reaped the green and the young,

The fruits that were scarcely born,

The fibres that just were strung.

Ye have reaped, as the Destinies reap,
The wit and the worth of Man,
The tears that we vainly weep,

The deeds that we vainly plan.

Now reap as the generous life

Of the pregnant Earth commands,

Each seed with a future rife,

And the work of a thousand hands.

Lord Houghton.

HOME

Alnwick.

ALNWICK CASTLE.

OME of the Percy's high-born race, Home of their beautiful and brave, Alike their birth and burial place,

Their cradle and their grave! Still sternly o'er the castle gate Their house's Lion stands in state

As in his proud departed hours; And warriors frown in stone on high, And feudal banners "flout the sky" Above his princely towers.

A gentle hill its side inclines

Lovely in England's fadeless green, To meet the quiet stream which winds Through this romantic scene

As silently and sweetly still

As when, at evening, on that hill,
While summer's wind blew soft and low,
Seated by gallant Hotspur's side,
His Katherine was a happy bride
A thousand years ago.

Gaze on the Abbey's ruined pile:
Does not the succoring ivy, keeping
Her watch around it, seem to smile,
As o'er a loved one sleeping?
One solitary turret gray

Still tells, in melancholy glory,
The legend of the Cheviot day,

The Percy's proudest border story. That day its roof was triumph's arch; Then rang, from aisle to pictured dome, The light step of the soldier's march, The music of the trump and drum; And babe, and sire, the old, the young, And the monk's hymn, and minstrel's song, And woman's pure kiss, sweet and long, Welcomed her warrior home.

Wild roses by the Abbey towers

Are gay in their young bud and bloom: They were born of a race of funeral flowers That garlanded, in long-gone hours,

A templar's knightly tomb.

He died, the sword in his mailéd hand,

On the holiest spot of the blessed land,

Where the cross was damped with his dying breath, When blood ran free as festal wine,

And the sainted air of Palestine

Was thick with the darts of death.

Wise with the lore of centuries,

What tales, if there be "tongues in trees,"
Those giant oaks could tell,

Of beings born and buried here ;
Tales of the peasant and the peer,
Tales of the bridal and the bier,
The welcome and farewell,

Since on their boughs the startled bird
First in her twilight slumbers, heard
The Norman's curfew-bell!

I wandered through the lofty halls
Trod by the Percys of old fame,
And traced upon the chapel walls
Each high, heroic name,

From him who once his standard set
Where now, o'er mosque and minaret,

Glitter the Sultan's crescent moons,
To him who, when a younger son,
Fought for King George at Lexington,
A major of dragoons.

That last half-stanza, it has dashed
From my warm lip the sparkling cup;
The light that o'er my eyebeam flashed,
The power that bore my spirit up