The Woodlark, in his mournful hours;
The Goldfinch, in his mirth ;-
The Thrush, a spendthrift of his powers,
Enrapturing heaven and earth;-
The Swan, in majesty and grace,
Contemplative and still;
But roused, no Falcon in the chace
Could, like his satire, kill !
The Linnet, in simplicity;
In tenderness, the Dove; But more than all beside, was He The Nightingale, in love.
Oh! had he never stooped to shame,
Nor lent a charm to vice,
How had Devotion loved to name
That Bird of Paradise!
Peace to the dead! - In Scotia's choir
Of minstrels, great and small,
He sprang from his spontaneous fire,
The Phoenix of them all!
ERE sin could blight, or sorrow fade.
Death came, with friendly care,
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.
WHO, standing on this rural spot,
With groves above, and fields around,
Would, pausing, e'er indulge the thought,
That armies thronged the lower ground?
Or image neighing steed, or fear
That trump or drum salute his ear!
Or think this leafy screen enfolded
A being of as tragic fate,
As lovely, and unfortunate,
As Nature ever moulded!
Traced like a map, the landscape lies
In cultured beauty stretching wide;
There, Pentland's green acclivities;
There, Ocean, with its azure tide;
There, Arthur's seat; and gleaming through
Thy southern wing, Dunedin blue !
While, in the orient, Lammer's daughters,
A distant giant range are seen,-
North Berwick Law, with cone of green,
And Bass amid the waters.
Wrapt in the mantle of her woe,
Here agonized Mary stood,
And saw contending hosts below,
Opposing, meet in deadly feud;
With hilt to hilt, and hand to hand,
The children of one mother land
For battle come. The banners flaunted
Amid Carberry's beechen grove;
And kinsmen, braving kinsmen, strove
Undaunting and undaunted.
Silent the queen in sorrow stood,
When Bothwell, starting forward, said,
The cause is mine a nation's blood,
Go, tell yon chiefs, should not be shed!
Go, bid the bravest heart advance
In single fight, to measure lance
With me, who wait prepared to meet him!'
Fly! Bothwell, fly !-It shall not be.'
She wept she sobbed on bended knee
Fair Mary did entreat him.
'I go,' he sighed 'the war is mine,
A Nero could not injure thee;-
My lot on earth is sealed, but thine
Shall long, and bright, and happy be !-
This last farewell this struggle o'er,
We ne'er shall see each other more:-
Now loose thy hold, poor broken-hearted!'
She faints she falls, Upon his roan
The bridle reins in haste are thrown-
The pilgrim hath departed.
Know ye the tenor of his fate?
A fugitive among his own;
Disguised deserted-desolate-
A weed on Niagara thrown;
A Cain among the sons of men ;
A pirate on the ocean; then,
A Scandinavian captive fettered
To die amid the dungeon gloom,-
If earthly chance, or heavenly doom
Is dark: but so it mattered.
Daughter of Scotland! Beautiful,
Beyond what falls to human lot,
Thy breathing features rendered dull,
The visions of a poet's thought!
Thy voice was music on the deep,
When winds are hushed, and waves asleep;
In mould and mind by far excelling,
Or Cleopatra on the wave
Of Cydnus vanquishing the brave,
Or Troy's resplendent Helen'
Thy very sun in clouds arose,
Delightful flower of Holyrood!
Thy span was tempest-fraught ;-thy woes
Should make thee pitied by the good.
Poor Mary! an untimely tomb
Was thine! With prison hours of gloom,
A crown, and rebel crowds beneath thee;
A lofty fate a lowly fall!
Thou wert a woman: and let all
Thy faults be buried with thee !
Blackwood's Magazine.
BY THE REV. GEORGE CROLY.
In the dim chamber, on his couch of Ind,
Hung round with crest, and sword, and knightly vane,
Was stretched a cuirassed form, that inly pined
With memories keener than his mortal pain;
And oft around his darkening eyes would strain,
As if some evil visitant were come;
Then press his wasted hand upon his brain,
Mutter low words, and beckon through the gloom,
And grasp his couch, as if he saw the opening tomb.
The fearful secret murmured from his lips-
"Twas 'Murder; but his voice was now a sigh;
For o'er his spirit gathered swift eclipse.
He strove to dash the darkness from his eye,
Then smote with nerveless hand upon his thigh;
But there the sword was not; a deeper groan,-
A start, as if the Summoner were nigh,-
Told his last pangs; his eye was fixed as stone :-
There lay a livid corse, the Master of a Throne !
New Times.
ART thou returned again? The labouring breast,
The full and swelling soul, the throbbing brain,
Are signs of thee; by these wert thou confessed
In the fierce glow of summer, in the wane
Of autumn, in the cloud and hurricane
Of winter, and the changeful dawn of spring.
Thou art returned, for fancy wakes the strain;
And as I bend me to her summoning,
Thy spell is o'er me cast, thy visions round me cling.
Whence, and what art thou? I have felt thy power When my soul wished not for thee. I have sought And found thee not. In life's aspiring hour, Courted and worshipped, to my youthful thought No utterance thou gavest. I had wrought The chaplet for my fair one; I had strung The rosary of hope, and love had taught My heart love's rhetoric; yet never hung Thy charm upon my lips, thy numbers on my tongue.
I courted thee no longer, for the tomb
Made havoc of my hopes, and I became
The sport and prey of sorrow; but in gloom
And solitude, in misery and shame,
In every feeling that unnerves the frame,
Thy impulse was upon me: then arose
My first and rude attempt; then didst thou claim
Thy long rejected suppliant, and disclose,
In simple humble strain, the descant of his woes.
I will not, cannot flee thee! Thou must be
As present on the full and noisy mart,
As in the desert; upon plain or sea,
On wold, or mountain, of myself be part.
I cannot flee thee! Round this widowed heart
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