A feeling, whose mysterious thrall
Is stronger, sweeter far than all;
And on its silent wing,
How, with the clouds, he'll float away,
As wandering and as lost as they !
DOUGLAS'S ACCOUNT OF THE HERMIT.
BENEATH a mountain's brow, the most remote
And inaccessible by shepherds trode,
In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand,
A hermit lived; a melancholy man,
Who was the wonder of our wandering swains.
Austere and lonely, cruel to himself,
Did they report him; the cold earth his bed,
Water his drink, his food the shepherds' alms.
I went to see him, and my heart was touched
With reverence and with pity. Mild he spake,
And, entering on discourse, such stories told,
As made me oft revisit his sad cell:
For he had been a soldier in his youth;
And fought in famous battles, when the peers
Of Europe, by the bold Godfredo led,
Against the usurping infidel displayed
The blessed cross, and won the Holy Land.
Pleased with my admiration, and the fire
His speech struck from me, the old man would shake
His years away, and act his
young encounters.
Then, having showed his wounds, he'd sit him down,
And all the live-long day discourse of war.
To help my fancy, in the smooth green turf,
He cut the figures of the marshalled host:
Described the motions and explained the use
Of the deep column and the lengthened line,
The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm:
For all that Saracen or Christian knew
Of war's vast art was to this hermit known.
Unhappy man!
Returning homewards by Messina's port,
Loaded with wealth and honours bravely won,
A rude and boisterous captain of the sea
Fastened a quarrel on him. Fierce they fought:
The stranger fell; and with his dying breath
Declared his name and lineage. Mighty Heaven!
The soldier cried, my brother! Oh! my brother!
They exchanged forgiveness,
And happy, in my mind, was he that died;
For many deaths has the survivor suffered.
In the wild desert on a rock he sits,
Or on some nameless stream's untrodden banks,
And ruminates all day his dreadful fate.
At times, alas! not in his perfect mind,
Holds dialogues with his loved brother's Ghost;
And oft, each night, forsakes his sullen couch
To make sad orisons for him he slew.
LANDING OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN THE
PENINSULA.
It was a dread, yet spirit-stirring sight!
The billows foamed beneath a thousand oars,
Fast as they land, the red-cross ranks unite,
Legions on legions brightening all the shores.
Then banners rise, and cannon-signal roars,
Then peals the war-like thunder of the drum,
Thrills the loud fife, the trumpet flourish pours,
And patriot hopes awake, and doubts are dumb,
For, bold in Freedom's cause, the bands of Ocean come!
A various host they came,-whose ranks display
Each mode in which the warrior meets the fight,
The deep battalion locks its firm array,
And meditates his aim the marksman light;
Far glance the lines of sabres flashing bright,
There mounted squadrons shake the echoing mead,
Lacks not artillery, breathing flame and might;
Nor the fleet ordnance, whirled by rapid steed
That rivals lightning's flash in ruin and in speed.
A various host, from kindred realms they came,
Brethren in arms, but rivals in renown.—
For yon fair bands shall merry England claim,
And, with their deeds of valour, deck her crown.
Hers their bold port, and hers their martial frown,
And hers their scorn of death in Freedom's cause,
Their eyes of azure, and their locks of brown,
And the blunt speech, that bursts without a pause, And freeborn thoughts, which league the soldier with the laws.
And, O loved warriors of the Minstrel's land!
Yonder your bonnets nod, your tartans wave!
The rugged form may mark the mountain band,
And harsher features, and a mien more grave;
But ne'er in battle-field throbbed heart so brave,
As that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid,
And when the pibroch bids the battle rave,
And level for the charge your arms are laid,
Where lives the desperate foe, that for such onset staid ?
Hark! from yon stately ranks what laughter rings,
Mingling wild mirth with war's stern minstrelsy,
His jest while each blithe comrade round him flings,
And moves to death with military glee:
Boast, Erin, boast them! tameless, frank, and free,
In kindness warm, and fierce in danger known,
Rough Nature's children, humourous as she :
And HE, yon chieftain,-strike the proudest tone
Of thy bold harp, green Isle !—the Hero is thine own.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME TO MAN.
NIGHT, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours:
Where are they? with the years beyond the flood!
It is the signal that demands despatch:
How much is to be done! my hopes and fears
Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-On what? a fathomless abyss!
A dread eternity! How surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder HE, who made him such !
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures marvellously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain !
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt!
Though sullied, and dishonoured, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god!-I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost! at home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own: how reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,
Triumphantly distressed! what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarmed!
What can preserve my life, or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.
WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.
THE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness-and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the Moon complain
Of such, as wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
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