The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up, And the bride-maidens whispered, "Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!' One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 'She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; They'll have fleet steeds that follow!' quoth young Lochinvar. There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan; Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they lies. Coronach. [From the 'Lady of the Lake."] He is gone on the mountain, From the rain-drops shall borrow, The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, Waft the leaves that are searest, But our flower was in flushing When blighting was nearest. Fleet foot on the correi,1 How sound is thy slumber! Come from deep glen, and True heart that wears one; The flock without shelter; Come as the winds come, when Fast they come, fast they come; Blended with heather. Cast your plaids, draw your blades, Forward each man set; Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, Knell for the onset ! [Time.] [From the Antiquary."] Why sitt'st thou by that ruined hall, Or ponder how it passed away! 'Know'st thou not me?' the Deep Voice cried, 'So long enjoyed, so oft misusedAlternate, in thy fickle pride, Desired, neglected, and accused? Before my breath, like blazing flax, When Time and thou shalt part for ever!' [Hymn of the Hebrew Maid.] [From Ivanhoe."] When Israel, of the Lord beloved, Out from the land of bondage came, Her father's God before her moved, An awful guide in smoke and flame. By day, along the astonished lands The cloudy pillar glided slow; By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands Returned the fiery column's glow. There rose the choral hymn of praise, And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze, Forsaken Israel wanders lone; Our fathers would not know Thy ways, And Thou hast left them to their own. 67 But, present still, though now unseen! To temper the deceitful ray. And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn. [Song from the Pirate.] Love wakes and weeps O for music's softest numbers, For Beauty's dream, Soft as the pillow of her slumbers! Through groves of palm Fire-flies on the air are wheeling; While through the gloom Comes soft perfume, The distant beds of flowers revealing. O wake and live! No dreams can give A shadowed bliss the real excelling; From lattice peep, And list the tale that love is telling! LORD BYRON. The chivalry of Scott, the philosophy of Wordsworth, the abstract theory and imagination of Southey, and even the lyrical beauties of Moore and Campbell, were for a time eclipsed by this new and greater light. The rank, youth, and misfortunes of Byron, his exile from England, the mystery which he loved to throw around his history and feelings, the apparent depth of his sufferings Scott retreated from poetry into the wide and and attachments, and his very misanthropy and open field of prose fiction as the genius of Byron scepticism (relieved by bursts of tenderness and began to display its strength and fertility. A new, pity, and by the incidental expression of high and or at least a more finished, nervous, and lofty style holy feelings), formed a combination of personal of poetry was introduced by the noble author, who circumstances in aid of the legitimate effects of his was as much a mannerist as Scott, but of a different passionate and graceful poetry, which is unparalleled school. He excelled in painting the strong and in the history of modern literature. Such a result gloomy passions of our nature, contrasted with is even more wonderful than the laureled honours feminine softness and delicacy. Scott, intent upon awarded to Virgil and Petrarch, if we consider the the development of his plot, and the chivalrous difference between ancient and modern manners, machinery of his Gothic tales, is seldom personally and the temperament of the northern nations compresent to the reader. Byron delighted in self-pared with that of the sunny south.' Has the portraiture, and could stir the depths of the human heart. His philosophy of life was false and pernicious; but the splendour of the artist concealed the deformity of his design. Parts were so nobly finished, that there was enough for admiration to rest upon, without analysing the whole. He conducted his readers through scenes of surpassing beauty and splendour-by haunted streams and mountains, enriched with the glories of ancient poetry and valour; but the same dark shadow was ever by his side-the same scorn and mockery of human hopes and ambition. The sententious force and elevation of his thoughts and language, his eloquent expression of sentiment, and the mournful and solemn melody of his tender and pathetic passages, seemed, however, to do more than atone for his want of moral truth and reality. The man and the poet were so intimately blended, and the spec-spiration. tacle presented by both was so touching, mysterious, and lofty, that Byron concentrated a degree of interest and anxiety on his successive public appearances, which no author ever before was able to spell yet broke? Has the glory faded into the common light of day?' Undoubtedly the later writings of the noble bard helped to dispel the illusion. To competent observers, these works added to the impression of Byron's powers as an original poet, but they tended to exorcise the spirit of romance from his name and history; and what Don Juan failed to effect, was accomplished by the biography of Moore. His poetry, however, must always have a powerful effect on minds of poetical and warm sensibilities. If it is a rank unweeded garden,' it also contains glorious fruits and plants of celestial seed. The art of the poet will be a study for the ambitious few; his genius will be a source of wonder and delight to all who love to contemplate the workings of human passion, in solitude and society, and the rich effects of taste and in The incidents of Byron's life may be briefly related. He was born in Holles Street, London, on the 22d of January 1788, the only son of Captain John Byron of the Guards, and Catherine Gordon |