Then undisturb'd the Choristers sing, And the fifty Priests they pray; As they had sung and pray'd all night, The third night came, and the tapers' flame And they burnt as though they had been dipp'd And the loud commotion, like the rushing of ocean, Grew momently more and more; And strokes as of a battering ram, Did shake the strong church door. The bellmen they for very fear Could toll the bell no longer; The Monk and Nun forgot their beads; And the Choristers' song, which late was so strong, Falter'd with consternation; For the church did rock as an earthquake shock Uplifted its foundation. And a sound was heard like the trumpet's blast And the tapers' light was extinguish'd quite; And the Priests, dismay'd, panted and pray'd, And on all Saints in heaven for aid They call'd with trembling tongue. And in He came with eyes of flame, And all the church with his presence glow'd He laid his hand on the iron chains, And like flax they moulder'd asunder, And the coffin lid, which was barr'd so firm, He burst with his voice of thunder. And he bade the Old Woman of Berkeley rise, A cold sweat started on that cold corpse, She rose on her feet in her winding-sheet; And a groan like that which the Old Woman gave She follow'd her master to the church door; The Devil he flung her on the horse, And he leap'd up before, And away like the lightning's speed they went, And she was seen no more. They saw her no more; but her cries For four miles round they could hear; And children at rest at their mothers' breast Started, and scream'd with fear. Hereford, 1798. THE MARCH TO MOSCOW. 1. THE Emperor Nap he would set off On a summer excursion to Moscow; The fields were green, and the sky was blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! 2. Four hundred thousand men and more Must go with him to Moscow: There were Marshals by the dozen, And Dukes by the score; Princes a few, and Kings one or two; While the fields are so green, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! 3. There was Junot and Augereau, Heigh-ho for Moscow ! General Rapp, and the Emperor Nap; While the fields were so green, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! Nothing would do For the whole of this crew, But they must be marching to Moscow. 4. The Emperor Nap he talk'd so big That he frighten'd Mr. Roscoe. John Bull, he cries, if you'll be wise, Ask the Emperor Nap if he will please To grant you peace, upon your knees, Because he is going to Moscow ! He'll make all the Poles come out of their holes, And beat the Russians, and eat the Prussians; For the fields are green, and the sky is blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! And he'll certainly march to Moscow ! 5. And Counsellor Brougham was all in a fume At the thought of the march to Moscow: The Russians, he said, they were undone, And the great Fee-Faw-Fum Would presently come, With a hop, step, and jump, unto London. For, as for his conquering Russia, However some persons might scoff it, Do it he could, and do it he would, And from doing it nothing would come but good. And nothing could call him off it. But the fields were green, and the sky was blue, The wind and the weather he found in that hour, Morbleu! Parbleu ! And so he got to Moscow. 7. He found the place too warm for him, To get there had cost him much ado, But to March back again from Moscow. 8. The Russians they stuck close to him And all the others that end in effsky; Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky, And all the others that end in offsky; And Platoff he play'd them off, And Shouvaloff he shovell'd them off, And Markoff he mark'd them off, And Krosnoff he cross'd them off, And Tuchkoff he touch'd them off, And Boroskoff he bored them off, And Kutousoff he cut them off, And Parenzoff he pared them off, And Worronzoff he worried them off, And Doctoroff he doctor'd them off, And Rodionoff he flogg'd them off. And, last of all, an Admiral came, A terrible man with a terrible name, 8 Cared nothing for him nor for all his power; For him who, while Europe crouch'd under his rod, Put his trust in his fortune, and not in his God, Worse and worse every day the elements grew The fields were so white, and the sky so blue, Sacrebleu! Ventrebleu! What a horrible journey from Moscow ! 10. What then thought the Emperor Nap Upon the road from Moscow ? Why, I ween he thought it small delight To fight all day, and to freeze all night; And he was besides in a very great fright, For a whole skin he liked to be in; And so, not knowing what else to do, When the fields were so white, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu ! He stole away,-I tell you true, Upon the road from Moscow. 11. Too cold upon the road was he; But colder and hotter he may be, If he does not in time look about him; Where his namesake almost He may have for his Host; He has reckon'd too long without him; If that Host get him in Purgatory, He won't leave him there alone with his glory, But there he must stay for a very long day, For from thence there is no stealing away, As there was on the road from Moscow. Keswick, 1813. CHARLES LAMB. CHARLES LAMB was born in the Temple, Lon- | critic, he was sound yet gentle. If his maturer taste and extensive reading compelled him to try all modern writers by a standard terribly severe, he reproved with a mild persuasive bearing: "Of right and wrong he taught Truths as refined as ever Athens heard." If his style reminds us forcibly of the "old inventive Poets," he never strikes us as an imitator of them. His mind was akin to theirs; and he lived his days and nights in their company; naturally and unconsciously, therefore, he thought as they thought, and adopted their manner. His will almost bear comparison with the happiest efforts of the British dramatists in the high and palmy days of the drama. Few of them have done more within the same space, or produced finer effects by simple touches. don, on the 10th of February, 1775. He received his education at Christ's Hospital, and was, for the greater portion of his life, a clerk in the office of the Accountant-General at the India House. His earliest and his latest associate was his schoolmate, Coleridge:-the last, or nearly the last, lines he ever penned contained a brief but deeply earnest and pathetic tribute to the memory of his "fifty years old friend without a dissension;" and the grass had not time to grow over the grave of the one before it was opened to receive all that was mortal of the other. The life of Charles Lamb contains no startling incident; -it was calm, comparatively untroubled, even and unob-“Tragedy," as he calls it, "John Woodvil," trusive; a story is told, indeed, of some mystery which hung as a dark cloud over his merry heart, bringing and keeping care and despondency under his roof-but it is one with which the world had no concern; his pecuniary circumstances were easy; and literature was to him the staff but not The personal character of Lamb must have the crutch. To the fact that he was never com- been amiable to a degree;-the evidence of his pelled to write, we are indebted for the high de-writings, and the testimony of many friends, prove gree of finish which distinguishes all he produced: but to this cause also must be attributed that he wrote so little. Partly from choice, and partly from the necessity of attending daily to his official duties, he was a constant resident in London; and, consequently, neither in his poetry nor in his prose do we find many proofs of that inspiration, which is drawn from familiar intercourse with Nature. He loved the country far less than he loved the town; and found in the streets and alleys of the metropolis themes as fertile as some of his contemporaries had sought and obtained among the hills and valleys of Westmoreland. He knew every spot the great men of former days had made "hallowed ground." Many a dingy building of brick was to him more sacred The poetical productions of Charles Lamb are than the temple not made with hands," as being very limited; but they are sufficient both in the birth-place or intellectual laboratory of some quantity and quality to secure for him a promimighty master of the past. His delicious "Es-nent station among the Poets of Great Britain. says," therefore, open to us sources of peculiar He did not consider it beneath him to scribble delight, and show that as much exquisite enjoy-"Album verses;" but his judgment in publishment may be derived from a contemplative strolling them has been arraigned. If among them we down Fleet street, as from a pensive ramble find a few puerilities, and numerous affectations, "mid flower-enamelled lands and blooming thickets." They are full of wisdom, pregnant with genuine wit, abound in true pathos, and have a rich vein of humour running through them all. The kindliness of his heart, and the playfulness of his fancy are spread over every page. As a 66 'his it to have been so. He died at his residence in it will not require a very close search to perceive many graceful and beautiful flowers lurking under leaves which are certainly uninviting. He loved to trifle, both in verse and prose; yet his trifling was that of a philosopher,-desiring to unbend, but retaining a consciousnes of power. POEMS. HESTER. WHEN maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try, With vain endeavour. A month or more has she been dead A springy motion in her gait, Of pride and joy no common rate, I know not by what name beside Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was train'd in Nature's school, Nature had blest her. A waking eye, a prying mind, A heart that stirs, is hard to bind, My sprightly neighbour, gone before To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not meet, as heretofore, Some summer morning, When from thy cheerful eyes a ray гO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED. SMILING river, smiling river, On thy bosom sun-beams play; Though they're fleeting, and retreating, Thou hast more deceit than they. In thy channel, in thy channel, Choak'd with ooze and grav'lly stones, Deep immersed, and unhearsed, Lies young Edward's corse: his bones Ever whitening, ever whitening, As thy waves against them dash; What thy torrent, in the current, Swallow'd, now it helps to wash. As if senseless, as if senseless Things had feeling in this case; What so blindly, and unkindly, It destroy'd, it now does grace THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I loved a love once, fairest among women; I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces. Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM. ON a bank with roses shaded, And two more did music keep, To the mighty Tamerlane, Thus far, in magnific strain, A young poet sooth'd his vein, But he had nor prose nor numbers To express a princess' slumbers.Youthful Richard had strange fancies, Was deep versed in old romances, And could talk whole hours upon The great Cham and Prester John,Tell the field in which the Sophi From the Tartar won a trophyWhat he read with such delight of, Thought he could as eas'ly write of-But his over-young invention Kept not pace with brave intention. Twenty suns did rise and set, And he could no further get; But, unable to proceed, Made a virtue out of need, And, his labours, wiselier deem'd of, Did omit what the queen dream'd of. A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. MAY the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind, (Still the phrase is wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Half my love, or half my hate : Sooty retainer to the vine, 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, While each man, thro' thy height'ning steam, Thou through such a mist dost shew us, That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowed features, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first lov'd a cloud, Ixion. Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex canst shew What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle? Some few vapours thou may'st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze, But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart. Brother of Bacchus, later born, The old world was sure forlorn, Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than before All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow, Or judge of thee meant: only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformed god now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves. Scent to match thy rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sov'reign to the brain. Nature, that did in thee excel, Fram'd again no second smell. Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant ; Thou art the only manly scent. Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa, that brags her foyson, Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite Nay, rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Or, as men, constrain'd to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow's at the height, Lose discrimination quite, |