THE MAID OF TORO.

O, Low Shone the sun on the fair lake of Toro, And weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,

All as a fair maiden, bewilder'd in sorrow,

66

Sorely sigh'd to the breezes, and wept to the flood. "O, saints! from the mansions of bliss lowly bending; Sweet Virgin! who hearest the suppliant's cry, Now grant my petition, in anguish ascending, My Henry restore, or let Eleanor die!"

All distant and faint were the sounds of the battle,

With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail, Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread rattle,

And the chase's wild clamour, came loading the gale. Breathless she gazed on the woodlands so dreary; Slowly approaching a warrior was seen; Life's ebbing tide mark'd his footsteps so weary, Cleft was his helmet, and woe was his mien.

“O, save thee, fair maid, for our armies are flying! O, save thee, fair maid, for thy guardian is low! Deadly cold on yon heath thy brave Henry is lying,

And fast through the woodland approaches the foe." Scarce could he falter the tidings of sorrow,

And scarce could she hear them, benumb'd with despair:

And when the sun sunk on the sweet lake of Toro,
For ever he set to the Brave and the Fair.
ggg 28*

HELLVELLYN.

In the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Hellvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier-bitch, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

I CLIMB'D the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn, Lakes and mountains beneath me gleam'd misty and wide;

All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around me the echoes replied.
On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was
bending,

And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,
When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer
had died.

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountainheather,

Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretch'd in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandon'd to weather, Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst

thou start?

How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, oh, was it meet, that,-no requiem read o'er him,-
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before him,-
Unhonour'd the Pilgrim from life should depart?

When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;

In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming; Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, When wilder'd he drops from some cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the grey plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

THE POACHER.

WELCOME, grave Stranger, to our green retreats,
Where health with exercise and freedom meets!
Thrice welcome, Sage, whose philosophic plan
By nature's limits metes the rights of man;
Generous as he, who now for freedom bawls,
Now gives full value for true Indian shawls;
O'er court, o'er customhouse, his shoe who flings,
Now bilks excisemen, and now bullies kings.
Like his, I ween, thy comprehensive mind
Holds laws as mouse-traps baited for mankind;
Thine eye, applausive, each sly vermin sees,
That balks the snare, yet battens on the cheese;
Thine ear has heard, with scorn instead of awe,
Our buckskinn'd justices expound the law,
Wire-draw the acts that fix for wires the pain,
And for the netted partridge noose the swain;
And thy vindictive arm would fain have broke
The last light fetter of the feudal yoke,
To give the denizens of wood and wild

Nature's free race, to each her free-born child.
Hence hast thou mark'd, with grief, fair London's race,
Mock'd with the boon of one poor Easter chase,
And long'd to send them forth as free as when
Pour'd o'er Chantilly the Parisian train,
When musket, pistol, blunderbuss, combined,
And scarce the field-pieces were left behind!