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Then o'er the mourner and the dead,
And o'er the good man dying,

My song should come like buds and flowers,
When music warbles flying.

O that a wing of splendour,

Like yon wild cloud, were mine!

Yon bounteous cloud, that gets to give,
And borrows to resign!

On that bright wing, to climes of spring
I'd bear all wintry bosoms,

And bid hope smile on weeping thoughts,
Like April on her blossoms;

Or like the rainbow, laughing
O'er Rivilin and Don,

When misty morning calleth up

Her mountains, one by one,

While glistening down the golden broom,
The gem-like dew-drop raineth,

And round the little rocky isles
The little wave complaineth.

O that the truth of beauty

Were married to my rhyme!

That it might wear a mountain charm
Until the death of Time!

Then, Ribbledin! would all the best
Of Sorrow's sons and daughters
See Truth reflected in my song,
Like beauty on thy waters.

No longer, nameless streamlet,

That marriest Rivilin!

Henceforth, lone Nature's devotees
Would call thee "Ribbledin,"
Whenever, listening where thy voice
Its first wild joy expresses,
And down the rocks all wildly flows
The wildness of thy tresses.

THE MALTBY YEWS.

FAMED Maltby Yews, with trunks like stone!
Are you or these grey rocks the older?
Like "death-in-life," ye strangely grow,
And, dead alive, they sternly moulder.
Memorials grand of death and life,
That seem from time new life to borrow!
Full many a race have ye outlived

Of men whose lives were crime and sorrow.

Age after age, while Time grew old,

Your writhen boughs, here, slowly lengthen'd;
Storm-stricken trees! your stormy strength

Five hundred years have darkly strengthen'd.
Yet safe beneath your mighty roots
The busy bee hath made its dwelling;
And, at your feet, the little mouse,
With lifted hands, its joy is telling.

And, high above the full-voiced lark,
The sun that loves to see you, beameth
On lonely rock or mossy trunk,
That with the rock coeval seemeth;
While, all around, the desert flowers,
Where breezes drink their freshness, gather,
As children come to kneel and bend
In prayer around their father's father.

O could I write upon your gloom
A solemn verse that would not perish,
My written thoughts should warn and bless,
And nations saved the precept cherish;
For I would bid the dark and strong
Be greatly good, and daily stronger,
That power to wrong, and will to wrong,
Like fiends divorced, might pair no longer.

BURNS.

THAT heaven's beloved die early,
Prophetic Pity mourns;

But old as Truth, although in youth,

Died giant-hearted Burns.

O that I were the daisy

That sank beneath his plough,

Or, "neighbour meet," that "skylark sweet!” Say, are they nothing now?

66

That mouse, our fellow mortal,"

Lives deep in Nature's heart; Like earth and sky, it cannot die Till earth and sky depart.

Thy Burns, child-honour'd Scotland!

Is many

minds in one;

With thought on thought, the name is fraught Of glory's peasant son.

Thy Chaucer is thy Milton,

And might have been thy Tell;

As Hampden fought, thy Sidney wrote
And would have fought as well.

Be proud, man-childed Scotland!
Of earth's unpolish'd gem;

And "Bonny Doon," and "heaven aboon,"
For Burns hath hallow'd them.

Be proud, though sin dishonour'd,
And grief baptized thy child;
As rivers run, in shade and sun,
He ran his courses wild.

Grieve not, though savage forests

Look'd grimly on the wave,

Where dim-eyed flowers and shaded bowers Seem'd living in the grave.

Grieve not, though, by the torrent,

Its headlong course was riven,

When o'er it came, in clouds and flame,

Niagara from heaven!

For sometimes gently flowing,

And sometimes chafed to foam,
O'er slack and deep, by wood and steep,
He sought his heavenly home.

VOL. II.

G

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