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Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces,
Thus circled round with merry faces.

Backward coil'd, and crouching low,
With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe,
The housewife's spindle whirling round,
Or thread, or straw, that on the ground
Its shadow throws, by urchin sly
Held out to lure thy roving eye;
Then onward stealing, fiercely spring
Upon the futile, faithless thing.

Now, wheeling round, with bootless skill,

Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still,
As oft beyond thy curving side

Its jetty tip is seen to glide;

Till, from thy centre starting fair,
Thou sidelong rear'st, with rump in air,
Erected stiff, and gait awry,

Like madam in her tantrums high:
Though ne'er a madam of them all,
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall,
More varied trick and whim displays,
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze.

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The featest tumbler, stage-bedight,
To thee is but a clumsy wight,
Who every limb and sinew strains
To do what costs thee little pains;
For which, I trow, the gaping crowd
Requites him oft with plaudits loud.
But, stopp'd the while thy wanton play,
Applauses, too, thy feats repay:

For then beneath some urchin's hand,
With modest pride thou tak'st thy stand,
While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along thy back and tabby sides.
Dilated swells thy glossy fur,
And loudly sings thy busy pur,
As, timing well the equal sound,
Thy clutching feet bepat the ground,
And all their harmless claws disclose,
Like prickles of an early rose;

While softly from thy whisker'd cheek
Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.

But not alone by cottage fire Do rustics rude thy feats admire; The learned sage, whose thoughts explore The widest range of human lore, Or, with unfetter'd fancy, fly Through airy heights of poesy, Pausing, smiles with alter'd air To see thee climb his elbow-chair, Or, struggling on the mat below, Hold warfare with his slipper'd toc.

The widow'd dame, or lonely maid,
Who in the still, but cheerless shade
Of home unsocial, spends her age,
And rarely turus a letter'd page;
Upon her hearth for thee lets fall
The rounded cork, or paper-ball,
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch
The ends of ravell'd skein to catch,
But lets thee have thy wayward will,
Perplexing oft her sober skill.
Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent,
In lonely tower or prison pent,
Reviews the coil of former days,
And loathes the world and all its ways;
What time the lamp's unsteady gleam
Doth rouse him from his moody dream,
Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat,
His heart with pride less fiercely beat,
And smiles, a link in thee to find
That joins him still to living kind.

Whence hast thou, then, thou witless Puss,
The magic power to charm us thus?
Is it that, in thy glaring eye,
And rapid movements, we descry,
While we at ease, secure from ill,
The chimney-corner snugly fill,
A lion, darting on the prey,
A tiger, at his ruthless play?
Or is it that in thee we trace,
With all thy varied wanton grace,
An emblem view'd with kindred eye,
Of tricksy, restless infancy?
Ah! many a lightly sportive child,
Who hath, like thee, our wits beguiled,
To dull and sober manhood grown,
With strange recoil our hearts disown.
Even so, poor Kit! must thou endure,
When thou becomest a cat demure,
Full many a cuff and angry word,
Chid roughly from the tempting board;
And yet, for that thou hast, I ween,
So oft our favor'd playmate been,

Soft be the change which thou shalt prove,
When time hath spoil'd thee of our love;
Still be thou deem'd, by housewife fat,
A comely, careful, mousing cat,
Whose dish is, for the public good,
Replenish'd oft with savory food.

Nor, when thy span of life is past,
Be thou to pond or dunghill cast;
But gently borne on good man's spade,
Beneath the decent sod be laid,
And children show, with glistening eyes,
The place where poor old Pussy lies.

MORNING SONG.

Up! quit thy bower; late wears the hour; Long have the rooks caw'd round thy tower; On flower and tree loud hums the bee; The wilding kid sports merrily: A day so bright, so fresh, so clear, Showeth when good fortune's near.

Up! lady fair, and braid thy hair,
And bathe thee in the breezy air;
The rolling stream that soothed thy dream
Is dancing in the sunny beam;

And hours so sweet, so bright, so gay,
Will waft good fortune on its way.

Up! time will tell: the friar's bell
Its service sound hath chimed well;
The aged crone keeps house alone,
And reapers to the fields are gone;
The active day, so fair and bright,
May bring good fortune ere the night.

MY LOVE IS ON HER WAY.

Oh welcome bat and owlet gray, Thus winging low your airy way! And welcome moth and drowsy fly, That to mine ear come humming by! And welcome shadows dim and deep, And stars that through the pale sky peep; Oh welcome all! to me ye say

My woodland love is on her way.

Upon the soft wind floats her hair,
Her breath is on the dewy air;
Her steps are in the whisper'd sound
That steals along the stilly ground.
Oh dawn of day, in rosy bower,
What art thou to this witching hour?
Oh noon of day, in sunshine bright,
What art thou to this fall of night?

FAME.

Oh! who shall lightly say, that Fame
Is nothing but an empty name!
Whilst in that sound there is a charm
The nerves to brace, the heart to warm,

As, thinking of the mighty dead,

The young from slothful couch will start, And vow, with lifted hands outspread, Like them to act a noble part?

Oh! who shall lightly say that Fame
Is nothing but an empty name!
When, but for those, our mighty dead,
All ages past a blank would be,
Sunk in oblivion's murky bed,

A desert bare, a shipless sea?
They are the distant objects seen,-
The lofty marks of what hath been.
Oh! who shall lightly say that Fame
Is nothing but an empty name!
When memory of the mighty dead

To earth-worn pilgrim's wistful eye
The brightest rays of cheering shed,
That point to immortality?

A BATTLE-FIELD.

So thus ye lie, who, with the morning sun,
Rose cheerily, and girt your armor on

With all the vigor, and capacity,

And comeliness of strong and youthful men.

Ye also, taken in your manhood's wane,

With grizzled pates, from mates, whose wither'd hands

For some good thirty years had smoothed your couch:
Alas! and ye whose fair and early growth

Did give you the similitude of men

Ere your fond mothers ceased to tend you still,

As nurselings of their care, ye lie together.

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Oh! there be some

Whose writhed features, fix'd in all the strength
Of grappling agony, do stare upon you,

With their dead eyes half open'd.

And there be some struck through with bristling darts,
Whose clenched hands have torn the pebbles up;

Whose gnashing teeth have ground the very sand.
Nay, some I've seen among those bloody heaps,
Defaced and 'reft e'en of the form of men,
Who in convulsive motion yet retain

Some shreds of life more horrible than death.

Elhwald.

DAVID MACBETH MOIR, 1798-1851.

To few writers of the present century has English poetry been more indebted than to David Macbeth Moir, not only for his own productions, but for his genial and discriminating criticism on the poetry of others. He was born at Musselburg, about six miles south-cast of Edinburgh, on the 5th of January, 1798. From

the schools of his native town, he passed to the University of Edinburgh, where he pursued his medical studies with diligence and success. Having received the diploma of a surgeon, he established himself in that capacity in his native place, where he soon acquired an extensive practice.

Dr. Moir was but about nineteen years of age when he committed his first verses to the press in the pages of Blackwood's Magazine, under the signature of the Greek letter, (A,) and hence the title of "Delta" was usually given to him in the literary world. Mr. Blackwood at once saw the great merits of his new contributor, and earnestly desired a continuance of his favors; and accordingly, for the period of more than thirty years, he continued to enrich the pages of that Magazine with a series of poems, which would be remarkable, were it for nothing but the profusion with which they were poured forth. But they possessed many and high qualities-a great command of language and numbers, a delicate and graceful fancy, and a sweet, pure vein of tenderness and pathos. "Delta," wrote Professor Wilson, "has produced many original pieces, which will possess a permanent place in the poetry of Scotland. Delicacy and grace characterize his happiest compositions; some of them are beautiful, and others breathe the simplest and purest pathos." Not less decisive is the praise of Lord Jeffrey :-"I cannot," he writes to our author, "resist the impulse of thanking you with all my heart for the deep gratification you have afforded me, and the soothing, and I hope 'bettering,' emotions which you have excited. I am sure that what you have written is more genuine pathos than any thing, almost, I have ever read in verse, and is so tender and true, so sweet and natural, as to make all lower recommendations indifferent."

Though often urged to remove to Edinburgh to practise his profession, Dr. Moir could not bring himself to forsake his native place, where he felt that the poor had a special claim upon him. Of his profession he took a high estimate, regarding it less as the means for securing competency for himself than as an art which he was privileged to practise for the good of his fellow-men, and for the alleviation of their sufferings; and numerous sacrifices did he make, and many dangers did he incur, to carry aid and consolation to those who had no other claim upon him except their common humanity.

In 1831, Dr. Moir published his "Outlines of the Ancient History of Medicine, being a view of the Progress of the Healing Art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabians," a work of great research and diversified erudition. In 1843, he published his "Domestic Verses," which were received with great favor and passed through numerous editions. In 1851, he delivered a course of "Six Lectures at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution on the Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century," which were soon after published. It would be difficult to speak of these in terms of too high praise, for I know not where, in so small a compass, may be found so much sound criticism and judicious reflections upon the Poets of Great Britain of the Nineteenth Century.' In July, 1851, appeared the "Lament of Selim," Delta's last contribution to Blackwood's Maga

I am happy to acknowledge my obligations to these "Lectures" in this revised edition of my English Literature.

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