My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild,

As best befits the mountain child,
Feel the sad influence of the hour,
And wail the daisy's vanished flower;
Their summer gambols tell, and mourn,
And anxious ask,-Will spring return,
And birds and lambs again be gay,
And blossoms clothe the hawthorn spray?

Yes, prattlers, yes. The daisy's flower Again shall paint your summer bower; Again the hawthorn shall supply The garlands you delight to tie; The lambs upon the lea shall bound, The wild birds carol to the round, And while you frolic light as they, Too short shall seem the summer day.

To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings ;1
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh! my country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;"

The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallowed tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!
Say to your sons,-Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;1
To him, as to the burning levin,

Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Where'er his country's foes were found,
Was heard the fated thunder's sound,

1 "The chance and change' of nature,-the vicissitudes which are observable in the moral as well as the physical part of the creation,-have given occasion to more exquisite poetry than any other general subject. The Author had before made ample use of the sentiments suggested by these topics; yet he is not satisfied, but begins again with the same in his first introduction. The lines are certainly pleasing; but they fall, in our estimation, far below that beautiful simile of the Tweed which he has introduced into his former poem. The Ai, ai, tai paλaxas of Moschus is, however, worked up again to some advantage in the following passage :-'To mute,' tc."-Monthly Rev. May 1808.

2 MS.-" What call awakens from the dead
The hero's heart, the patriot's head ?"
MS.-" Deep in each British bosom wrote,
O never be those names forgot!"
5 Copenhagen.
6 MS.—“ Tugg'd at subjection's cracking rein."
MS.—“Show'd their bold zeal a worthier cause.'

+ Nelson.

Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Roll'd, blazed, destroy'd,—and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perish'd worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth, And launch'd that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia," Trafalgar ; Who, born to guide such high emprize, For Britain's weal was early wise; Alas! to whom the Almighty gave, For Britain's sins, an early grave! His worth, who, in his mightiest hour, A bauble held the pride of power, Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself; Who, when the frantic crowd amain Strain'd at subjection's bursting rein, O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd, The pride, he would not crush, restrain'd, Show'd their fierce zeal a worthier cause,? And brought the freeman's arm, to aid the freeman's laws.

MS.

8 This paragraph was interpolated on the blank page of the
We insert the lines as they appear there :-
"O had he lived, though stripp'd of power,
Like a lone watchman on the tower,
His thrilling trumpet through the land
Had warn'd when foemen were at hand.
As by some beacon's lonely light,
By thee our course had steer'd aright;
Our steady course had steer'd aright;
Our pilots kept their course aright;
His single mind, unbent by fate,
Had propp'd his country's tottering weight;
tall
As some

vast}column left alone,

Had propp'd our tottering state and throne,
His strength had propp'd our tottering throne,
The beacon light is quench'd in smoke,

The warder fallen, the column broke.'

9 MS.-"Yet think how to his latest day."

Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain's thousand plains,
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallow'd day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,-
He, who preserved them, PITT, lies here!

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.2
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employ'd, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow,—
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mourn'st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be every harsher thought suppress'd,
And sacred be the last long rest.
Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke, and
sung;

Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,

As if some angel spoke agen,

"All peace on earth, good-will to men;"

1 MS." But still upon the holy day.”

If ever from an English heart,
O, here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record, that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouch'd to France's yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian's purpose brave,
Was barter'd by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour's peace he spurn'd,
The sullied olive-branch return'd,
Stood for his country's glory fast,
And nail'd her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honour'd grave,
And ne'er held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.*

With more than mortal powers endow'd,
How high they soar'd above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,5
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled Gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Look'd up the noblest of the land,

Till through the British world were known
The names of PITT and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E'er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky."
These spells are spent, and, spent with these.
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,

For ever tomb'd beneath the stone,

Where taming thought to human pride!-

The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.7

his presentation copies struck off with or without them, ac

"If genius high and judgment sound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound,
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine,
Could save one mortal of the herd

From error-Fox had never err'd."

"While Scott was correcting a second proof of the passage where Pitt and Fox are mentioned together, at Stanmore Priory, in April 1807, Lord Abercorn suggested that the compliment to the Whig statesman ought to be still further heightened, and several lines

"For talents mourn untimely lost,

When best employed, and wanted most, &c.—

were added accordingly. I have heard, indeed, that they came from the Marquis's own pen. Ballantyne, however, from some inadvertence, had put the sheet to press before the revise, as it is called, arrived in Edinburgh, and some few copies got abroad in which the additional couplets were omitted. A London journal (the Morning Chronicle) was stupid and malignant enough to insinuate that the author had

circumstance now only because I see by a letter of Heber's that Scott had thought it worth his while to contradict the absurd charge in the newspapers of the day."-LOCKHART, Life of Scott, vol. iii. p. 61.

3 MS." And party passion doff d aside." 4" The first epistolary effusion, containing a threnody on Nelson, Pitt, and Fox, exhibits a remarkable failure. We are unwilling to quarrel with a poet on the score of politics; but the manner in which he has chosen to praise the last of these great men, is more likely, we conceive, to give offence to his admirers, than the most direct censure. The only deed for which he is praised is for having broken off the negotiation for peace; and for this act of firmness, it is added, Heaven rewarded him with a share in the honoured grave of l'itt! It is then said that his errors should be forgotten, and that he died a Briton-a pretty plain insinuation that, in the author's opinion, he did not live one; and just such an encomium as he himself pronounces over the grave of his villain hero. Marmion."-JEFFREY.

5 MS.-" Theirs was no common courtier race.'
6 MS." And force the pale moon from the sky."
7" Reader! remember when thou wert a lad,
Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much,
His very rival almost deem'd him such.

Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
Twill trickle to his rival's bier;
O'er PITT's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,
"Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom,
Whom Fate made Brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen?"

Rest, ardent Spirits! till the cries
Of dying Nature bid you rise;

Not even your Britain's groans can pierce
The leaden silence of your hearse;
Then, O, how impotent and vain
This grateful tributary strain!

Though not unmark'd from northern clime,
Ye heard the Border Minstrel's rhyme:
His Gothic harp has o'er you rung;

The Bard you deign'd to praise, your deathless names has sung.

Stay yet, illusion, stay a while,
My wilder'd fancy still beguile !

From this high theme how can 1 part,
Ere half unloaded is my heart!
For all the tears e'er sorrow drew,
And all the raptures fancy knew,
And all the keener rush of blood,

That throbs through bard in bard-like mood,
Were here a tribute mean and low,
Though all their mingled streams could flow-
Woe, wonder, and sensation high,
In one spring-tide of ecstasy !—
It will not be it may not last-
The vision of enchantment's past:
Like frostwork in the morning ray,
The fancied fabric melts away;1
Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone,
And long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone;
And, lingering last, deception dear,
The choir's high sounds die on my ear.
Now slow return the lonely down,
The silent pastures bleak and brown,
The farm begirt with copsewood wild,
The gambols of each frolic child,
Mixing their shrill cries with the tone
Of Tweed's dark waters rushing on.

Prompt on unequal tasks to run,
Thus Nature disciplines her son:
Meeter, she says, for me to stray,
And waste the solitary day,

In plucking from yon fen the reed,
And watch it floating down the Tweed;
Or idly list the shrilling lay,

With which the milkmaid cheers her way,
Marking its cadence rise and fail,
As from the field, beneath her pail,
She trips it down the uneven dale:
Meeter for me, by yonder cairn,
The ancient shepherd's tale to learn;
Though oft he stop in rustic fear,
Lest his old legends tire the ear
Of one, who, in his simple mind,
May boast of book-learn'd taste refined.

But thou, my friend, can'st fitly tell, (For few have read romance so well,) How still the legendary lay O'er poet's bosom holds its sway; How on the ancient minstrel strain Time lays his palsied hand in vain; And how our hearts at doughty deeds, By warriors wrought in steely weeds, Still throb for fear and pity's sake; As when the Champion of the Lake Enters Morgana's fated house, Or in the Chapel Perilous, Despising spells and demons' force, Holds converse with the unburied corse; Or when, Dame Ganore's grace to move, (Alas, that lawless was their love!) He sought proud Tarquin in his den, And freed full sixty knights; or when, A sinful man, and unconfess'd, He took the Sangreal's holy quest, And, slumbering, saw the vision high, He might not view with waking eye.1

The mightiest chiefs of British song Scorn'd not such legends to prolong: They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme; And Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the Table Round again," But that a ribald King and Court Bade him toil on, to make them sport;

We, we have seen the intellectual race
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face;
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea
Of eloquence between, which flow'd all free,
As the deep billows of the Ægean roar
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.
But where are they-the rivals!-a few feet
Of sullen earth divide each winding-sheet.
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave
Which hushes all! a calm unstormy wave
Which oversweeps the world. The theme is old

Of dust to dust;' but half its tale untold;
Time tempers not its terrors."————

BYRON'S Age of Bronze.

1 "If but a beam of sober reason play,
Lo! Fancy's fairy frost work melts away."
ROGERS' Pleasures of Memory.

2 MS.-"Though oft he stops to wonder still

That his old legends have the skill

To win so well the attentive ear,
Perchance to draw the sigh or tear."

8 See Appendix, Note A 4 Ibid, Note B. 5 Ibid, Note C.

Demanded for their niggard pay,
Fit for their souls, a looser lay,

Licentious satire, song, and play;'

The world defrauded of the high design,"

Profaned the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.

Warm'd by such names, well may we then, Though dwindled sons of little men, Essay to break a feeble lance

In the fair fields of old romance;

Or seek the moated castle's cell,

Where long through talisman and spell,
While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept,
Thy Genius, Chivalry, hath slept:
There sound the harpings of the North,
Till he awake and sally forth,
On venturous quest to prick again,
In all his arms, with all his train,3

Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf,
Fay, giant, dragon, squire, and dwarf,
And wizard with his wand of might,
And errant maid on palfrey white.
Around the Genius weave their spells,
Pure Love, who scarce his passion tells;
Mystery, half veil'd and half reveal'd;
And Honour, with his spotless shield:
Attention, with fix'd eye; and Fear,
That loves the tale she shrinks to hear;
And gentle Courtesy; and Faith,
Unchanged by sufferings, time, or death;
And Valour, lion-mettled lord,
Leaning upon his own good sword.

O'er Horncliff-hill a plump' of spears,

Beneatl: a pennon gay;

A horseman, darung from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade,
That closed the Castle barricade,

His bugle horn he blew;
The warder hasted from the wall,

And warn'd the Captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call,
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

IV.

"Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe,

And quickly make the entrance free,
And bid my heralds ready be,
And every minstrel sound his glee,
And all our trumpets blow;

And, from the platform, spare ye not
To fire a noble salvo-shot;

Lord MARMION waits below!" Then to the Castle's lower ward Sped forty yeomen tall, The iron-studded gates unbarr'd, Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard, The lofty palisade unsparr'd

And let the drawbridge fall.

V.

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddlebow;
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalworth knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been;
The scar on his brown cheek reveal'd3
A token true of Bosworth field;
His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire,
Show'd spirit proud, and prompt to ire;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
His forehead, by his casque worn bare,
His thick mustache, and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,
But more through toil than age;

His square-turn'd joints, and strength of limb,
Show'd him no carpet knight so trim,
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage."

VI.

Well was he arm'd from head to heel,
In mail and plate of Milan steel;5
But his strong helm, of mighty cost,
Was all with burnish'd gold emboss'd;

Amid the plumage of the crest,

A falcon hover'd on her nest,

With wings outspread, and forward breast; E'en such a falcon, on his shield,

Soar'd sable in an azure field:

The golden legend bore aright,

Who checks at me, to death is dight."
Blue was the charger's broider'd rein;
Blue ribbons deck'd his arching mane

The knightly housing's ample fold
Was velvet blue, and trapp'd with gold.

VII.

Behind him rode two gallant squires,
Of noble name, and knightly sires;
They burn'd the gilded spurs to claim;
For well could each a war-horse tame,
Could draw the bow, the sword could sway,
And lightly bear the ring away;

Nor less with courteous precepts stored,
Could dance in hall, and carve at board,
And frame love-ditties passing rare,
And sing them to a lady fair.

VIII.

Four men-at-arms came at their backs,
With halbert, bill, and battle-axe:
They bore Lord Marmion's lance so strong,"

And led his sumpter-mules along,
And ambling palfrey, when at need
Him listed ease his battle-steed.
The last and trustiest of the four,
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like swallow's tail, in shape and hue,
Flutter'd the streamer glossy blue,
Where, blazon'd sable, as before,
The towering falcon seem'd to soar.
Last, twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hosen black, and jerkins blue,

light and sinewy a cavalier as the Borderer-rather less ferocious-more wicked, not less fit for the hero of a ballad, and much more so for the hero of a regular poem."-GEORGE ELLIS.