SAINT CLOUD.

[Paris, 5th September, 1815.]

SOFT spread the southern summer night
Her veil of darksome blue;
Ten thousand stars combined to light
The terrace of Saint Cloud.

The evening breezes gently sigh'd,

Like breath of lover true,

Bewailing the deserted pride

And wreck of sweet Saint Cloud.

The drum's deep roll was heard afar,
The bugle wildly blew
Good-night to Hulan and Hussar,
That garrison Saint Cloud.

The startled Naiads from the shade
With broken urns withdrew,

And silenced was that proud cascade,
The glory of Saint Cloud.

We sate upon its steps of stone,

Nor could its silence1 rue,
When waked, to music of our own,

The echoes of Saint Cloud.

Slow Seine might hear each lovely note
Fall light as summer dew,

While through the moonless air they float,
Prolong'd from fair Saint Cloud.

And sure a melody more sweet

His waters never knew,

Though music's self was wont to meet
With Princes at Saint Cloud.

Nor then, with more delighted ear,
The circle round her drew,

Than ours, when gather'd round to hear
Our songstress at St Cloud.

Few happy hours

poor mortals pass,

Then give those hours their due,
And rank among the foremost class
Our evenings at Saint Cloud.

3 [These lines were written after an evening spent at Saint Cloud with the late Lady Alvanley and her daughters, one of whom was the songstress alluded to in the text.]

THE

DANCE OF DEATH.

I.

NIGHT and morning 2 were at meeting
Over Waterloo ;

Cocks had sung their earliest greeting;
Faint and low they crew,

For no paly beam yet shone

On the heights of Mount Saint John;
Tempest-clouds prolong'd the sway
Of timeless darkness over day;
Whirlwind, thunder-clap, and shower,
Mark'd it a predestined hour.

Broad and frequent through the night

Flash'd the sheets of levin-light;

1 [Originally published in 1815, in the Edinburgh Annual Re

Muskets, glancing lightnings back,
Show'd the dreary bivouack
Where the soldier lay,

Chill and stiff, and drench'd with rain,
Wishing dawn of morn again,

Though death should come with day.

II.

'Tis at such a tide and hour,

Wizard, witch, and fiend, have power,
And ghastly forms through mist and shower
Gleam on the gifted ken;

And then the affrighted prophet's ear
Drinks whispers strange of fate and fear
Presaging death and ruin near

Among the sons of men ;—

Apart from Albyn's war-array,
"Twas then grey Allan sleepless lay;
Grey Allan, who, for many a day,
Had follow'd stout and stern,
Where, through battle's rout and reel,
Storm of shot and hedge of steel,

Led the grandson of Lochiel,

Valiant Fassiefern.

Through steel and shot he leads no more,
Low laid 'mid friends' and foemen's gore-
But long his native lake's wild shore,
And Sunart rough, and high Ardgower,
And Morven long shall tell,