With garlands deck your own Menander's head,
Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead.
Dear are the days which made our annals bright,
Ere Garrick fled or Brinsley ceased to write,
Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs,
Vain of our ancestry, as they of theirs.
While thus remembrance borrows Banquo's glass
To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass,
And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine
Immortal names, emblazoned on our line,
Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn,
Reflect how hard the task to rival them.
Friends of the stage-to whom both players and plays,
Must sue alike for pardon or for praise,
Whose judging voice and eye alone direct
The boundless power to cherish or reject,
If e'er frivolity has led to fame,
And made us blush that you forbore to blame;
If e'er the sinking stage could condescend
To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend,
All past reproach may present scenes refute,
And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute,—
Oh! since your fiat stamps the drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause-
So pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
And Reason's voice be echoed back by ours-
This greeting o'er-the ancient rule obeyed,
The Drama's homage by her herald paid,
Receive our welcome too-whose every tone
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises-May our stage unfold
Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old
Britons our judges, Nature for our guide,
Still may we please, long-long may you preside.
SPOKEN BY MRS SIDDONS, ON LEAVING THE STAge 29th of juNE, 1812, WRITTEN BY HORACE TWISS, ESQ.
WHO has not felt, how growing use endears
The fond remembrance of our former years?
Who has not sigh'd, when doom'd to leave at last
The hopes of youth, the habits of the past,
The thousand ties and interests, that impart
A second nature to the human heart,
And, wreathing round it close, like tendrils, climb,
Blooming in age, and sanctified by time?
Yes! at this moment crowd upon my mind
Scenes of bright days for ever left behind,
Bewildering visions of enraptured youth,
When hope and fancy wore the hues of truth,
And long-forgotten years, that almost seem
The faded traces of a morning dream!
Sweet are those mournful thoughts: for they renew
The pleasing sense of all I owe to you-
For each inspiring smile, and soothing tear-
For those full honours of my long career,
That cheered my earliest hope, and chased my latest fear!
And though, for me, those tears shall flow no more,
And the warm sunshine of your smile is o'er,-
Though the bright beams are fading fast away
That shone unclouded through my summer-day;
Yet grateful memory shall reflect their light
O'er the dim shadows of the coming night,
And lend to later life a softer tone,
A moon-light tint, a lustre of her own.
Judges and friends! to whom the tragic strain
Of nature's feeling never spoke in vain,
Perhaps your hearts, when years have glided by,
And past emotions wake a fleeting sigh,
May think on her, whose lips have pour'd so long
The charmed sorrows of your Shakespeare's song :-
On her, who, parting to return no more,
Is now the mourner she but seemed before.-
Herself subdued, resigns the melting spell,
And breathes, with swelling heart, her long, her last farewell!
THE COTTAGE OF THE PLORA,
Author of the Legend of Iona.
The following Poem is little more than the versification of a story related as a fact by the people who live on the banks of the Plora, in the county of Selkirk.
On the smooth banks of Plora's glittering brook,
With pink-flower'd clover and blue-bells bestrewed,
Like an old Hermit of that lonely nook,
A peasant's simple Cottage long had stood,—
Fenced by a leafy crescent of green wood,-
Where the sleek magpie, and the glossy crow
Slept in their hair-built lodge without a foe.
Blest were the tenants of that green retreat-
A faithful pair, with ruddy children blest,-
Who some rode races on their mother's feet,
And some for hire their bearded father kissed;
While some, of tawnier visage than the rest,
With sickle sharp could swell the oaten sheaf,
Healing their shallow wounds with wabret leaf.
If Heaven's best blessing could be won by prayer,
Free as the dew of night it there had flowed;
If health and peace were tokens of Heaven's care,
Free as night's dew that blessing was bestowed;
For every gypsey-crew that hawked the road,
Spread fair report of the benignant lot
Which blest the tenants of that rustic Cot.
Duly, when night's oblivious reign was past,
The old man, bent on meditations high,
His motley plaid around his neck would cast,
And wander forth, with soul above the sky,
Soon as the lark its dewy wing could dry
Among the sunbeams of the middle air,
While yet no beam it shed below could share.
And duly as again the evening-dew
Began to glitter on the path of day,
Around his hearth his household group he drew,
The nightly tribute of their hearts to pay,
With chapter, psalm, and prayer, as best they may,
To that true God, in whose impartial ear
Those songs are sweetest which are most sincere.
Once it befell (as many tongues relate)
What time her dusky web the twilight weaves Those sun-burnt reapers, toiling soon and late, Had stuck their sickles in the cottage-eaves; And he, who latest still the stubble leaves, With psalm already sought, and soul composed, Impatient sat till all his circle closed.
And soon they ranked around his ingle bright,-
But one was wanting still,-of wayward moods,
A fair fantastic creature-whose delight
Was running races with the nimble floods;
Or chasing grey-winged herons through the woods;
Or echoing back the ringdove's piteous moan;
Or tempting echoes to return her own.
And now the father, fretted with delay,
This absent rambler half began to chide;
When, redder than the cheek of rising day,
"Come out, come out," the panting truant cried,While yet the door she scarce had thrown aside,—
"A lovely Lady, shining all in white,
Sails down the glen, and fills it all with light."
The old man marked his children's fluttered looks,
And would have chid them with a parent's care;
But knowing well, in spite of all rebukes,
How fluttered hearts profane the purest prayer;
And somewhat startled with his truant's air,
With all his flock his Cottage he forsook
To see this Lady wandering down the brook,
Parent and child at once the cottage fled
A precious group led by their rosy guide;
To a green height the sanguine cherub led,
From whence they viewed the country far and wide,
And wood, and glen, and brook, at once descried;
But yet they saw no valley filled with light,
Nor lovely Lady shining all in white.
Hard looks, from all, the rosy guide reviled,
Till shame and sorrow on her visage glowed;But soon they changed their mood, and blessed the child, And blessed the Saviour Lady sent from God, When, turning homeward to their rude abode, The ancient fabric of their Cot they found, A shapeless ruin, smoking on the ground!
O! blame me not if thus I do restrain
Thy wandering footsteps! thus thy wings confine!
'Tis the decreee of fate-it is not mine-
For I would let thee, Fancy, wildly stray,
Would follow gladly,-tend thee on thy way,
And never of thy vagaries complain,
Never thy wild and sportive flights disdain!
Though reasonless those sportive flights may be,
They still, alas! are passing sweet to me.
Then pity me, who am compelled to bind
This murmuring captive; one who ever strove
By each endearing act to win my love,
And ever unoffending, ever bright,
Danced in my view, and pleased me with delight;
She scattered showers of lilies on my mind,
For O! so fair, so fresh, and so refined
Her child-like offerings; without thorns to pain,
Without one cankered wound, or earthly stain !
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