88

TO A HAWK.

And, while I gaze, my spirit flies,
Free as thy wing, to distant skies;
To thyme-clad wold, and valley dear,
Where oft I've watched thy proud career.

Again around my morning way,
Gentle, yet bold, my greyhounds play;

Again, at noon I throw me down

On silver grass, or heather brown,

And gild with young, poetic eye,

The meanest flower that blossoms nigh;
Or people the wild hills again

With thousand fairy forms,-Titania's peerless train.

III.

Ah, happy home! and must it be
For aye my mournful lot

To wander, restless, far from thee,--
To wish in vain, and win thee not?
Vain hope! and merciless as vain!

I will not make thee sport again :

Like yon fierce bird, thou seem'st to shine
A star of heaven, 'midst things divine;
Drawing the wretch's heart and eye,
Then dashing down, in mockery!
I'll look no more— -I'll stoop to bear,
Patient and dull, my load of care.
My sickening heart abhors thy ray,
Which shines and lures but to betray!

Vain hope! thy fierce delusion's o'er,

Patient I'll suffer on, and look to thee no more!

BARNARD.

GLORIOUS remnant of the Gothic pile,

(While yet the church was Rome's), stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screened many an aisle ; These last had disappeared-a loss to art:

The first yet frowned superbly o'er the soil,

And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,

90

THE ABBEY ON THE SEA-SHORE.

Which mourned the power of time's or tempest's march.

In gazing on that venerable arch.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,

Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone:

But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,

But in the war which struck Charles from the throne,

When each house was a fortalice-as tell

The annals of full many a line undone,—
The gallant cavaliers who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass, of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepened glories once could enter,

Streaming from off the sun, like seraphs' wings,

Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,

The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings

The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their halleluiahs quenched like fire.

BYRON.

THE ABBEY ON THE SEA-SHORE.

Saxon strength the abbey frowned,
With massive arches broad and round,
That rose alternate, row and row,

On ponderous columns, short and low,

Built ere the art was known,

By pointed aisle, and shafted stalk,