O holy image of the Son of God! Bearing his cross up toilsome Calvary! Was that stern path for sinful mortals trod? Ah me! can sorrow such fair image bring -Methinks from that calm cheek, and pity-Laden with all the glories of the spring, Before a mourner's eyes! Methinks I see,
ing eye Uplifted to that grim and wrathful sky, (Dim for our sakes with a celestial tear) Falls a sweet smile where Vernon's relics lie In mortal stillness on the unmoving bier! Seeming the bright spring-morn of heaven's eternal year.
-Down, down within oblivion's darksome brink
With lingering motion, as if every hand Were loth to let the mournful burden sink, The coffin disappears! The weeping band, All round that gulf one little moment stand In mute and black dismay—and scarcely know What dire event Has happen'd! the loose sand From the vault-stone with dull drop sounds below,-
The grave's low hollow voice hath told the tale of woe!
Look for the last time down that cold damp gloom; Of those bright letters take a farewell-sight! -Down falls the vault-stone on the yawning tomb,
And all below is sunk in sudden night! Now is the chapel-aisle with sunshine bright,
Balm, brightness, music, a resplendent tree, Waving its blossom❜d branches gloriously Over a sunny garden of delight! A cold north-wind comes wrathful from the
And there at dawn of day a rueful sight! As winter brown and sere the glory once so bright.
But as aloft it burn'd resplendently, At once it faded from the face of even, As oft before the nightly wanderer's eye A star on which he gaz'd drops sudden from the sky!
Who comes to break my dreams? The chapel-door
Is opening slow, and that old Man appears With his long floating locks so silvery-hoar! His frame is crouching, as if twenty years Had pass'd in one short day! There are no tears On his wan wrinkled face, or hollow eyes! At last with pain his humbled head he rears, And asks, while not one grief-chok'd voice replies,
Show me the very stone 'neath which my Henry lies!
He sees the scatter'd dust-and down he falls Upon that pavement with a shuddering groan; And with a faltering broken voice he calls By that dear name upon his buried Son. Then dumb he lies! and ever and anon Fixes his eye-balls with a ghastly glow On the damp blackness of that hideous stone, As if he look'd it through, and saw below The dead face looking up as white as frozen snow!
O gently make way for that Lady fair! How calm she walks along the solemn aisle! Beneath the sad grace of that braided hair, How still her brow! and what a holy smile! One start she gives-and stops a little while, When bow'd by grief her husband's frame appears,
With reverend locks which the hard stones defile!
Then with the only voice that mourner hears, Lifts up his hoary head and bathes it in her tears!
At last the funeral party melts away, And as I look up from the chapel-floor, No living object can my eyes survey, Save these two childless Parents at the door, Flinging back a wild farewell—then seen no
Unto the darkness where we lately stood, And still the image of that narrow room Beneath the sunshine chills our very blood, With the damp breathless air of mortal solitude.
O band of rosy children shouting loud, With Morris-dance in honour of the May! Restrain that laughter ye delighted crowd, Let one sad hour disturb your holiday. Ye drop your flowers, and wonder who are they With garb so black and cheeks of deadly hue! With one consent then rush again to play, For what hath Sadness, Sorrow, Death to do, Beneath that sunny sky with that light- hearted crew!
And now the Parents have left far behind The gorgeous City with its groves and bowers,
The funeral toll pursues them on the wind, And looking back, a cloud of thunder lowers In mortal darkness o'er the shining towers, That glance like fire at every sunny gleam! Within that glorious scene, what hideous hours
Dragg'd their dire length! tower, palace, temple swim, Before their wilder'd brain-a grand but dreadful dream!
Say who will greet them at their Castle-gate? A silent line in sable garb array'd, The ancient servants of the House will wait! Up to those woe-worn visages afraid To lift their gaze! while on the tower displayed,
A rueful scutcheon meets the Father's eye, Hung out by death when beauty had decayed, And sending far into the sunless sky The mortal gloom that shrouds its dark emblazonry.
Oh! black as death yon pine-grove on the hill!
Yon waterfall hath now a dismal roar! Why is that little lake so sadly still, So dim the flowers and trees along the shore! "Tis not in vernal sunshine to restore And now I hear my own slow footsteps sound Their faded beauty, for the source of light Along the echoing aisle-that tread is o'er—That warm'd the primrose-bank doth flow And as with blinded eyes I turn me round, The Sexton shuts the gate that stuns with Vain Nature's power! for unto Sorrow's sight thundering sound! No dewy flower is fair, no blossomy tree is
How fresh and cheerful laughs the open air To one who has been standing by a tomb!-Five years have travell'd by-since side And yet the beauty that is glistening there Flings back th' unwilling soul into the gloom. We turn from walls which dancing rays illume
That aged pair were laid in holy ground! With them the very name of Vernon died, And now it seemeth like an alien sound,
And the forest that hung on yon mountain | Thou fling'st thy bold beauty, exulting and
Like a black thunder-cloud on the arch of O'er a pit of grim blackness, that roars like the sky,
His voyage is o'er!-As if struck by a spell
He motionless stands in the hush of the dell, There softly and slowly sinks down on his breast, In the midst of his pastime enamour'd of rest. A stream in a clear pool that endeth its
A dancing ray chain'd to one sunshiny place— A cloud by the winds to calm solitude driven-
E'en now, in the pomp of their prime, IA hurricane dead in the silence of heaven!
O'erhanging the desert the forests of old! So gorgeous their verdure, so solemn their shade,
The sunlight is on A glimmering glow,
When the billows
Like the heavens above them, they never may fade. them—in silence they sleep- like the breast of the deep, scarce heave in the calmness of morn. Glen-Etive the tempest is borne, swinging, and roars with a sound In the heart of the forest embosom'd profound. Till all in a moment the tumult is o'er, And the mountain of thunder is still as the shore
-Down the pass of
And the hill-side is
When the sea is at ebb; not a leaf nor a
Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee! Magnificent prison enclosing the free! With rock-wall encircled-with precipice crown'd-
Which, awoke by the sun, thou can'st clear at a bound.
'Mid the fern and the heather kind Nature doth keep One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep ; And close to that covert, as clear as the skies When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies, Where the creature at rest can his image behold
Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold! How lonesome! how wild! yet the wildness is rife With the stir of enjoyment-the spirit of life. To disturb the wild solitude, steadfast as The glad fish leaps up in the heart of the lake, Whose depths, at the sullen plunge, sullenly quake!
From his eyrie the eagle hath soar'd with a scream, And I wake on the edge of the cliff from my dream;
-Where now is the light of thy far-beaming brow?
Fleet son of the wilderness! where art thou now?
Elate on the fern-branch the grasshopper sings,
And away in the midst of his roundelay springs;
'Mid the flowers of the heath, not more bright than himself,
The wild-bee is busy, a musical elf— Then starts from his labour, unwearied and gay,
-Again o'er yon crag thou returnst to my | And, circling the antlers, booms far far away. While high up the mountains, in silence remote,
Like the horns of the moon from a cloud
'Mid the mist stealing up from the cataract's And proud in his heart of the mountainous
He lifts his calm eye to the eagle and raven, At noon sinking down on smooth wings to their haven,
As if in his soul the bold Animal smil'd To his friends of the sky, the joint-heirs of the wild.
Yes! fierce looks thy nature, ev'n hush'd in repose- In the depth of thy desert regardless of foes. Thy bold antlers call on the hunter afar With a haughty defiance to come to the war! No outrage is war to a creature like thee! The bugle-horn fills thy wild spirit with glee, As thou bearest thy neck on the wings of the wind,
And the laggardly gaze-hound is toiling behind.
In the beams of thy forehead that glitter with death,
In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath,- In the wide-raging torrent that lends thee its roar,- In the cliff that once trod must be trodden
Thy trust-'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign! -But what if the stag on the mountain be slain? On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay Like a victor that falls at the close of the day-
While hunter and hound in their terror retreat
From the death that is spurn'd from his furious feet: And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies,
As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.
High life of a hunter! he meets on the hill The new waken'd daylight, so bright and so still;
In splendour the tents on the green summit stood,
And brightly they shone from the glade in the wood,
And, silently built by a magical spell, The pyramid rose in the depth of the dell. All mute was the palace of Lochy that day, When the king and his nobles-a gallant array-
To Gleno or Glen-Etive came forth in their pride, And a hundred fierce stags in their solitude died.
Not lonely and single they pass'd o'er the height-
But thousands swept by in their hurricane- flight; And bow'd to the dust in their trampling tread Was the plumage on many a warrior's head. "Fall down on your faces!-the herd is at hand!"
And feels, as the clouds of the morning unroll, The silence, the splendour, ennoble his soul. Tis his o'er the mountains to stalk like a ghost, Enshrouded with mist, in which nature is lost, Till he lifts up his eyes, and flood, valley, and height, In one moment all swim in an ocean of light; While the sun, like - a glorious banner Like the voice of the
-And onwards they came like the sea o'er the sand; Like the snow from the mountain when loosen'd by rain, And rolling along with a crash to the plain; Like a thunder-split oak-tree, that falls in one shock
Seems to wave o'er a new, more magnificent So sudden, so loud,
Tis his-by the mouth of some cavern his
The lightning of heaven to hold at his feet, While the thunder below him that growls from the cloud,
To him comes on echo more awfully loud.
arms from the top of the rock, sky, when the black cloud is near, came the tempest of
Wild mirth of the desert! fit pastime for kings!
Which still the rude Bard in his solitude
sings. Oh reign of magnificence! vanish'd for ever! Like music dried up in the bed of a river,
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