NEWTOWN RAMBLES, AND RECOLLECTIONS.

NUMBER I.

The Lawn.

Your fair expanse, sweet Lawn, I relish ;
We seem not cabin'd, or bound in : *
Trees, in well-sprinkled tufts, embellish;
And many a hare-form lurks within.

On southern limit swelling finely,

To view-commanding crest you rise: Blue Lake beneath, you look divinely, Deepening the azure of the skies.+

On our east gate a golden glow

Behold, autumnal evening sheds :
O'er neighbouring lodge, and portico,
The mellow lustre warmly spreads;

While towers above each old Ash-Tree,
(Already old, when I was young,)
In shadowy resplendency :‡

Gigantic group, how long unsung!

* Now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in.

Macbeth.

+ Making that azure, as reflected, appear deeper than it is. + Composed of gleam and darkness.

Rooks, in hoarse chorus, hover o'er ;
(Dark swarm, I like its sound and sight ;)
They dip, they wheel, they caw, they soar;
Then drop, and settle for the night.

Turn, gentle hermit,'—to the vale

That courts your eye: Glenisk its name :-
Or would you wait, till moonlight pale

Each silvery glimpse, each shadow claim?

When Fairies trip their mystic round,
To strains of airy minstrelsy;

And gliding phantoms cross the ground,
Beneath whose verdure warriors lie. *

Then through its leafy cloister stray;
Then to its tinkling streamlet listen;
While, as small pebbly shoals delay,
Its tiny surges chide and glisten.t

Shrink not from yon Cathedral Alley,
Tho' sprite-foreboding title scares ;

This Lion of our little valley

Lives on good terms with all its hares.

* In trenching for trees, on the borders of Glenisk, several human bones were found; and the tradition has always been, that this place was the scene of a sharp action.

In the moon-beams.

A church, or cathedral seems no unlikely place for encountering a spectre. Cathedral Alley received its title from its namesake friend.

Now issuing on the lawn again,*
The lake's small length before you lies:
Its southern verge a grassy plain;

While to the north-pine skirtings rise.

Our saunterer gliding into these,
(The vista-walk his homeward way,)
Of Lake on left-blue glimpses sees,
And hears its little cascade play.

But, ere we sunk into the vista,

(Just at the rustic bridge, I mean,) Companion Stroller, had you miss'd a Lawn-view, that merits to be seen?

Plain, upland-swell, lake, clump, and glade,
And grove embosom'd dwelling there,

Soft mingled mass of light and shade,
Verdure, and privacy, appear.

Comrade of mine, we have gone back:
This we Patricians call digression;

For sons of Erin have a knack,
At catachresist of expression.

* From Glenisk, which is a sort of appendage to the Lawn. A figure of Rhetoric which admits of being translated Bull.

Now straightway, vista-line resuming,
(Long half-mile walk would lead astray,)
"Homeward,”—while all around is blooming,
Who deems we "plod a weary way ?”*

To versify yon safe, I ween

Taste, Tact, Discretion may refuse: The subject would be somewhat mean; And tending to degrade the Muse.

But Beech-walk, verdurous, gothic aisle,
Are you forgotten? This were wrong:
No, leafy vista: wait awhile;

Dear Kate will decorate with song.

And, Rambler, mark'd you the Parterre,
Or flower-knot, which we pass'd anon?
Its walks, clipp'd hedges, bloom-fraught air,
So balmy, she shall rhyme upon.

Well! we are now at home, betimes :

Have your walks tired you? or my rhymes ?

*The Ploughman homeward plods his weary way.-Gray.

E

NUMBER II.

THE BIG MEADOW,

Full many a restless year hath fled, O
Lawn, since thy name was "The Big Meadow.'
There frogs I chased; or flew my kite;

Or fish'd thy stream, with keen delight.
An osier twig, a thread, a worm,
Child's angling apparatus form;
While all the dabbling urchins win, O
Prize of small value! is a minnow;
Or (as in Irish phrase, I ween
We wont to call it,) a pinkeen.
In thy expanse, at "hide and seek,"
Hear me the well-known signal squeak,
From sheltering skirts of rushy brook,
Or brake of furze, exclaiming " Cook !"
And, that "my whereabout" be miss'd,
Instinctively ventriloquist.
Yon rising hill the furze supplies;
While reedy jungle lake-ward lies:"
But, Reader, let me whisper thee;

*

I mean where our lake was to be.

* And therefore squeaking, in order that the sound may seem to issue

from a different quarter from that from which it really does come.