At sunset with what eager feet I hastened on to thee! Scarce nine days passed us ere we met Thy face was so familiar grown, I felt a pride to name thy name, And burning blushes speak my shame I felt I then thy heart did share, But much I doubt if thou couldst spare Oh! what is now my name to thee, Perhaps a jest in hours of glee, To please some idle ear. Though all the gilded finery That passed for truth is gone! Ere the world smiled upon my lays, But now methinks thy fervent love When last thy gentle cheek I prest, Literary Souvenir. BOLTON ABBEY. THIS is the loveliest scene in all the land; - Come stealing through the hazel boughs, that cross And in the distance, in its boiling might, The fatal fall is seen, the thundering STRID;And over all, the morning blue and bright! TO THE MEMORY OF HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. BY J. H. WIFFEN, ESQ. WHY, when the souls we loved are fled, To spread a leaf, for ever green,- It is that we would thence create It is, to hallow-whilst regret To sanctify upon the earth The glory of departed worth. Such, and so fair, in day's decline The hues which Nature gives; Yet-yet-though suns have ceased to shine, Her fair creation lives: With loved remembrances to fill The mind, and tender grief instil, Dim radiance still survives; And lovelier seems that lingering light, Else, why when rifled stands the tower, Why does she give her ivy-vine To glory's shade an ampler span! Still o'er thy temples and thy shrines, Of beauty in repose: Though all thy oracles be dumb, To claim a fond-regretful sigh, Still, Egypt, tower thy sepulchres Which hearse the thousand bones Still frowns, by shattering years unrent, By monarchs crowned, by shepherds trod, They were the mighty of the world,— Their breath the flag of blood unfurled, And gave the battle birth; They lived to trample on mankind, And in their ravage leave behind The impress of their worth: And wizard rhyme, and hoary song, But thou, mild benefactor - thou, To whom on earth were given The sympathy for others' woe, The charities of heaven;- They live not in the sepulchre In which thy dust is hid, Though there were kindlier hands to rear Thy simple pyramid, Than Egypt's mightiest could commandA duteous tribe, a peasant band Who mourned the rites they didMourned that the cold turf should confine A spirit kind and pure as thine! They are existent in the clime Thy pilgrim-steps have trod, Where Justice tracks the feet of Crime, Are thy memorials in the skies, The portals of thy paradise. Thine was an empire o'er distress, Thy name, through every future age, In glory shall be shrined! Whilst other NIELDS and CLARKSONS show That still thy mantle rests below. |