All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step and musing gait ;
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast:

And join with thee, calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing:
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,

In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er th' accustom'd oak;

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among

I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm;
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:

And of those Demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous tragedy

In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,

Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.
But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musæus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string.
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek.
Or call up him that left half tald
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,

That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and inchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus night oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited morn appear,

Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,

But kerchef'd in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,

Or usher'd with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring

With such consort as they keep,

Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep;

And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream

Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid.

And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy,

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come thou Goddess fair and free,
In heav'n y-clep'd Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister graces more,

To ivy-crown'd Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying;
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go,

On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty:
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine.
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:

Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some Beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;

And then in haste the bow'r she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead,
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound

To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,

Till the live-long daylight fail;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd, and pull'd, she said,
And he by friars' lanthorn led,
Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend

To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
And smear with dust their glittering golden
towers;

To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,
To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs,
To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;

To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled,
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
And waste huge stones with little water-drops.
SHAKSPEARE.

WILLIAM GUTHRIE.

[Rev. Edward Irving, born in Annan, Dumfriesshire, 1792; died in Glasgow, 6th December, 1834. Distinguished chiefly as the originator of the sect called, after him, Irvingites. His principal published works are: For the Oracles of God-Four Orations; For Judgment to Come: Babylon and Infidelity Foredoomed of God; Sermons, Lectures, and Occasional Discourses, &c. The following sketch is taken from the Anniversary, edited by Allan Cunningham, and is written in the form of a letter to a friend (Cunningham.)]

There is nothing for which I envy former times more than for this, that their information was conveyed from one to another so much by word of mouth, and so little by written letters and printed books. For though the report might chance to take a fashion and a mould from the character of the reporter, still it was the fashion and the mould of a living, feeling, acting man; a friend, haply a father, haply a venerable ancestor, haply the living chronicler of the country round. The information thus acquired lives embalmed in the most precious associations which bind youth to age -inexperienced ignorant youth, to wise and narrative old age. And to my heart, much exercised in early years with such traditionary memorials of the pious fathers of our brave and religious land, I know not whether it be more pleasant to look back upon the ready good-will, the heartfelt gladness, with which the venerable sires and mothers of our dales consented to open the mystery of past times-the story of ruined halls, the fates of decayed families, the hardships and mortal trials of persecuted saints and martyrs; or to remember the deep hold which their words took, and the awful impression which they made, upon us whom they favoured with the tale. Of their many traditions which I have thus received, I select for your use one of the most pious and instructive, as well as the most romantic and poetical. Now, I have such a reverence for the traditions of past times, that you may depend upon my faith as a Christian man and a minister, that I have invented nothing and altered nothing in what I am about to relate, whether as to the manner of my receiving the story, or as to the story itself.

A branch of my mother's family who lived in Nithsdale, and whom you knew well as distinguished amongst the clergy of that district for faithfulness, had cultivated the most intimate brotherhood with another family, likewise of the Scottish clergy, who, when the

father died, betook themselves to Glasgow, where the blessing of God continued to rest upon the widow and the fatherless. When about to repair to that city, to serve our distinguished countryman, my dear and honoured master, Dr. Chalmers, I received a charge from my mother's aunt, now with the Lord, not to fail to pay my respects to the old lady and her children, of whom I had seen the only daughter when on a visit to our part of the country. Thus intrusted with the precious charge of an old and faithful family friendship, and with this also for my only introduction, I proceeded to the house of the old lady and inquired for her daughter. The servant who admitted me, mistaking my inquiry as if it had been for the old lady herself, showed me into a large apartment; and deeming, I suppose, that I was well acquainted with her mistress, she shut the door and went away.

When I looked around, expecting some one to come forward to receive me, I saw no one but a venerable old woman, seated at the further end of the room, who neither spoke nor removed from her seat, but sat still looking at her work, as if the door had not been opened and no one had entered; of which, indeed, I afterwards found she was not conscious, from her great infirmity of deafness. I had therefore time to observe and contemplate the very picturesque and touching figure which was before me. She sat at her spinning-wheel, all dressed in black velvet, with a pure white cap upon her head, an ancient plaited ruff about her neck, and white ruffles round her wrists, from under which appeared her withered hands, busily employed in drawing the thread, which her eyesight was too feeble to discern. For as I had now drawn near, I observed that her spinning-wheel was of the upright construction, having no heck, but a movable eye which was carried along the pirn by a heart-motion. She afterwards told me that it had been constructed on purpose to accommodate her blindness, under the direction of her son, a gentleman in a high office in London: for she had so much difficulty in reading, and was so dull of hearing, that it was a great relief to her solitude to employ herself with a spinning-wheel, which also preserved her habits of early industry, and made her feel that she was not altogether useless in the world. I felt too much reverence for this venerable relic of a former generation that was now before me, to stand by, curiously perusing, though I was too much impressed immediately to speak; besides feeling a little embarrassed how I should make my approach to a stranger for whom I instinctively felt so