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النشر الإلكتروني

Tunstall lies dead upon the field;
His life-blood stains the spotless shield:
Edmund is down-my life is reft;
The Admiral alone is left.

Let Stanley charge with spur of fire-
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.

Must I bid twice? Hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone-to die.'
They parted, and alone he lay;
Clare drew her from the sight away,
Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmured: 'Is there none,
Of all my halls have nursed,

Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring
Of blessed water from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst!'

O woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou !—
Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the baron's casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran :
Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears;
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.

She stooped her by the runnel's side,

But in abhorrence backward drew; For, oozing from the mountain side, Where raged the war, a dark red tide

Was curdling in the streamlet blue.
Where shall she turn?-behold her mark
A little fountain-cell,

Where water, clear as diamond spark,
In a stone basin fell.

Above, some half-worn letters say,

Drink, weary. pilgrim. drink. and . pray, For. the. kind, soul, of. Sybil. Grey. Tho. built. this. cross. and, well.

She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied

A monk supporting Marmion's head;
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,

To shrieve the dying, bless the dead.
Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave,
And, as she stooped his brow to lave-
'Is it the hand of Clare,' he said,
'Or injured Constance, bathes my head ?'
Then as remembrance rose-
'Speak not to me of shrift or prayer!
I must redress her woes.

Short space, few words, are mine to spare;
Forgive and listen, gentle Clare!'

'Alas!' she said, 'the while

O think of your immortal weal!
In vain for Constance is your zeal ;
She died at Holy Isle.'

Lord Marmion started from the ground,
As light as if he felt no wound;
Though in the action burst the tide,
In torrents, from his wounded side.
'Then it was truth!'-he said-'I knew
That the dark presage must be true.
I would the Fiend, to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs,
Would spare me but a day!
For wasting fire, and dying groan,
And priests slain on the altar-stone,
Might bribe him for delay.

It may not be !-this dizzy trance-
Curse on yon base marauder's lance,

And doubly cursed my failing brand!
A sinful heart makes feeble hand.'
Then, fainting, down on earth he sunk,
Supported by the trembling monk.

With fruitless labour Clara bound,
And strove to stanch, the gushing wound:
The monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the church's prayers;
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,

And that the priest he could not hear,
For that she ever sung,

'In the lost battle, borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the
dying!

So the notes rung;

'Avoid thee, Fiend!-with cruel hand,

Shake not the dying sinner's sand!-
O look, my son, upon yon sign
Of the Redeemer's grace divine;
O think on faith and bliss!

By many a death-bed I have been,
And many a sinner's parting seen,

But never aught like this.'

The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering, swelled the gale,
And 'Stanley!' was the cry;

A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye :

With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted Victory!—

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!'
Were the last words of Marmion.

We may contrast with this the silent and appalling death-scene of Roderick Dhu, in the Lady of the Lake. The savage chief expires while listening to a tale chanted by the bard or minstrel of his clan:

At first, the chieftain to his chime,
With lifted hand, kept feeble time;
That motion ceased; yet feeling strong,
Varied his look as changed the song:
At length no more his deafened ear
The minstrel's melody can hear;

His face grows sharp; his hands are clenched,
As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched;
Set are his teeth, his fading eye

Is sternly fixed on vacancy.

Thus, motionless and moanless, drew

His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu.

The Lady of the Lake is more richly picturesque than either of the former poems, and the plot is more regular and interesting. The subject,' says Sir James Mackintosh, 'is a common Highland irruption; but at a point where the neighbourhood of the Lowlands affords the best contrast of manners-where the scenery affords the noblest subject of description-and where the wild clan is so near to the court, that their robberies can be connected with the romantic adventures of a disguised king, an exiled lord, and a high-born beauty. The whole narrative is very fine.' It was the most popular of the author's poems in a.few months twenty thousand copies were sold, and the district where the action of the poem lay was visited by countless thousands of tourists. With this work closed the great popularity of Scott as a poet. Rokeby, a tale of the English Cavaliers and Roundheads, was considered a failure, though displaying

the utmost art and talent in the delineation of character and passion. Don Roderick is vastly inferior to Rokeby; and Harold and Triermain are but faint copies of the Gothic epics, however finely finished in some of the tender passages. The Lord of the Isles is of a higher mood. It is a Scottish story of the days of Bruce, and has the characteristic fire and animation of the minstrel, when, like Rob Roy, he has his foot on his native heath. Bannockburn may be compared with Flodden Field in energy of description, though the poet is sometimes lost in the chronicler and antiquary. The interest of the tale is not well sustained throughout, and its chief attraction consists in the descriptive powers of the author, who, besides his feudal halls and battles, has drawn the magnificent scenery of the West Highlandsthe cave of Staffa, and the dark desolate grandeur of the Coriusk lakes and mountains-with equal truth and sublimity. The lyrical pieces of Scott are often very happy. The old ballad strains may be said to have been his original nutriment as a poet, and he is consequently often warlike and romantic in his songs. But he has also gaiety, archness, and tenderness, and if he does not touch deeply the heart, he never fails to paint to the eye and imagination.

The Sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill.
The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill,
In Ettrick's vale is sinking sweet;
The westland wind is hush and still,
The lake lies sleeping at my feet.
Yet not the landscape to mine eye

Bears those bright hues that once it bore; Though evening, with her richest dye,

Flames o'er the hills of Ettrick's shore.

With listless look along the plain,

I see Tweed's silver current glide, And coldly mark the holy fane

Of Melrose rise in ruined pride.

The quiet lake, the balmy air,

The hill, the stream, the tower, the treeAre they still such as once they were, Or is the dreary change in me?

Alas, the warped and broken board,

How can it bear the painter's dye?
The harp of strained and tuneless chord,
How to the minstrel's skill reply?
To aching eyes each landscape lowers,

To feverish pulse each gale blows chill; And Araby's or Eden's bowers

Were barren as this moorland hill.

Coronach.-From the Lady of the Lake'
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing,

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.

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Hymn of the Hebrew Maid.-From Ivanhoe.
When Israel, of the Lord beloved,

Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze,

Forsaken Israel wanders lone ;
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.

1 Or corri, the hollow side of the hill where game usually lies.

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POETS.

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

And oh, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn.
But Thou hast said, 'The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.'

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

Scott retreated from poetry into the wide and open field of prose fiction as the genius of Byron began to display its strength and fertility. A new, or at least a more finished, nervous, and lofty style of poetry was introduced by the noble author, who was as much a mannerist as Scott, but of a different school. He excelled in painting the strong and gloomy passions of our nature, contrasted with feminine softness and delicacy. Scott, intent upon the development of his plot, and the chivalrous machinery of his Gothic tales, is seldom personally present to the reader. Byron delighted in selfportraiture. His philosophy of life was false and pernicious; but the splendour of the artist concealed the deformity of his design. Parts were so nobly finished, that there was enough for admiration to rest upon, without analysing the whole. He conducted his readers through scenes of surpassing beauty and splendour-by haunted streams and mountains, enriched with the glories of ancient poetry and valour; but the same dark shadow was ever by his side-the same scorn and mockery of human hopes and ambition. The sententious force and elevation of his thoughts and language, his eloquent expression of sentiment, and the mournful and solemn melody of his tender and pathetic passages, seemed, however, to do more than atone for his want of moral truth and reality. The man and the poet were so intimately blended, and the spectacle presented by both was so touching, mysterious, and lofty, that Byron concentrated a degree of interest and anxiety on his successive public appearances. which no author ever before was able to boast. Scott had created the public taste for animated poetry, and Byron, taking advantage of it, soon engrossed the whole field. For a few years it seemed as if the world held only one great poet. The chivalry of Scott, the philosophy of Wordsworth, the abstract theory and imagination of Southey, and even the lyrical beauties of Moore and Campbell, were for a time eclipsed by this new and greater light. The rank, youth, and misfortunes of Byron, his exile from England, the mystery which he loved to throw around his history and feelings, the apparent depth of his sufferings and attachments, and his very misanthropy and scepticism-relieved by bursts of tenderness and pity, and by the incidental expression of high and holy feelings-formed a combination of personal circumstances in aid of the legitimate effects of his passionate and graceful poetry, which is unparalleled in the history of modern literature. Such a result is even more wonderful than the laurelled honours awarded to Virgil and Petrarch, if we consider the difference between ancient and

modern manners, and the temperament of the
northern nations compared with that of the 'sunny
Has the glory
south.' Has the spell yet broke?
faded into the common light of day?' Un-
doubtedly the later writings of the noble bard
helped to dispel the illusion. To competent
observers, these works added to the impression of
Byron's powers as an original poet, but they
tended to exorcise the spirit of romance from his
name and history; and what Don Juan failed to
effect, was accomplished by the biography of
Moore. His poetry, however, must always have
a powerful effect on minds of poetical and warm
sensibilities. If it is a 'rank unweeded garden,'
it also contains glorious fruits and plants of
The art of the poet will be a study
celestial seed.
for the ambitious few; his genius will be a source
of wonder and delight to all who love to con-
template the workings of human passion, in
solitude and society, and the rich effects of taste
and imagination.

The incidents of Byron's life may be briefly
related. He was born in Holles Street, London,
on the 22d of January 1788, the only son of
Captain John Byron of the Guards, and Catherine
Gordon of Gight, an Aberdeenshire heiress. The
lady's fortune was soon squandered by her prof-
ligate husband, and she retired to the city of
The little lame
Aberdeen, to bring up her son on a reduced
income of about £130 per annum.
boy, endeared to all in spite of his mischief, suc-
ceeded his grand-uncle, William, Lord Byron, in
his eleventh year; and the happy mother sold off
her effects-which realised just £74, 175. 4d.-
and left Aberdeen for Newstead Abbey. The
seat of the Byrons was a large and ancient, but
dilapidated structure, founded as a priory in the
twelfth century by Henry II., and situated in the
On the dissolution
midst of the fertile and interesting district once
known as Sherwood Forest.
of the monasteries, it was conferred by Henry
VIII. on Sir John Byron, steward of Manchester
and Rochdale, who converted the venerable con-
vent into a castellated mansion. The family was
ennobled by Charles I., in consequence of high
and honourable services rendered to the royal
cause during the Civil War. On succeeding to
the title, Byron was put to a private school at
Dulwich, and from thence he was sent to Harrow.
During his minority, the estate was let to another
party, but its youthful lord occasionally visited the
seat of his ancestors; and whilst there in 1803, he
conceived a passion for a young lady in the
neighbourhood, who, under her name of Mary
Chaworth, has obtained a poetical immortality.
So early as his eighth year, Byron fell in love with
a simple Scottish maiden, Mary Duff; and hear-
ing of her marriage, several years afterwards, was,
he says, like a thunder-stroke to him. He had
also been captivated with a boyish love for his
cousin, Margaret Parker, one of the most beauti-
ful of evanescent beings,' who died about a year
or two afterwards. He was fifteen when he met
Mary Chaworth, and 'conceived an attachment
which, young as he was even then for such a feel-
ing, sunk so deep into his mind as to give a
colour to all his future life.' The father of the
lady had been killed in a duel by Lord Byron, the
eccentric grand-uncle of the poet, and the union
of the young peer with the heiress of Annesley
Hall would,' said Byron, 'have healed feuds in

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