VALEDICTORY STANZAS TO J. P. KEMBLE, ESQ.

PRIDE of the British stage,

A long and last adieu!
Whose image brought the heroic age
Revived to fancy's view
Like fields refresh'd with dewy light
When the sun smiles his last,
Thy parting presence makes more bright
Our memory of the past;
And memory conjures feelings up
That wine or music need not swell,
As high we lift the festal cup

To Kemble! fare thee well!
His was the spell o'er hearts
Which only acting lends,—
The youngest of the sister arts,
Where all their beauty blends:
For ill can poetry express

Full many a tone of thought sublime,
And painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance of time.
But by the mighty actor brought,
Illusion's perfect triumphs come-
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And sculpture to be dumb.
Time may again revive,

But ne'er eclipse the charm,
When Cato spoke in him alive,
Or Hotspur kindled warm.
What soul was not resign'd entire

To the deep sorrows of the Moor,-
What English heart was not on fire
With him at Agincourt?
And yet a majesty possess'd

His transport's most impetuous tone,
And to each passion of his breast

The graces gave their zone.
High were the task-too high,
Ye conscious bosoms here!

In words to paint your memory
Of Kemble and of Lear;

But who forgets that white discrowned head, Those bursts of reason's half-extinguish'd glare

Those tears upon Cordelia's bosom shed,
In doubt more touching than despair,

If 'twas reality he felt?

Had Shakspeare's self amidst you been, Friends, he had seen you melt,

And triumph'd to have seen!

And there was many an hour
Of blended kindred fame,
When Siddon's auxiliar power
And sister magic came.
Together at the Muse's side

The tragic paragons had grown-
They were the children of her pride,

The columns of her throne, And undivided favour ran

From heart to heart in their applause, Save for the gallantry of man,

In lovelier woman's cause.

Fair as some classic dome,
Robust and richly graced,
Your Kemble's spirit was the home
Of genius and of taste:-
Taste like the silent dial's power,
That when supernal light is given,
Can measure inspiration's hour,
And tell its height in heaven.
At once ennobled and correct,
His mind survey'd the tragic page,
And what the actor could effect,
The scholar could presage.

These were his traits of worth:-
And must we lose them now!
And shall the scene no more show forth
His sternly pleasing brow!

Alas, the moral brings a tear!

"Tis all a transient hour below; And we that would detain thee here, Ourselves as fleetly go!

Yet shall our latest age

This parting scene review :Pride of the British stage,

A long and last adieu!

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR bugles sang truce-for the night-cloud had lower'd

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,

The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn-and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me
back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was

young;

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers

sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never

to part;

My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart.

Stay, stay with us-rest, thou art weary and worn, And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

DESCRIPTION OF WYOMING.

Ox Susquehana's side, fair Wyoming! Although the wild-flower on thy ruin'd wall And roofless homes, a sad remembrance bring Of what thy gentle people did befall; Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore. Sweet land! may I thy lost delights recall, And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore, Whose beauty was the love of Pennsylvania's shore! Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies, The happy shepherd swains had naught to do But feed their flocks on green declivities, Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe From morn, till evening's sweeter pastime grew, With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown, Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew, And aye those sunny mountains half-way down Would echo flageolet from some romantic town. Then, where on Indian hills the daylight takes His leave, how might you the flamingo see Disporting like a meteor on the lakesAnd playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree: And every sound of life was full of glee, From merry mock-bird's song, or hum of men; While, hearkening, fearing naught their revelry, The wild deer arch'd his neck from glades, and then Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again. And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime Heard, but in transatlantic story sung, For here the exile met from every clime, And spoke in friendship every distant tongue: Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung, Were but divided by the running brook; And happy where no Rhenish trumpet rung, On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook, The blue-eyed German changed his sword to pruning-hook.

Nor far some Andalusian saraband Would sound to many a native roundelayBut who is he that yet a dearer land Remembers, over hills and far away? Green Albin! what though he no more survey Thy ships at anchor on the quiet shore, Thy pellochs rolling from the mountain bay, Thy lone sepulchral cairn upon the moor, And distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan roar!

Alas! poor Caledonia's mountaineer,
That want's stern edict e'er, and feudal grief,
Had forced him from a home he loved so dear!
Yet found he here a home, and glad relief,
And plied the beverage from his own fair sheaf,
That fired his Highland blood with mickle glee:
And England sent her men, of men the chief,
Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be,
To plant the tree of life,—to plant fair Freedom's
tree!

Here was not mingled in the city's pomp
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal tromp,
Nor seal'd in blood a fellow-creature's doom,

Nor mourn'd the captive in a living tomb. One venerable man, beloved of all, Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom, To sway the strife, that seldom might befall: And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.

DIRGE OF OUTALISSI.

AND I could weep!--the Oneyda chief
His descant wildly thus begun :-
But that I may not stain with grief

The death-song of my father's son,

Or bow his head in wo!
For by my wrongs, and by my wrath!
To-morrow Areouski's breath

(That fires yon heaven with storms of death) Shall light us to the foe;

And we shall share, my Christian boy,
The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy!
But thee, my flower, whose breath was given
By milder genii o'er the deep,
The spirits of the white man's heaven
Forbid not thee to weep:-

Nor will the Christian host,
Nor will thy father's spirit grieve,
To see thee, on the battle's eve,
Lamenting, take a mournful leave

Of her who loved thee most:
She was the rainbow to thy sight;
Thy sun-thy heaven-of lost delight!
To-morrow let us do or die!

But when the bolt of death is hurl'd,
Ah! whither then with thee to fly,
Shall Outalissi roam the world?

Seek we thy once-loved home?
The hand is gone that cropt its flowers:
Unheard their clock repeats its hours;
Cold is the hearth within their bowers!
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes, and its empty tread,
Would sound like voices from the dead!

Or shall we cross yon mountains blue,
Whose streams my kindred nation quaff'd?
And by my side, in battle true,

A thousand warriors drew the shaft?
Ah! there in desolation cold,

The desert serpent dwells alone,
Where grass o'ergrows each mouldering bone;
And stones themselves, to ruin grown

Like me, are death-like old.
Then seek we not their camp,-for there-
The silence dwells of my despair!"
But hark, the trump!-to-morrow thou
In glory's fires shalt dry thy tears:
Even from the land of shadows now
My father's awful ghost appears,

Amidst the clouds that round us roll;
He bids my soul for battle thirst-
He bids me dry the last-the first-
The only tears that ever burst

From Outalissi's soul;
Because I may not stain with grief
The death-song of an Indian chief!

THE FALL OF POLAND.

Oн, sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased a while, And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, When leagued oppression pour'd to Northern wars Her whisker'd pandoors and her fierce hussars, Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, Peal'd her loud drum, and twang'd her trumpet horn;

Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van,
Presaging wrath to Poland-and to man!

Warsaw's last champion from her height survey'd,
Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid,-
Oh, heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save!-
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high!
And swear for her to live!—with her to die!

He said, and on the rampart-heights array'd His trusty warriors, few but undismay'd; Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm; Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly, Revenge, or death,-the watch-word and reply ; Then peal'd the notes, omnipotent to charm, And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm!

In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few! From rank to rank your volley'd thunder flew :Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her wo! Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear, Closed her bright eye, and curb'd her high career;— Hope for a season, bade the world farewell, And Freedom shriek'd-as Kosciusko fell!

HOHENLINDEN.

Ox Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light

The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast array'd,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neigh'd

To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rush'd the steed to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven,

Far flash'd the red artillery.

And redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun,

Shout in their sulphurous canopy. The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave! Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave! And charge with all thy chivalry! Few, few shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet, Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

CAROLINE.

I'LL bid my hyacinth to blow,

I'll teach my grotto green to be, And sing my true love, all below

The holly bower and myrtle-tree. There, all his wild-wood scents to bring,

The sweet south wind shall wander by, And with the music of his wing

Delight my rustling canopy.

Come to my close and clustering bower,
Thou spirit of a milder clime!
Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower,
Of mountain-heath and moory thyme.

With all thy rural echoes come,

Sweet comrade of the rosy day,
Wafting the wild bee's gentle hum,
Or cuckoo's plaintive roundelay.
Where'er thy morning breath has play'd,
Whatever isles of ocean fann'd,

Come to my blossom-woven shade,
Thou wandering wind of fairy land!

For sure, from some enchanted isle,

Where heaven and love their sabbath hold, Where pure and happy spirits smile,

Of beauty's fairest, brightest mould;
From some green Eden of the deep,
Where pleasure's sigh alone is heaved,
Where tears of rapture lovers weep,
Endear'd, undoubting, undeceived;
From some sweet paradise afar,
Thy music wanders, distant, lost;
Where Nature lights her leading star,
And love is never, never cross'd.
Oh, gentle gale of Eden bowers,

If back thy rosy feet should roam,
To revel with the cloudless hours

In Nature's more propitious home, Name to thy loved Elysian groves,

That o'er enchanted spirits twine, A fairer form than cherub loves,

And let the name be Caroline.

O'CONNOR'S CHILD.

Он, once the harp of Innisfail

Was strung full high to notes of gladness;

But yet it often told a tale

Of more prevailing sadness.

Sad was the note, and wild its fall,

As winds that moan at night forlorn
Along the isles of Fion-Gael,

When for O'Connor's child to mourn,
The harper told how lone, how far
From any mansion's twinkling star,
From any path of social men,

Or voice, but from the fox's den,

The lady in the desert dwelt,

And yet no wrongs, no fear she felt:
Say, why should dwell in place so wild
The lovely, pale O'Connor's child?
Sweet lady! she no more inspires

Green Erin's heart with beauty's power, As in the palace of her sires

She bloom'd a peerless flower. Gone from her hand and bosom, gone, The regal broche, the jewell'd ring, That o'er her dazzling whiteness shone Like dews on lilies of the spring. Yet why, though fallen her brother's kerne, Beneath De Bourgo's battle stern, While yet in Leinster unexplored, Her friends survive the English sword; Why lingers she from Erin's host, So far on Galway's shipwreck'd coast; Why wanders she a huntress wildThe lovely, pale O'Connor's child? And, fix'd on empty space, why burn Her eyes with momentary wildness; And wherefore do they then return

To more than woman's mildness? Dishevell'd are her raven locks,

On Connocht Moran's name she calls;
And oft amidst the lonely rocks

She sings sweet madrigals.
Placed in the foxglove and the moss,
Behold a parted warrior's cross!
That is a spot where, evermore,
The lady, at her shieling door,
Enjoys that in communion sweet,
The living and the dead can meet:
For lo! to lovelorn fantasy,
The hero of her heart is nigh.

Bright as the bow that spans the storm,
In Erin's yellow vesture clad,
A son of light-a lovely form,
He comes and makes her glad:
Now on the grass-green turf he sits,
His tassell'd horn beside him laid;
Now o'er the hills in chase he flits,

The hunter and the deer a shade!
Sweet mourner! those are shadows vain
That cross the twilight of her brain;
Yet she will tell you she is blest,
Of Connocht Moran's tomb possess'd,
More richly than in Aghrim's bower,

When bards high praised her beauty's power,

And kneeling pages offer'd up
The morat in a golden cup.

"A hero's bride! this desert bower,
It ill befits thy gentle breeding:
And wherefore dost thou love this flower
To call My love lies bleeding?"
"This purple flower my tears have nursed;
A hero's blood supplied its bloom:

I love it, for it was the first

That grew on Connocht Moran's tomb.
O, hearken, stranger, to my voice;
This desert mansion is my choice;
And blest, though fatal, be the star
That led me to its wilds afar:
For here these pathless mountains free
Gave shelter to my love and me;
And every rock and every stone
Bore witness that he was my own.
"O'Connor's child, I was the bud

Of Erin's royal tree of glory;
But wo to them that wrapt in blood
The tissue of my story!
Still as I clasp my burning brain,

A death-scene rushes on my sight;
It rises o'er and o'er again,

The bloody feud-the fatal night,
When chafing Connocht Moran's scorn,
They call'd my hero basely born,
And bade him choose a meaner bride
Than from O'Connor's house of pride.
Their tribe, they said, their high degree,
Was sung in Tara's psaltery;
Witness their Eath's victorious brand,
And Cathal of the bloody hand,-
Glory (they said) and power and honour
Were in the mansion of O'Connor;
But he, my loved one, bore in field
A meaner crest upon his shield.
"Ah, brothers! what did it avail

That fiercely and triumphantly
Ye fought the English of the pale,
And stemm'd De Bourgo's chivalry?
And what was it to love and me

That barons by your standard rode;
Or beal-fires, for your jubilee,

Upon a hundred mountains glow'd?
What though the lords of tower and dome
From Shannon to the North-sea foam,-
Thought ye your iron hands of pride
Could break the knot that love had tied?
No-let the eagle change his plume,
The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom;
But ties around this heart were spun,
That could not, would not, be undone.
"At bleating of the wild watch fold

Thus sang my love-O, come with me,
Our bark is on the lake: behold,

Our steeds are fasten'd to the tree.
Come far from Castle-Connor's clans-
Come with thy belted forestere,
And I beside the lake of swans

Shall hunt for thee the fallow deer,
And build thy hut and bring thee home
The wild fowl and the honeycomb;

And berries from the wood provide,
And play my clarshech by thy side.
Then come, my love!'-How could I stay?
Our nimble stag-hounds track'd the way,
And I pursued, by moonless skies,
The light of Connocht Moran's eyes.

"And fast and far, before the star

Of dayspring rush'd me through the glade, And saw at dawn the lofty bawn Of Castle Connor fade. Sweet was to us the hermitage

Of this unplough'd, untrodden shore:
Like birds all joyous from the cage,

For man's neglect we loved it more.
And well he knew, my huntsman dear,
To search the game with hawk and spear;
While I, his evening food to dress,
Would sing to him in happiness.
But oh, that midnight of despair!
When I was doom'd to rend my hair:
The night, to me, of shrieking sorrow!
The night, to him, that had no morrow!
"When all was hush'd at eventide,

I heard the baying of their beagle:
Be hush'd!' my Connocht Moran cried,
'Tis but the screaming of the eagle.'
Alas! 'twas not the eyrie's sound,

Their bloody bands had track'd us out:
Up-listening starts our couchant hound,-

And hark! again that nearer shout Brings faster on the murderers. Spare-spare him-Bazil-Desmond fierce!' In vain-no voice the adder charms; Their weapons cross'd my sheltering arms: Another's sword has laid him low

Another's and another's;

And every hand that dealt the blow

Ah me! it was a brother's!
Yes, when his moanings died away,
Their iron hands had dug the clay,
And o'er his burial turf they trod,
And I beheld-O God! O God!
His life-blood oozing from the sod!
"Warm in his death-wounds sepulchred,
Alas! my warrior's spirit brave
Nor mass nor ulla-lulla heard,

Lamenting soothe his grave.
Dragg'd to their hated mansion back,
How long in thraldom's grasp I lay
I know not, for my soul was black,

And knew no change of night or day.
One night of horror round me grew;
Or if I saw, or felt, or knew,
'Twas but when those grim visages,
The angry brothers of my race,
Glared on each eyeball's aching throb,
And check'd my bosom's power to sob;
Or when my heart with pulses drear,
Beat like a death-watch to my ear.

"But Heaven, at last, my soul's eclipse
Did with a vision bright inspire:

I woke, and felt upon my lips
A prophetess's fire.

Thrice in the east a war-drum beat,

I heard the Saxon's trumpet sound,
And ranged as to the judgment seat

My guilty, trembling brothers round.
Clad in the helm and shield they came;
For now De Bourgo's sword and flame
Had ravaged Ulster's boundaries,
And lighted up the midnight skies.
The standard of O'Connor's sway
Was in the turret where I lay:
That standard, with so dire a look,

As ghastly shone the moon and pale,
I gave that every bosom shook
Beneath its iron mail.

"And go! I cried, the combat seek:
Ye hearts that unappalled bore
The anguish of a sister's shriek,
Go-and return no more!
For sooner guilt the ordeal brand
Shall grasp unhurt, then ye shall hold
The banner with victorious hand,

Beneath a sister's curse unroll'd.
O stranger! by my country's loss!
And by my love! and by the cross!
I swear I never could have spoke
The curse that sever'd nature's yoke;
But that a spirit o'er me stood,

And fired me with the wrathful mood;
And frensy to my heart was given,
To speak the malison of Heaven.

"They would have cross'd themselves all mute, They would have pray'd to burst the spell But at the stamping of my foot

Each hand down powerless fell!
And go to Athunree! I cried;
High lift the banner of your pride!
But know that where its sheet unrolls
The weight of blood is on your souls!
Go where the havoc of your kerne
Shall float as high as mountain fern!
Men shall no more your mansion know!
The nettles on your hearth shall grow!
Dead as the green, oblivious flood,

That mantles by your walls, shall be
The glory of O'Connor's blood!

Away! away to Athunree!

Where downward when the sun shall fall
The raven's wing shall be your pall;

And not a vassal shall unlace

The vizor from your dying face!

"A bolt that overhung our dome

Suspended till my curse was given,
Soon as it pass'd these lips of foam
Peal'd in the blood-red heaven.
Dire was the look that o'er their backs
The angry parting brothers threw ;
But now, behold! like cataracts,

Come down the hills in view
O'Connor's plumed partisans,
Thrice ten Innisfallian clans

Were marching to their doom:
A sudden storm their plumage toss'd,
A flash of lightning o'er them cross'd,
And all again was gloom;