Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, Lamenting a chief of the people should fall. But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature, To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb; When, wilder'd he drops from some cliff huge in stature, And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, A SCENE IN BRANKSOME TOWER. MANY a valiant knight is here; Bards long shall tell, How Lord Walter fell! Can piety the discord heal, Or stanch the death-feud's enmity? In mutual pilgrimage, they drew; For chiefs, their own red falchions slew, While Cessford owns the rule of Car, While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott, The slaughter'd chiefs, the mortal jar, The havoc of the feudal war, Shall never, never be forgot! Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent: Her son lisp'd from the nurse's knee"And, if I live to be a man, My father's death revenged shall be !" Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek. FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. ENCHANTRESS, farewell! who so oft has decoy'd me, At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam, Where the forester, lated, with wonder espied me Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home. Farewell! and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking, The language alternate of rapture and wo; Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking The pang that I feel at our parting can know. Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow, Or pale disappointment to darken my way, What voice was like thine, that could sing of to morrow, Till forgot in the strain was the grief of to-day! But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning, The grief, queen of numbers, thou canst not assuage; Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet re maining, The languor of pain, and the chillness of age. "T was thou that once taught me, in accents bewailing, To sing how a warrior lay stretch'd on the plain; And a maiden hung o'er him with aid unavailing, And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain : As vain those enchantments, O queen of wild numbers, To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o'er, And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers,Farewell then, enchantress! I meet thee no more! MELROSE ABBEY. If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, When the broken arches are black in night, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; JAMES MONTGOMERY. JAMES MONTGOMERY is the most popular of the religious poets who have written in England since the time of CoWPER, and he is more exclusively the poet of devotion than even the bard of Olney. Probably no writer is less indebted to a felicitous selection of subjects, since the themes of nearly all his longer productions are unpleasing and unpoetical; but for half a century he has been slowly and constantly increasing in reputation, and he has now a name which will not be forgotten, while taste and the religious sentiment exist together. Mr. MONTGOMERY is the oldest son of a Moravian clergyman, and was born at Irvine, in Scotland, on the fourth of November, 1771. At a very early age he was placed by his parents, who had determined to educate him for the Moravian ministry, at one of the seminaries of their church, where he remained ten years. At the end of this period, he decided not to study the profession to which he had been destined, and was in consequence placed with a shopkeeper in Yorkshire. Ill satisfied with his employment, he abandoned it at the end of a few months, and when but sixteen made his first appearance in London, with a manuscript volume of poems, of which he vainly endeavoured to procure the publication. In 1792 he went to Sheffield, where he was soon after engaged as a writer for a weekly gazette published by a Mr. Gales, and in 1794, on the flight of his employer from England to avoid a political prosecution, he himself became publisher and editor, and changing the name of the paper to "The Iris," conducted it with much taste, ability, and moderation. It was still, however, obnoxious to the government, and Mr. MONTGOMERY was prosecuted for printing in it a song commemorative of the destruction of the Bastile, fined twenty pounds, and imprisoned three months in York Castle. On resuming his editorial duties he carefully avoided partisan politics, but after a brief period he was arrested for an offensive passage in an account which he gave of a riot in Sheffield, and was again imprisoned. It was during 10 his second imprisonment, that he wrote his Prison Amusements, which appeared in 1797. From this time his poems followed each other in rapid succession. In 1805 he published the Ocean, in 1806 the Wanderer of Switzerland, in 1810 the West Indies, in 1812 the World before the Flood, in 1819 Greenland, in 1822 Songs of Zion, in 1827 the Pelican Island, and in 1835 A Poet's Portfolio, or Minor Poems. Beside these, he has written Songs to Foreign Music, and several smaller volumes of miscellaneous pieces. Mr. MONTGOMERY had published but few of these works before his reputation was established as a poet of a high order. The Wanderer of Switzerland was severely criticised in the Edinburgh Review, and the West Indies was received by the critics with less favour than it merited. Greenland was more popular than his earlier works; the subject more in unison with his devotional cast of thought; and the poem is full of graphic descriptions, and rich and varied imagery. The patient and earnest labours of the Moravian missionaries are described in it with a sympathetic and genuine enthusiasm. The minor poems of Mr. MONTGOMERY, his little songs and cabinet pieces, will be the most frequently read, and the most generally admired. They have the antique simplicity of pious GEORGE WITHERS, a natural unaffected earnestness, joined to a pure and poetical diction, which will secure to them a permanent place in English literature. The character of his genius is essentially lyrical; he has no dramatic power, and but little skill in narrative. His longest and most elaborate works, though they contain beautiful and touching reflections, and descriptions equally distinguished for minuteness, fidelity, and beauty, are without incident or method; but his shorter pieces are full of devotion to the Creator, sympathy with the suffering, and a cheerful, hopeful philosophy. Mr. MONTGOMERY is now seventy-four years of age. He resides in Sheffield, where he is regarded by all classes with respect and affection. G 73 For friendship's gold. "Seek the true treasure, seldom found, Of power the fiercest griefs to calm; And soothe the bosom's deepest wound With heavenly balm. "Did WOMAN's charm thy youth beguile,And did the fair one faithless prove? Hath she betray'd thee with a smile, And sold thy love? "LIVE! "Twas a false bewildering fire; Too often love's insidious dart Thrills the fond soul with wild desire,But kills the heart. "Thou yet shall know how sweet, how dear, To gaze on listening beauty's eye; To ask, and pause in hope and fear Till she reply. THE head that oft this pillow press'd, My friend was young, the world was new; On Helicon's inspiring brink, And dives among the deepest strings; Ah! then no more his smiling hours And reason rose upon his mind, Then Nature's charms his heart possess'd, Kind as the tear in Pity's eye, So sweetly, exquisitely wild. It spake the Muse of Sorrow's child. O Pillow! then, when light withdrew, Soon from those waking dreams he woke, The fairy spell of fancy broke; In vain he breathed a soul of fire Stript of his fondest, dearest claim, While deep he cherish'd in his breast Whate'er those pangs from me conceal'd, FRIENDS. FRIEND after friend departs; That finds not here an end; Were this frail world our only rest, Living, or dying, none were blest. Beyond the flight of Time, Beyond this vale of death, There surely is some blessed clime Where life is not a breath, Nor life's affections transient fire, Whose sparks fly upward to expire. There is a world above, Where parting is unknownA whole eternity of love, Form'd for the good alone; And faith beholds the dying here Translated to that happier sphere. Thus star by star declines, Nor sink those stars in empty night, DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF AMERICA. THEN first Columbus, with the mighty hand He heard the voice, he saw the face, of God. The Hesperian isles, from distance dimly blue, Vain, visionary hope! rapacious Spain And steel'd to cruelty by lust of gold, they trod; [God. They worshipp'd Mammon while they vow'd to Let nobler bards in loftier numbers tell How Cortez conquer'd, Montezuma fell; How fierce Pizarro's ruffian arm o'erthrew The sun's resplendent empire in Peru; How, like a prophet, old Las Casas stood,' And raised his voice against a sea of blood, Whose chilling waves recoil'd, while he foretold His country's ruin by avenging gold. -That gold, for which unpitied Indians fell, That gold, at once the snare and scourge of hell, Thenceforth by righteous Heaven was doom'd to Unmingled curses on the spoiler's head; For gold the Spaniard cast his soul awayHis gold and he were every nation's prey. [shed |