66

My father, must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way;

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,

They caught the flag on high

And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound-
The boy-oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds, that far around

With fragments strewed the sea!
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part-
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart!

1. Why battle's wreck ?

2. Meaning of faint here? 3. What task?

4. Whose breath?

5. Why brave?

HEMANS.

6. Meaning of splendour wild?

19

XIII. HELLVELLYN.

In the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Hellvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier, his constant attendant, during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
Dark-green was that spot mid the brown mountain-heather,
Where the pilgrim of nature' lay stretched in decay;
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.2
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended;
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And oh! was it meet that no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him—
Unhonoured the pilgrim from life should depart?.
When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming-
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming-
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, wildered, 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,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

1. What is the meaning of the phrase pilgrim of nature?

SIR W. SCOTT.

2. Why tenantless clay?
3. What is the fate of the peasant ?

VERSES BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK.

21

XIV. VERSES

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK (ROBINSON CRUSOE) IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.

JUAN FERNANDEZ, an island in the Pacific Ocean, was discovered by a Spanish navigator, who gave to it his own name, and formed an establishment, which was afterwards abandoned. The buccaneers of the 17th century made it a place of resort during their cruises on the coast of Peru; and more recently, it was the solitary abode during four years of a Scotchman, called Alexander Selkirk, whose adventures are supposed to have given rise to De Foe's inimitable novel of Robinson Crusoe, and whose probable musings have been pourtrayed in these verses by Cowper.-See McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary. Etymology.

Derivations.

My sorrows I then might assuage,
In the ways of religion and truth;
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.
Religion!-What treasures untold
Reside in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver or gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard ;5
Never sigh'd at the sound of a knell,"

Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.
Ye winds that have made me your sport7
Convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more.
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there:
But, alas! recollection at hand,

Soon hurries me back to despair.
But the sea fowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,

And I to my cavern repair.

There is mercy in every place;
And mercy (encouraging thought!)
Gives even affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot.

THE LAPLANDER.

23

XV. THE LAPLANDER.

LAPLAND is the most northerly country of Europe, belonging partly to Russia, partly to Sweden. The country is so cold in the winter, that the rivers in the interior are covered with ice to the depth of several feet. Towards the north the sun remains for many weeks under the horizon, and, of course, in the summer, is as many weeks above it without setting. The darkness of winter is partially relieved by the brightness of the moon and stars, and by the aurora borealis.

WITH blue cold nose, and wrinkled brow,
Traveller, whence comest thou?

From Lapland's woods, and hills of frost,
By the rapid rein deer crost;

Where tapering grows the gloomy fir,
And the stunted juniper ;

Where the wild hare and the crow

Whiten in surrounding snow; '

Where the shivering huntsmen tear

Their fur coats from the grim white bear;

Where the wolf and northern fox

Prowl among the lonely rocks;

And tardy suns to deserts drear,
Give days and nights of half a year:
From icy oceans, where the whales
Toss in foam their lashing tails;
Where the snorting sea-horse shows
His ivory teeth in grinning rows,
Where, tumbling in their seal-skin coat,
Fearless, the hungry fishers float,
And, from teeming seas, supply
The food their niggard plains deny.2

1. Speaking of animals, that most estimable writer, Dr. l'aley, has remarked, that " their clothing, of its own accord, changes with their necessities. This is particularly the case with that large tribe of quadrupeds, which are

CONDER.

covered with furs. Every dealer in
hare-skins and rabbit-skins knows how
much the skin is thickened [and how it
whitens also] by the approach of winter."
-Natural Theology, Chap. XII.
2. The ellipsis in this line?