And joyous angels o'er me Tempt sweetly to the sky. "Why wait," they say, "and wither Oh rise to glory hither, And find true life begin." I hear the invitation, And fain would rise and come- A sinner to salvation, An exile to his home. But while I here must linger, Thus, thus, let all I see LINES WRITTEN IN RHUDDLAN CASTLE, NORTH WALES. JOHN CRITCHLEY PRINCE. FROM DREAMS AND RETREAT of our fathers, who battled and bled C I come, in the light of the blue summer skies, And blooming before me thy valleys expand; I will muse in thy castles, I'll look from thy hills, I'll plunge in the depths of thy forests and vales; I will climb to thy cataracts, drink at thy rills, And list to thy songs and thy stories, old Wales! I will dream by thy rivers, and proudly explore Every path which Tradition hath trodden before. A pilgrim I am, and a pilgrim I've been, And a pilgrim I would be while vigour remains, My fond feet have wander'd o'er many a scene, But none which surpasses thy mountains and plains; And I marvel that e'er I could linger to see A land less enchanting, less glorious than thee. There are beings I love without coldness or guile, There are friends I would cling to whatever betide, My absence from these may be borne for awhile, But the other will mourn me away from their side; Yet a season will come when my manhood is past, That will bind me to one little circle at last. With a feeling of wonder I pause on my way, In a ruin where monarchs held splendour and place, But pleasures await me for many a day, In a region of poesy, grandeur, and grace; Ir is the midnight's still and solemn hour, It soundeth not as it was wont to sound, It greets me not with glad and laughing tone :--- Save mine own echo all is still and lone; It was HIS voice, the voice of my DEAR FRIEND- When sinketh life in death's o'erwhelming wave? The spirit's destiny is hid in gloom, All mortal things must perish in the tomb. 'Twas but remembrance of what once hath been, And liveth still within the sorrowing heart: Oh, mystic Memory! for ever green We view the past by thy all potent art Thou can'st restore the forms whose loss we mourn, Thou rend'st the grave, and bursts the funeral urn. And not alone unto my waking eyes Is imaged forth that loved, familiar form; In the night's visions doth the past arise, And thoughts of him who dwelleth with the worm: I see him then-I hear, but not as now-His voice is glad, and health is on his brow. I hear him then as I was wont to hear, My buried friend! thou unto me wert bound, Thou wert to me a brother of the mind; As one who sleeps and walks near rushing streams, So did'st thou live, wrapt in aspiring dreams, Thou wert the child of higher, and lofty thought, On soaring wing, the towering mount of song; ALE VERSUS PHYSIC. A SPECIMEN OF THE LANCASHIRE DIALECT, BY ELIJAH AW'R gooin by a docthur's shop, Un theer aw gan a sudden stop, My honds shak'd loike an aspen leof, It seemt as dark as twelve at neet, Aw thowt aw seed the gallows-tree, * Wheer th' yorn-croft thief wur swung;* The "yorn-croft thief" was a young man, named George Russell, who was executed on Newton Heath, near Manchester, September 15, 1798, for stealing a piece of fustian from Sharrocks's bleaching ground, at the end of Long Millgate. |