And all his soul best loved-such tears he shed,
While each soft scene of summer-beauty fled.
Long o'er the wave a wistful look he cast,
Long watched the streaming signal from the mast,
Till Twilight's dewy tints deceived his eye,
And fairy forests fringed the evening sky.

So Scotia's queen, as slowly dawned the day,
Rose on her couch, and gazed her soul away.
Her eyes had blessed the beacon's glimmering height,
That faintly tipped the feathery surge with light:
But now the morn with orient hues portrayed
Each castled cliff and brown monastic shade:
All touched the talisman's resistless spring,

And lo, what busy tribes were instant on the wing!
Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire,
As summer-clouds flash forth electric fire.
And hence this spot gives back the joys of youth,
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth.

Hence home-felt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh;
This makes him wish to live, and dare to die.
For this young Foscari, whose hapless fate
Venice should blush to hear the Muse relate,
When exile wore his blooming years away,
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey,
When reason, justice, vainly urged his cause,
For this he roused her sanguinary laws;
Glad to return, though hope could grant no more,
And chains and torture hailed him to the shore.

And hence the charm historic scenes impart ;
Hence Tiber awes, and Avon melts the heart.
Aerial forms in Tempe's classic vale
Glance through the gloom and whisper in the gale;
In wild Vaucluse with love and Laura dwell,
And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell.

'Twas ever thus. Young Ammon, when he sought
Where Ilium stood, and where Pelides fought,

Sat at the helm himself. No meaner hand

Steered through the waves, and when he struck the land,
Such in his soul the ardour to explore,
Pelides-like, he leaped the first ashore.
'Twas ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb

Archimedes

We bless the shade, and bid the verdure bloom :
So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time,
On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime;
When at his feet in honoured dust disclosed,
The immortal sage of Syracuse reposed.
And as he long in sweet delusion hung
Where once a Plato taught, a Pindar sung;
Who now but meets him musing, when he roves
His ruined Tusculan's romantic groves?
In Rome's great Forum, who but hears him roll
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul?...

Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight,
Pour round her path a stream of living light;

And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!
Tupia, a Tahitian brought off by Captain Cook in 1769.
From 'Human Lie.'

The lark has sung his carol in the sky,
The bees have hummed their noontide harmony;
Still in the vale the village bells ring round,
Still in Llewellyn hall the jests resound;
For now the caudle-cup is circling there,

Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer,
And, crowding, stop the cradle to admire
The babe, the sleeping image of his sire.

A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail
The day again, and gladness fill the vale;
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran.
Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin;
The ale, now brewed, in floods of amber shine;
And basking in the chimney's ample blaze,
'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days,
The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled,
"'Twas on her knees he sat so oft and smiled.'
And soon again shall music swell the breeze;
Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees
Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung,
And violets scattered round; and old and young,
In every cottage-porch with garlands green,
Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene,
While, her dark eyes declining, by his side,
Moves in her virgin veil the gentle bride.

And once, alas! nor in a distant hour,
Another voice shall come from yonder tower;
When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen,
And weeping heard where only joy has been ;
When, by his children borne, and from his door,
Slowly departing to return no more,

He rests in holy earth with them that went before.
And such is human life; so gliding on,

It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!
Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;
As any sung of old, in hall or bower,
To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour!...
The day arrives, the moment wished and feared;
The child is born, by many a pang endeared,
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry;
O grant the cherub to her asking eye!

He comes-she clasps him. To her bosom pressed,
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.

Her by her smile how soon the stranger knows!
How soon by his the glad discovery shews!
As to her lips she lifts the lovely boy,
What answering looks of sympathy and joy!
He walks, he speaks. In many a broken word
His wants, his wishes, and his griefs are heard.
And ever, ever to her lap he flies,

When rosy Sleep comes on with sweet surprise.
Locked in her arms, his arms across her flung
(That name most dear for ever on his tongue),
As with soft accents round her neck he clings,
And, cheek to cheek, her lulling song she sings,
How blest to feel the beatings of his heart,
Breathe his sweet breath, and kiss for kiss impart ;

Watch o'er his slumbers like the brooding dove, And, if she can, exhaust a mother's love!

Ginevra.

If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket-in its chain it hangs
Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine-
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,

Will long detain thee; through their arched walks,
Dim at noonday, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames, such as in old romance,
And lovers, such as in heroic song;

A summer sun, but, ere thou go,

Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight,
That in the spring-time, as alone they sat,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day.
Sets ere one half is seen;
Enter the house-prithee, forget it not-
And look a while upon a picture there.
'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,
The very last of that illustrious race,
Done by Zampieri-but by whom I care not.
He who observes it, ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up when far away.
She sits, inclining forward as to speak,

Her lips half-open, and her finger up,

As though she said 'Beware!' Her vest of gold
'Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot,
An emerald-stone in every golden clasp ;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,

So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart-

It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!

Alone it hangs

Over a mouldering heir-loom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half-eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture-stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor.
That by the way-it may be true or false-
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not,
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.
She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride of an indulgent sire.
Her mother dying of the gift she gave,
That precious gift, what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life,
Still as she grew, for ever in his sight;
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal-dress,
She was all gentleness, all gaiety,

Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;

And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.
Great was the joy; but at the bridal-feast,
When all sat down, the bride was wanting there.
Nor was she to be found! Her father cried,
"Tis but to make a trial of our love!'
And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back, and flying still,
Her ivory-tooth imprinted on his finger.
But now, alas! she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed
But that she was not! Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived; and long mightst thou have seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,
Something he could not find-he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained a while
Silent and tenantless-then went to strangers.
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When on an idle day, a day of search
'Mid the old lumber in the gallery,

That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
'Why not remove it from its lurking-place?'
'Twas done as soon as said; but on the way
It burst, it fell; and lo, a skeleton,

With here and there a pearl, an emerald stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold!
All else had perished-save a nuptial-ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
'Ginevra.' There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down for ever!

An Italian Song.

Dear is my little native vale,

(From Italy.)

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there; Close by my cot she tells her tale

To every passing villager.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange groves and myrtle bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,

I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent greenwood shade ;
These simple joys that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

Written in the Highlands of Scotland-1812
Blue was the loch, the clouds were gone,
Ben Lomond in his glory shone,
When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze
Bore me from thy silver sands,

Thy kirkyard wall among the trees,
Where, gray with age, the dial stands ;
That dial so well known to me!
Though many a shadow it had shed,
Beloved sister, since with thee
The legend on the stone was read.

The fairy isles fled far away;
That with its woods and uplands green,
Where shepherd-huts are dimly seen,
And songs are heard at close of day;
That, too, the deer's wild covert fled,
And that, the asylum of the dead :
While as the boat went merrily,
Much of Rob Roy the boatman told;
His arm that fell below his knee,
His cattle ford and mountain hold.

Tarbet, thy shore I climbed at last;
And, thy shady region past,
Upon another shore I stood,
And looked upon another flood;
Great Ocean's self! ('Tis he who fills
That vast and awful depth of hills);
Where many an elf was playing round,
Who treads unshod his classic ground;
And speaks, his native rocks among,
As Fingal spoke, and Ossian sung.
Night fell, and dark and darker grew
That narrow sea, that narrow sky,

As o'er the glimmering waves we flew,
The sea-bird rustling, wailing by.
And now the grampus, half-descried,
Black and huge above the tide ;
The cliffs and promontories there,
Front to front, and broad and bare;
Each beyond each, with giant feet
Advancing as in haste to meet ;

The shattered fortress, whence the Dane
Blew his shrill blast, nor rushed in vain,
Tyrant of the drear domain;

Loch Long

All into midnight shadow sweep
When day springs upward from the deep!
Kindling the waters in its flight,
The prow wakes splendour, and the oar,
That rose and fell unseen before,
Flashes in a sea of light;
Glad sign and sure, for now we hail
Thy flowers, Glenfinnart, in the gale;
And bright indeed the path should be
That leads to friendship and to thee !
O blest retreat, and sacred too!
Sacred as when the bell of prayer
Tolled duly on the desert air,
And crosses decked thy summits blue.
Oft like some loved romantic tale,
Oft shall my weary mind recall,
Amid the hum and stir of men,
Thy beechen grove and water-fall,
Thy ferry with its gliding sail,
And her—the lady of the Glen !

Pæstum.

They stand between the mountains and the sea;
Awful memorials, but of whom we know not.
The seaman passing, gazes from the deck,
The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak,

Points to the work of magic, and moves on.
Time was they stood along the crowded street,
Temples of gods, and on their ample steps
What various habits, various tongues beset
The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice!
Time was perhaps the third was sought for justice;
And here the accuser stood, and there the accused,
And here the judges sat, and heard, and judged.
All silent now, as in the ages past,

Trodden under foot, and mingled dust with dust.

How many centuries did the sun go round
From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea,
While, by some spell rendered invisible,
Or, if approached, approached by him alone
Who saw as though he saw not, they remained
As in the darkness of a sepulchre,
Waiting the appointed time! All, all within
Proclaims that nature had resumed her right,
And taken to herself what man renounced;
No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus,
But with thick ivy hung, or branching fern,
Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure!
From my youth upward have I longed to tread
This classic ground; and am I here at last?
Wandering at will through the long porticoes,
And catching, as through some majestic gove,
Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like,
Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up,
Towns like the living rock from which they grew?
A cloudy region, black and desolate,

Where once a slave withstood a world in arms. Spartacus
The air is sweet with violets, running wild
Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals;

Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts,
Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost-
Turning to thee, divine philosophy,

Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul-
Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago,
For Athens; when a ship, if north-east winds
Blew from the Pastan gardens, slacked her course.
On as he moved along the level shore,
These temples, in their splendour eminent
Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers,
Reflecting back the radiance of the west,
Well might he dream of glory! Now, coiled up,
The serpent sleeps within them; the she-wolf
Suckles her young; and as alone I stand
In this, the nobler pile, the elements
Of earth and air its only floor and roof,
How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs
Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round
On the rough pediment to sit and sing;
Or the green lizard rustling through the grass,
And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring,
To vanish in the chinks that time has made.

In such an hour as this, the sun's broad disk
Seen at his setting, and a flood of light
Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries--
Gigantic shadows, broken and confused,
Athwart the innumerable columns flung-
In such an hour he came, who saw and told,
Led by the mighty genius of the place.

Walls of some capital city first appeared,
Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn;
And what within them? What but in the midst
These three in more than their original grandeur,

O that the chemist's magic art
Could crystallise this sacred treasure!
Long should it glitter near my heart,
A secret source of pensive pleasure.
The little brilliant, ere it fell,

Its lustre caught from Chloe's eye;
Then, trembling, left its coral cell-
The spring of Sensibility!

Sweet drop of pure and pearly light,

In thee the rays of Virtue shine;
More calmly clear, more mildly bright,
Than any gem that gilds the mine.
Benign restorer of the soul !

Who ever fliest to bring relief,
When first we feel the rude control
Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.
The sage's and the poet's theme,

In every clime, in every age:
Thou charm'st in Fancy's idle dream,
In Reason's philosophic page.

That very law which moulds a tear,

And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.

See Alexander Dyce's Recollections of the Table-talk of Samuel Rogers (1856); Recollections by Rogers, edited by his nephew, William Sharpe (1859); and, especially, P. W. Clayden's Early Life of Rogers (1887) and Rogers and his Contemporaries (2 vols. 1889). The poems are reprinted in the Aldine Series.

Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) was born at Nottingham a butcher's son. A rhymer and a student from boyhood, he assisted his father in the family business until in his fourteenth year he was put apprentice to a stocking-weaver. But he hated the thought of spending seven years of his life in shining and folding up stockings; he wanted something to occupy his brain, and he felt that he should be wretched if he continued longer at this trade, or indeed in anything except one of the learned professions.' He was at length placed in an attorney's office, and applying his leisure hours to the study of Latin and Greek, Italian and Spanish, in ten months could read Horace. While only in his fifteenth year, he obtained a silver medal for a translation from Horace, a prize-theme proposed by the Monthly Preceptor. He became a correspondent in the Monthly Mirror, and was introduced to the acquaintance of its proprietor, Mr Hill, and of Capel Lofft. Their encouragement induced him to prepare a volume of poems for the press (1803). The longest piece in the collection, a descriptive poem in the style of Goldsmith, showed a gift of smooth and elegant versification; but the volume was contemptuously noticed in the Monthly Review. Happily the volume fell into the hands of Southey, who wrote to the young poet to encourage him; and other friends were found to procure for him

admission to the University of Cambridge. Moved to new Christian earnestness by Scott's Force of Truth, he resolved to devote himself to Church work, and the Rev. Charles Simeon of Cambridge procured for him a sizarship at St John's College, and Wilberforce helped to assist his family in supporting him during his university course. He competed for a scholarship, and at the end of the term was pronounced the first man of his year. But this distinction was purchased at the sacrifice of health and life; he died 19th October 1806. Southey wrote a sketch of his life and edited his Remains. A tablet to his memory, with a medallion by Chantrey, was placed in All Saints' Church at Cambridge by a young American. Even Byron consecrated some kindly lines to his memory, and, in prose, ranked him‘next Chatterton.' His poetry was all written before he was twenty, and is accordingly quite immature. But it is also lacking in originality, power, or the promise of future achievement. The tenderness of his verse, the amiability of his character, and the pathos of his story have hardly saved his verse from oblivion. But some of his hymns are still in use, including 'Much in sorrow, oft in woe,' of which, however, only the first part (two verses and a half) is his.

To an Early Primrose.
Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nursed in whirling storms,
And cradled in the winds.

Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's way,
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,
Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year, Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,

Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity; in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,
Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear
Serene the ills of life.

Sonnet.

What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet;
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind,
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or, on the red wing of the fierce monsoon,
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span

Dost thou repose? or in the solitude
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood? Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

The Star of Bethlehem.

When marshalled on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky;
One star alone, of all the train,

Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks,
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks,
It is the Star of Bethlehem.

Once on the raging seas I rode,

The storm was loud-the night was dark; The ocean yawned-and rudely blowed

The wind that tossed my foundering bark. Deep horror then my vitals froze,

Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem; When suddenly a star arose,

It was the Star of Bethlehem.

It was my guide, my light, my all,

It bade my dark forebodings cease;

And through the storm and dangers' thrall, It led me to the port of peace.

Now safely moored-my perils o'er,

I'll sing, first in night's diadem,

For ever and for evermore,

The Star-the Star of Bethlehem.

Britain a Thousand Years Hence.

Where now is Britain?-Where her laurelled names,
Her palaces and halls? Dashed in the dust.
Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,
And with one big recoil hath thrown her back
To primitive barbarity.———Again,
Through her depopulated vales, the scream
Of bloody superstition hollow rings,
And the scared native to the tempest howls
The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,
Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry
Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash
Of distant billows, breaks alone the void.
Even as the savage sits upon the stone
That marks where stood her capitols, and hears
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
From the dismaying solitude. - Her bards
Sing in a language that hath perished;
And their wild harps, suspended o'er their graves,
Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.

Meanwhile the arts, in second infancy,
Rise in some distant clime, and then perchance
Some bold adventurer, filled with golden dreams,
Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,
Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow
Hath ever ploughed before-espies the cliffs
Of fallen Albion.-To the land unknown
He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries
Some vestige of her ancient stateliness;
Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind
Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived
At science in that solitary nook,

Far from the civil world; and sagely sighs
And moralises on the state of man.

From The Christiad.'
Thus far have I pursued my solemn theme,
With self-rewarding toil; thus far have sung
Of godlike deeds, far loftier than beseem

The lyre which I in early days have strung;

And now my spirits faint, and I have hung The shell, that solaced me in saddest hour,

On the dark cypress; and the strings which rung With Jesus' praise, their harpings now are o'er, Or, when the breeze comes by, moan, and are heard no

more.

And must the harp of Judah sleep again?
Shall I no more reanimate the lay?

Oh! Thou who visitest the sons of men,

Thou who dost listen when the humble pray, One little space prolong my mournful day; One little lapse suspend thy last decree! I am a youthful traveller in the way, And this slight boon would consecrate to thee, Ere I with Death shake hands, and smile that I am free. These were the last stanzas of the uncompleted epic, and were written shortly before White's death.

Joanna Baillie (1762-1851) was born in the manse of Bothwell in Lanarkshire; in 1776 her father became Professor of Divinity at Glasgow. In this household, 'repression of all emotions, even the gentlest and those most honourable to human nature, seems to have been the constant lesson.' Joann's sister, Agnes, told Lucy Aikin that their father was an excellent parent: 'When she had once been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life, but he had never given her a kiss. Joanna spoke of her yearning to be caressed when a child. She would sometimes venture to clasp her little arms about her mother's knees, who would seem to chide her, but the child knew she liked it.' In 1784 Joanna went to live in London, where her brother, Matthew Baillie, had established himself as a physician; in 1806 she and Agnes took a house for themselves at Hampstead, and there she died, Agnes surviving her till 1861. No authoress ever enjoyed a larger share than the 'immortal Joanna' of the esteem and affection of her contemporaries. She was one of the friends whose society Sir Walter looked forward to as one of the chief pleasures a visit to London had in store for him; even America sent its votaries to her shrine at Hampstead. Her greatest achievement lay in her Pays on the Passions (1798–1836), which, though ineffective as acting plays, contain much impressive poetry and often show true dramatic power. In 1804 she produced a volume of miscellaneous dramas, and in 1810 The Family Legend, a tragedy founded on a Highland tradition, was successfully staged at Edinburgh with a prologue by Scott. De Montfort was brought out by Kemble shortly after its appearance, and was acted eleven nights. It was revived in 1821, with Kean as De Montfort; Kean admitted that, though a fine poem, it would never be an acting play. Scott, on the other hand, extravagantly eulogised Basil's love and Montfort's hate' as something like a renewal of Shakespeare's inspired strain; for Count Basil and De Montfort are much liker the works of Shirley or Massinger than anything of Shakespeare's.