Trooping they came, from near and far, But now, They sound the pipe, they strike the string, Till the rude turrets shake and ring. Me lists not at this tide declare The splendour of the spousal rite, How muster'd in the chapel fair Both maid and matron, squire and knight; Me lists not tell of owches rare, Of mantles green, and braided hair, Yet scarce I praise their venturous part, The ladye by the altar stood, And on her head a crimson hood, The hooded hawks, high perch'd on beam, THE LAST MINSTREL. THE way was long, the wind was cold. Old times were changed, old manners gone; Had call'd his harmless art a crime. He pass'd where Newark's stately tower Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb. Began to rise his minstrel pride; Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone, And of Earl Walter, rest him God! And how full many a tale he knew, Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak; The humble boon was soon obtain'd; And scenes, long past, of joy and pain, And then, he said, he would full fain It was not framed for village churls, But when he caught the measure wild, THE TEVIOT. SWEET Teviot, by thy silver tide, The glaring bale-fires blaze no more! No longer steel-clad warriors ride Along thy wild and willow'd shore; Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still, As if thy waves, since Time was born, Since first they roll'd their way to Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed, Nor started at the bugle-horn! Unlike the tide of human time, Which, though it change in ceaseless flow, Retains each grief, retains each crime, Its earliest course was doom'd to know; Low as that tide has ebb'd with me, Fell by the side of great Dundee. 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 stretch'd before him Unhonour'd 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-arch'd 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, 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, With one faithful friend to witness thy dying, In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam. 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! In sorrow o'er Lord Walter's bier, Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent: Had lock'd the source of softer wo; 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 remaining, 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. Ir thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight: Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray. When the broken arches are black in night, When silver edges the imagery. And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave; 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. "A bruised reed He will not break,- Humbled beneath his mighty hand, "There is a calm for those who weep, |