International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

"Not mine! not mine! now, Mary mother.
Aid me the sinful hope to smother!
Not mine, not mine!—I have loved thee long
Thou hast quitted me with grief and wrong.
But pure the heart of a knight should be,—
Sleep on, sleep on, thou art safe for me.
Yet shalt thou know, by a certain sign,
Whose lips have been so near to thine,
Whose eyes have looked upon thy sleep,
And turned away, and longed to weep,
Whole heart,—mourn,—madden as it will,—
Has spared thee, and adored thee, still!"
His purple mantle, rich and wide,
From his neck the trembling youth untied,
And flung it o'er those dangerous charms,
The swelling neck, and the rounded arms.
Once more he looked, once more he sighed;
And away, away, from the perilous tent,
Swift as the rush of an eagle's wing,
Or the flight of a shaft from Tartar string,
Into the wood Sir Rudolph went:
Not with more joy the school-boys run
To the gay green fields, when their task is done;
Not with more haste the members fly,
When Hume has caught the Speaker's eye.
At last the daylight came; and then
A score or two of serving men,
Supposing that some sad disaster
Had happened to their lord and master,
Went out into the wood, and found him,
Unhorsed, and with no mantle round him.
Ere he could tell his tale romantic,
The leech pronounced him clearly frantic,
So ordered him at once to bed,
And clapped a blister on his head.
Within the sound of the castle-clock
There stands a huge and rugged rock,
And I have heard the peasants say,
That the grieving groom at noon that day
Found gallant Roland, cold and stiff,
At the base of the black and beetling cliff.
Beside the rock there is an oak,
Tall, blasted by the thunder-stroke,
And I have heard the peasants say,
That there Sir Rudolph's mantle lay,
And coiled in many a deadly wreath
A venomous serpent slept beneath.

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STANZAS, WRITTEN UNDER A DRAWING OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE

EXTRACTED FROM AN ALBUM IN DEVONSHIRE

Most beautiful!—I gaze and gaze
In silence on the glorious pile;
And the glad thoughts of other days
Come thronging back the while.
To me dim Memory makes more dear
The perfect grandeur of the shrine;
But if i stood a stranger here,
The ground were still divine.

Some awe the good and wise have felt,
As reverently their feet have trod
On any spot where man hath knelt,
To commune with his God;
By haunted spring, or fairy well,
Beneath the ruined convent's gloom,
Beside the feeble hermit's cell,
Or the false prophet's tomb.

But when was high devotion graced
With lovelier dwelling, loftier throne,
Than thus the limner's art hath traced
From the time-honored stone?
The spirit here of worship seems
To hold the heart in wondrous thrall,
And heavenward hopes and holy dreams,
Came at her voiceless call;—

At midnight, when the lonely moon
Looks from a vapor's silvery fold;
Or morning, when the sun of June
Crests the high towers with gold;
For every change of hour and form
Makes that fair scene more deeply fair;
And dusk and day-break, calm and storm,
Are all religion there.

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A FRAGMENT OF A BALLAD: TEACHING HOW POETRY IS BEST PAID FOR

Non voglio cento scudi.—Song.

Oh say not that the minstrel's art,
The pleasant gift of verse,
Though his hopes decay, though his friends depart,
Can ever be a curse;—