Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

Yesterday's eve were thy peaks still dark as the locks of my loved one,
When from a distance she looks fair and serene upon me;
But, with a mantle of snow, at morn those summits were silver'd,
Which the chill fingers of night sudden had spread on thy brow.
Ah! how swiftly in life may youth and old age be united —
Even as the flight of a dream yesterday link'd with to-day.

North and South

Glanzen sah ich das Meer, und blinken dië liebliche Welle
Frisch mit gunstigem Wind zogen die Segel dahin.
Keine sehnsucht fühlte mein Herz; es wendete rückwärts
Nach dem Schnee des Gebirgs, bald sich der schmachtende Blick.
Südwärts liegen der Schätze wie viel! Doch einer im Norden
Zieht, ein grosser Magnet, unwiderstehlich zurück.

Glitter'd the ocean around, in light the billows were breaking,
Freshly, with favouring winds, glided our sails o'er the sea.
Yet for the land of beauty I felt no longing; in sadness
Backward my glances still turn'd towards the region of snow.
Southward how many a treasure invites! but one, like the Magnet,
Stronger than all, to the North draws me resistlessly back.

CHRISTMAS CAROL, 1845

Tune. – "Packington's Pound."

I

"The intrigues of this month shall we e'er comprehend?
Will the Dons, when the Parliament meets, give a clue?
Will one Tory among them speak out like a friend,
On the why and because of this famous to-do?
Is it really the case
That the Whigs are in place,
Because Peel, when his colleagues assembled, appall'd them
By a cool proposition,
To toss to perdition,
Both the faith and the force that in office install'd them."

II

Thus groan'd out a grumbler, all sulky and sour,
But for Christopher's temper such trash was too much;
And it soon made the malecontent quiver and cower,
When he saw preparations for handling the Crutch.
"Lay your croaking aside,"
The old gentleman cried,
"Or I'll make you eat up each ungenerous word:
Not our deadliest foe,
Such injustice should know,
And far less shall a friend be convicted unheard.

III

"Come read here their Mottoes extracted from Burke
For the Commoners, – here for the Peerage from Lodge;
Say, can these be consistent with pitiful work,
On a par with some Whiggish O'Connellite dodge?
Though at present a cloud
May the mystery shroud,
Till secrecy's seal from their lips be removed;
When the truth shall appear,
It will all become clear,
And the words here inscribed shall again be approved.

IV

"Ne'er believe that Peel's noble Industria Plann'd
Aught design'd of its honours his fame to despoil,
Aught but Justice to Industry, Justice to Land,
To the loom and the ploughshare, the sea and the soil.
His hand will still hold
Straight, steady, and bold,
The scales where our wealth and our welfare are weigh'd:
Still though tempests may blow,
And cross currents may flow,
He will steer our good ship till at anchor she's laid."

V

"But surely that terrible leader of Walter's
Was not utterly void of foundation in fact.
Was the Cabinet really not full of defaulters,
And resolved for a time on that ruinous act?"
"Cease, blockhead, to babble
Your ganderlike gable:
Could Repeal e'er be Reason Contents Me with Graham,
Could the Ne Nimium
Of good Gordon succumb,
Or the Stanley's Sans Changer be changed into shame?

VI

"With Avito Honore would Wortley turn tail,
To his Præsto Et Persto is Binning untrue?
Could the Sperno Timere of Somerset quail,
Or a Ripon with treachery blot Foy Est Tout?
Could the princely Buccleuch