MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF
THE DERWENT,

D

EAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,

The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore;

And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed;
And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud

Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but time, the old Saturnian seer,
Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand,
With step prolusive to a long array

Of woes and degradations hand in hand-
Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear

Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!

THE RIVER DUDDON.

HAT aspect bore the Man who roved or fled,
First of his tribe, to this dark dell-who first

In this pellucid Current slaked his thirst?

What hopes came with him? what designs were spread Along his path? His unprotected bed

What dreams encompassed? Was the intruder nursed In hideous usages, and rites accursed,

That thinned the living and disturbed the dead?

No voice replies;-both air and earth are mute;

And thou, blue Streamlet, murmuring yield'st no more Than a soft record, that, whatever fruit

Of ignorance thou might'st witness heretofore,
Thy function was to heal and to restore,

To soothe.and cleanse, not madden and pollute.

H it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

To make the shifting clouds be what you please,

Or let the easily-persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or listening to the tide, with closed sight,

Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

ON A RUINED HOUSE IN A ROMANTIC COUNTRY.

ND this reft house is that, the which he built, Lamented Jack! and here his malt he piled, Cautious in vain! these rats that squeak so wild, Squeak not unconscious of their father's guilt. Did he not see her gleaming through the glade? Belike 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn.

What though she milked no cow with crumpled horn, Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she strayed And, aye beside her stalks her amorous knight!

Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn, And through those brogues, still tattered and betorn, His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white.

Ah! thus through broken clouds at night's high noon Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb'd harvest

moon!

WINTER.

WRINKLED, crabbèd man they picture thee,
Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey

As the long moss upon the apple-tree;

Blue-lipt, an icedrop at thy sharp blue nose,
Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way

Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows.

They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth,
Old Winter! seated in thy great armed chair,
Watching the children at their Christmas mirth;

Or circled by them as thy lips declare

Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,
Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night,
Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire,
Or taste the old October brown and bright.