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Flower of the mountain! by the wanderer's hand
Robbed of thy beauty's short-lived sunny day;
Didst thou but blow to gem the stranger's way,
And bloom, to wither in the stranger's land?...

"Scorn not the sonnet," though its strength be sapped,
Nor say malignant its inventor blundered;
The corpse that here in fourteen lines is wrapped
Had otherwise been covered with a hundred.

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind
That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,
Making a key-board of the earth to strike
From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,
...

Whence do ye come, ye creatures? Each of you
Is perfect as an angel! wings and eyes
Stupendous in their beauty--gorgeous dyes
In feathery fields of purple and of blue!
Would God I saw a moment as ye do!...

I idly cut a parsley stalk,
And blew therein towards the moon;
I had not thought what ghosts would walk
With shivering footsteps to my tune.

I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand...

Go'thou art all unfit to share
The pleasures of this place
With such as its old tenants are,
Creatures of gentler race.


The squirrel here his hoard provides,
Aware of wintry storms,...

Cowper had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
He had committed this abuse
Of changing ewes for wethers;[1]


But, male for female is a trope,
Or rather bold misnomer,...

On this high altar, fringed with ferns
That darken against the sky,
The dawn in lonely beauty burns
And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below
Is quieter than the dew,...

I.

Nature, so far as in her lies,
Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,
Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place;


...

Poor little sprite! in that dark, narrow cell
Caged by the law of man's resistless might!
With thy sweet liquid notes, by some strong spell,
Compelled to minister to his delight!...

[21]


No trophy this - a Stone unhewn,
And stands where here the field immures
The nameless brave whose palms are won.
Outcast they sleep; yet fame is nigh -
Pure fame of deeds, not doers;...

Struggling, and faint, and fainter didst thou wane,
O Moon! and round thee all thy starry train
Came forth to help thee, with half-open eyes,
And trembled every one with still surprise,...

Up, up, into the vast extended space,
Thou art ascending in thy majesty,
Beautiful moon, the queen of the pale sky!
But what is that which gathers on thy face,
A dark mysterious shade, eclipsing, slow,...

Here lies a mock Marquis, whose titles were shamm'd;
If ever he rise, it will be to be damn'd.

We gaze, nor grieve to think that we must die,
But that the precious love this friend hath sown
Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown
Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,...

O Ary Scheffer! when beneath thine eye,
Touched with the light that cometh from above,
Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love,
No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would tear...

Of a favorite Deer-hound, belonging to SIR WALTER SCOTT, by my friend, EDWIN LANDSEER, Esq.


Who in this sketchey wonder does not trace
The fire, the spirit, and the living grace,...

Frail glass! thou mortal art as well as I;
Though none can tell which of us first shall die.


ANSWERED EXTEMPORE BY DR. SWIFT

We both are mortal; but thou, frailer creature,...

Lament him, Mauchline husbands a',
He aften did assist ye;
For had ye staid whole weeks awa,
Your wives they ne'er had missed ye.
Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press
To school in bands thegither,...

Did Milton's prose, O Charles! thy death defend?
A furious foe unconscious proves a friend.
On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know,
A weak officious friend becomes a foe....