POETRY.

THE PILGRIM OF GLENCOE.

By Thomas Campbell.

THE sunset sheds a horizontal smile
O'er Highland frith and Hebridean isle,
While, gay with gambols of its finny shoals,
The glowing wave rejoices as it rolls

With streamer'd busses that distinctly shine
All downward, pictured in the glassy brine;
Whose crews, with faces brightening in the sun,
Keep measure with their oars, and all in one
Strike up the old Gaelic song.-Sweep, rowers, sweep!
The fisher's glorious spoils are in the deep.

Day sinks-but twilight owes the traveller soon,
To reach his bourne, a round unclouded moon,
Bespeaking long undarken'd hours of time;
False hope the Scots are steadfast-not their clime.

A war-worn soldier from the western land,
Seek's Cona's vale by Ballihoula's strand;
The vale, by eagle-haunted cliffs o'erhung,
Where Fingal fought and Ossian's harp was strung-
Our veteran's forehead, bronzed on sultry plain,
Had stood the brunt of thirty fought campaigns;
He well could vouch the sad romance of wars,
And count the dates of battles in his scars;
For he had served where o'er and o'er again
Britannia's oriflamme had lit the plain
Of glory-and victorious stamped her name
On Oudenarde's and Blenheim's fields of fame.
Nine times in battle-field his blood had stream'd,
Yet vivid still his veteran blue eye gleam'd;
Full well he bore his knapsack-unoppress'd,
And march'd with soldier-like erected crest:
Nor sign of even loquacious age he wore,
Save when he told his life's adventures o'er ;

Some tired of these; for terms to him were dear
Too tactical by far for vulgar ear;

As when he talk'd of rampart and ravine,
And trenches fenced with gabion and fascine-
But when his theme possess'd him all and whole,
He scorn'd proud puzzling words and warm'd the soul;
Hush'd groups hung on his lips with fond surprise,
That sketch'd old scenes-like pictures to their eyes :-
The wide war-plain with banners glowing bright,
And bayonets to the furthest stretch of sight;
The pause, more dreadful than the peal to come
From volleys blazing at the beat of drum-
Till all the field of thundering lines became
Two level and confronted sheets of flame.
Then to the charge, when Marlbro's hot pursuit
Trode France's gilded lilies underfoot;

He came and kindled-and with martial lung
Would chant the very march their trumpets sung.

Though thus his guest spoke feelings just and clear,
The cabin's patriarch lent impatient ear;
Wroth that, beneath his roof, a living man
Should boast the swine-blood of the Campbell clan ;
He hasten'd to the door-call'd out his son
To follow; walk'd a space, and thus begun :-
"You have not, Ronald, at this day to learn
The oath I took beside my father's cairn,
When you were but a babe a twelvemonth born;
Sworn on my dirk-by all that's sacred, sworn
To be revenged for blood that cries to Heaven-
Blood unforgiveable, and unforgiven:
But never power, since then, have I possess'd
To plant my dagger in a Campbell's breast.
Now, here's a self-accusing partisan,

Steep'd in the slaughter of Macdonald's clan :
I scorn his civil speech and sweet-lipp'd show
Of pity-he is still our house's foe:

I'll perjure not myself-but sacrifice
The caitiff ere to-morrow's sun arise.

Stand! hear me-you're my son, the deed is just;
And if I say-it must be done-it must:

A debt of honour which my clansmen crave,
Their dead demand it from the grave.'

very

Conjuring then their ghosts, he humbly pray'd
Their patience till the blood-debt should be paid.

They enter'd; Norman with portentous air

Strode to a nook behind the stranger's chair,

And, speaking nought, sat grimly in the shade,
With dagger in his clutch beneath his plaid,

His son's own plaid, should Norman pounce his prey,
Was coil'd thick round his arm, to turn away
Or blunt the dirk. He purposed leaving free
The door, and giving Allan time to flee,
Whilst he should wrestle with, (no safe emprise),
His father's maniac strength and giant size.
Meanwhile he could nowise communicate
The impending peril to his anxious mate;
But she, convinced no trifling matter now
Disturb'd the wonted calm of Ronald's brow,
Divined too well the cause of gloom that lower'd,
And sat with speechless terror overpower'd.
Her face was pale, so lately blithe and bland,
The stocking knitting-wire shook in her hand.
But Ronald and the guest resumed their thread
Of converse-still its theme that day of dread.
"Much," said the veteran, " much as I bemoan
That deed, when half a hundred years have flown,
Still on one circumstance I can reflect
That mitigates the dreadful retrospect:
A mother with a child before us flew ;
I had the hideous mandate to pursue-
But swift of foot, outspeeding bloodier men,
I chased, o'ertook her in the winding glen,
And show'd her palpitating, where to save
Herself and infant in a secret cave;

Nor left them till I saw that they could mock
Pursuit and search within that sheltering rock."
"Heavens!" Ronald cried, in accents gladly wild,
"That woman was my mother-I the child !”

THE LAUNCH OF A FIRST-RATE.

WRITTEN ON WITNESSING THE SPECTACLE.

(By the same.)

ENGLAND hails thee with emotion,
Mightiest child of naval art;
Heaven resounds thy welcome! Ocean
Takes thee, smiling, to his heart.

Giant oaks of bold expansion

O'er seven hundred acres fell,

All to build thy noble mansion,

Where our hearts of oak shall dwell,

From "The Styrian Lake and other Poems by the Rev. F. W. Faber, M. A.

1.

SEVEN times doth Asia's flowery coast give place
To Europe's shrubby cliffs and verdant Thrace;
And Europe into seven sweet bays retires
Where summer sunrise shoots his pearly fires;
There holy East and royal West are meeting,
Each from the other's headlands still retreating.
With currents and with counter-currents seven
The cold, bright waters, blue as bluest Heaven,
Seem like the beating pulses of the free
And angry spirit of the Euxine Sea.

2.

Lift up the veil of legendary gloom

Which hangs before that dreadful sea, the womb,

So seemed it to the reverend men of old,
Where every direful shape and form untold
Of dark disaster lurked; upon whose flood
A mist, and no mere sea-born mist, did brood
With heavy, hanging shadow: it was then
A sea for Gods and Heroes, not for men;
Yet with a kindly name they worshipped thee,
The offering of their lips, dread Euxine Sea!

3

With what a very diadem of fear

They crown'd thee king of waters! Far and near
The Delian blessing his Ægean calm,

Or Attic dweller at some inland farm
Amid his olive-yards, had many a tale

Enough to make his listening throng turn pale.
Perplexing phantoms chasing ships behind,"

Mists, monsters, sudden wreck and wondrous wind,-
Such were their dim uncheerful thoughts of thee,
Thou legend-circled thing, dread Euxine Sea!

4.

Thy wandering waves had limits in the air,
Begotten of men's faith; they thought not where
Nor yet how near thou wert, but cast thee far
Unto the confines of their thoughts, a bar

Not reverently to be o'erleaped: the past

One streak of light across the darkness cast;

One path-way, moon-beam-like, the gloom did break,— 'Twas Argo passing with her burning wake;

And in a cloud of troubled minstrelsy

They wrapped thy sacred name, dread Euxine Sea!

5.

But see this harmless glossy-surfaced ocean,
Cradling my boat with quiet throbbing motion !
This is no dismal threshold to be strown

With horrid wreck, no tempest-spirit's throne.
Faith fails the legends; the eye seeks but sees
No monuments, no twin Symplegades.

Oh how transfigured, waves and headlands drear!
The very soul of May is breathing here!
Such skies, winds, waters,-can they truly be
Upon the veritable Euxine Sea?

6.

The hollow waves, like summer thunder, roar
On Thracia's rocks and low Silistria's shore: