From two o'erarching oaks between,
With glistening helm-like cap is seen,
Borne on in giddy cheer,

A youth, that ill his steed can guide ;
Yet with reverted face doth ride,

As answering to a voice,

That seems at once to laugh and chide— "Not mine, dear mistress," still he cried, ""Tis this mad filly's choice."

With sudden bound, beyond the boy,
See! see! that face of hope and joy,

That regal front! those cheeks aglow!
Thou needed'st but the crescent sheen,
A quiver'd Dian to have been,

Thou lovely child of old Du Clos !

Dark as a dream Lord Julian stood,
Swift as a dream, from forth the wood,
Sprang on the plighted Maid!

With fatal aim, and frantic force,

The shaft was hurl'd !-a lifeless corse,
Fair Alice from her vaulting horse,
Lies bleeding on the glade.

THE KNIGHT'S TOMB.

WHERE is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn? Where may the grave of that good man be?— By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,

Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roar'd in the winter alone,
Is gone, and the birch in its stead is grown.—
The Knight's bones are dust,

And his good sword rust;—

His soul is with the saints, I trust.*

HYMN TO THE EARTH.

HEXAMETERS.

EARTH! thou mother of numberless children,

the nurse and the mother,

Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee!

Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges—

Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

* The last three lines were quoted in the romance of Ivanhoe (1820), vol. i. p. 156, while this fragment was still unpublished, as follows: "To borrow lines from a contemporary poet, who has written but too little :

"The Knights are dust,

And their good.swords are rust,

Their souls are with the saints, we trust."

From this circumstance Coleridge was convinced that Scott was the author of the Waverley Novels. The lines were composed as an experiment for a metre, and repeated by the author to a mutual friend, who repeated them again at a dinner party to Scott, on the following day. (See Gillman's Life of Coleridge, page 277.)

Travelling the vale with mine eyes—green meadows and lake with green island,

Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness,

Thrill'd with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain,

Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom !

Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses,

Green-hair'd goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger,

Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical

murmurs.

Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness

Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness

Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,

Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the Sun, the rejoicer !

Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not,

Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee!

Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation ?)

Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamour'd !

Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess,

Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled,

Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he woo'd thee and won thee !

Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning!

Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention :

Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre !

Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith

Myriad myriads of lives teem'd forth from the mighty embracement.

Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impell'd by thousand-fold instincts,

Fill'd, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels ;

Laugh'd on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swell'd upward;

Young life low'd through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains,

Wander'd bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.

WRITTEN DURING A TEMPORARY

BLINDNESS,

IN THE YEAR 1799.

O, WHAT a life is the eye! what a strange and

inscrutable essence!

Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him ;

Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his

mother;

Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber;

Even for him it exists! It moves and stirs in its

prison !

Lives with a separate life: and-"Is it a spirit ? " he murmurs:

'Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language !"

MAHOMET.

UTTER the song, O my soul ! the flight and re

turn of Mohammed,

Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing,

Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution,

Soul-withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan

And idolatrous Christians.-For veiling the Gospel of Jesus,