REV. CHARLES WOLFE.

BORN 1791.
DIED 1823.

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The Burial of Sir John Moore.

Sir John Moore was killed at Corunna in 1809, in a battle fought there between the English and the French. The French army was commanded by Marshal Soult, and the English army by Sir John Moore.

OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ;—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone— But we left him alone with his glory.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

(Poet Laureate.)

BORN 1770.

DIED 1850.

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PRINCIPAL WRITINGS.-An Evening Walk; Descriptive Sketches of the Alps; The Excursion; Sonnels.

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Fidelity.

BARKING sound the shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts-and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The dog is not of mountain breed ;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow; A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,

Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;

From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,

In symphony austere ;

Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud-
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier binds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The shepherd stood: then makes his way
Towards the dog, o'er rocks and stones,
As quickly as he may ;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fallen, that place of fear!

At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day

On which the traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell !

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.

The dog, which still was hovering nigh,

Repeating the same timid cry,

This dog, had been through three months'

space,

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain that, since the day

When this ill-fated traveller died,

The dog had watched about the spot,

Or by his master's side:

;

How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate.