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And now reposing on thy banks once more,
I bid the pipe farewell, and that sad lay
Whose music on my melancholy way

I wooed amid thy waving willows hoar

:

Seeking awhile to rest, — till the bright sun
Of joy return, as when Heaven's beauteous bow
Beams on the night-storm's passing wings below:
Whate'er betide, yet something have I won
Of solace, that may bear me on serene,

Till Eve's last hush shall close the silent scene.

William Lisle Bowles.

'T

CHERWELL, FROM THE TERRACE.

I.

IS evening! With a mind to which the shade
Somewhat of its own sombre hues hath lent,

On the old terrace-wall far forward bent,

I watch, while slowly the last sunbeams fade
Behind the trees of Christ-Church' lengthened glade,
'Cherwell, thy tributary waters glide
Onward to Isis' breast, a silver tide,
Winding, mid willow-drooping banks embayed;
Yes! typical thine unambitious flow,

Of those brief years to lone seclusion given,
When studious days in modest current go,
Noiseless, unruffled, swift, unsullied, even,
Unrippled, foamless, eddyless, till hurled
Into the larger waters of the world!

ARISTOCRATIC stream!

II.

Thou who dost brook

No trade upon thy waters! never soil
Thy purity the barge and sons of toil!
For gentle lovers only dost thou look:

Ne'er hast thou been, ne'er shalt thou be, forsook
By Youth and Pleasure, who with dripping oar
Through the green meadows on thy banks explore
Each azure bend, and lily-bearing nook;

The pool by bathers sought, glassy and still:
The shady reach where the dark willows bend:
Thine angler-haunted current by the mill:
Beautiful river! why should I rehearse

Faintly thy charms, when he who was my friend
Hath given thee sweeter and more burning verse?

John Bruce Norton.

Chester.

CHESTER.

OW charmed we pilgrims from the eager West,

How

Where only life, and not its scene, is old,
Beside the hearth of Chester's inn at rest,
Her ancient story to each other told!

The holly-wreath and dial's moon-orbed face,

The Gothic tankard, crowned with beaded ale,

The faded aquatint of Chevy Chace,

And heirloom bible, harmonized the tale.

Then roamed we forth as in a wondrous dream,
Whose visions truth could only half eclipse;
The turret shadows living phantoms seem,
And mill-sluice brawl the moan of ghostly lips.

Night and her planet their enchantments wove,
To wake the brooding spirits of the past;
A Druid's sickle glistened in the grove,

And Harold's war-cry died upon the blast.

The floating mist that hung on Brewer's hill,
(While every heart-beat secmed a sentry's tramp,)
In tented domes and bannered folds grew still,
As rose the psalm from Cromwell's wary camp.

From ivied tower, above the meadows sere,

We watched the fray with hunted Charles of yore, When grappled Puritan and Cavalier,

And sunk a traitor's throne on Rowton moor.

We tracked the ramparts in the lunar gloom,

Knelt by the peasants at St. Mary's shrine; With his own hermit mused at Parnell's tomb, And breathed the cadence of his pensive line.

Beneath a gable mouldering and low,

The pious record we could still descry, Which, in the pestilence of old De Foe, Proclaimed that here death's angel flitted by.

At morn the venders in the minster's shade,
With gleaming scales and plumage at their feet,
Seemed figures on the canvas of Ostade,
Where mart and temple so benignly meet.

Of Holland whispered then the sullen barge,
We thought of Venice by the hushed canal,
And hailed each relic on time's voiceless marge,
Sepulchral lamp and clouded lachrymal.

The quaint arcades of traffic's feudal range,
And giant fossils of a lustier crew;

The diamond casements and the moated grange,
Tradition's lapsing fantasies renew.

The oaken effigies of buried earls,

A window blazoned with armorial crest,
A rusted helm, and standard's broidered furls,
Chivalric eras patiently attest.

Here William's castle frowns upon the tide;
There holy Werburgh keeps aerial sway,
To warn the minions who complacent glide,
And swell ambition's retinue to-day.

Once more we sought the parapet, to gaze,

And mark the hoar-frost glint along the dales; Or, through the wind-cleft vistas of the haze,

Welcome afar the mountain-ridge of Wales.

Ah, what a respite from the onward surge
Of life, where all is turbulent and free,
To pause awhile upon the quiet verge
Of olden memories, beside the Dee!

Anonymous.

Chillington.

INSCRIPTION FOR A STONE

ERECTED AT THE SOWING OF A GROVE OF OAKS AT CHILLINGTON, THE SEAT OF T. GIFFORD, ESQ., 1790.

THER stones the era tell

OTHER

When some feeble mortal fell;

I stand here to date the birth

Of these hardy sons of earth.

Which shall longest brave the sky,
Storm and frost, these oaks or I?
Pass an age or two away,

I must moulder and decay;

But the years that crumble me
Shall invigorate the tree,
Spread its branch, dilate its size,
Lift its summit to the skies.

Cherish honor, virtue, truth,
So shalt thou prolong thy youth.
Wanting these, however fast
Man be fixed and formed to last,
He is lifeless even now,

Stone at heart, and cannot grow.

William Cowper.

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