I must! - yon green oak, branch and crest,
Lies floating on the dark lake's breast!

The noble boy!—how proudly sprung
The falcon from his hand!

It seemed like youth to see him young,
A flower in his father's land!

But the hour of the knell and the dirge is nigh,
For the tree hath fallen, and the flower must die.

Say not 't is vain! I tell thee, some
Are warned by a meteor's light,
Or a pale bird, flitting, calls them home,
Or a voice on the winds by night;
And they must go! And he too, he!
Woe for the fall of the glorious tree!

Felicia Hemans.

Brigham.

NUN'S WELL, BRIGHAM."

HE cattle, crowding round this beverage clear

THE

To slake their thirst, with reckless hoofs have trod

The encircling turf into a barren clod,

Through which the waters creep, then disappear,
Born to be lost in Derwent, flowing near;

Yet o'er the brink, and round the limestone cell
Of the pure spring, (they call it the "Nun's Well,”

Name that first struck by chance my startled ear,)
A tender spirit broods, the pensive shade
Of ritual honors to this fountain paid
By hooded votaresses with saintly cheer;
Albeit oft the Virgin-Mother mild
Looked down with pity upon eyes beguiled
Into the shedding of "too soft a tear."

William Wordsworth.

0,

Brignall.

BRIGNALL BANKS.

BRIGNALL banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,

And you may gather garlands there,
Would grace a summer queen.
And as I rode by Dalton hall,
Beneath the turrets high,

A maiden on the castle wall

Was singing merrily,

"O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green :

I'd rather rove with Edmund there,
Than reign our English queen."

"If, maiden, thou wouldst wend with me, To leave both tower and town,

Thou first must guess what life we lead,

That dwell by dale and down?

And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,

Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed,
As blithe as Queen of May.".

Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I'd rather rove with Edmund there,
Than reign our English queen.

"I read you, by your bugle-horn,
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a ranger sworn,
To keep the king's greenwood."—
"A ranger, lady, winds his horn,
And 't is at peep of light;

His blast is heard at merry morn,

And mine at dead of night.”

Yet sung she, "Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay;

I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!

"With burnished brand and musketoon,
So gallantly you come,

I read you for a bold dragoon,

That lists the tuck of drum."

"I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear;

But when the beetle sounds his hum,

My comrades take the spear.

And O, though Brignall banks be fair,
And Greta woods be gay,

Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
Would reign my Queen of May!

"Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die;

The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!

And when I'm with my comrades met,
Beneath the greenwood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.

Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen."

Sir Walter Scott.

Bristol.

BRISTOL.

How proud,

Opposed to Walton's silent towers, how proud, With all her spires and fanes and volumed smoke, Trailing in columns to the midday sun,

Black, or pale blue, above the cloudy haze,

And the great stir of commerce, and the noise

Of passing and repassing wains, and cars,
And sledges grating in their underpath,

And trade's deep murmur, and a street of masts
And pennants from all nations of the earth,
Streaming below the houses, piled aloft,
Hill above hill; and every road below

Gloomy with troops of coal-nymphs, seated high
On their rough pads, in dingy dust serene;
How proudly amid sights and sounds like these,
Bristol, through all whose smoke, dark and aloof,
Stands Redcliff's solemn fane, - how proudly girt
With villages, and Clifton's airy rocks,
Bristol, the mistress of the Severn sea,
Bristol, amid her merchant palaces,
That ancient city, sits!

William Lisle Bowles.

EPITAPH ON MRS. MASON, IN THE CATHEDRAL OF BRISTOL.

TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear; Take that best gift which heaven so lately gave;

To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died! Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?

Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine:

Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;