THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. WITH fingers weary and worn, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, While the cock is crowing aloof! Till the stars shine through the roof! It's oh! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save,- Till the brain begins to swim ; Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band; Band, and gusset, and seam; Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in my dream! "Oh! men with sisters dear! Oh! men with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch-stitch-stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt; Sewing at once, with a double thread, A SHROUD as well as a shirt! "But why do I talk of death, That phantom of grisly bone; Because of the fast I keep; O God! that bread should be so dear, My labour never flags; And what are its wages? A bed of straw, A shatter'd roof-and this naked floor- And a wall so blank my shadow I thank "Work-work-work! As prisoners work, for crime! Seam, and gusset, and band; Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd As well as the weary hand! "Work-work-work, In the dull December light, And work-work-work, When the weather is warm and bright: While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, "Oh! but to breathe the breath And the grass beneath my feet; To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want, And the walk that costs a meal! "Oh! but for one short hour! A respite, however brief! No blessed leisure for love or hope; A little weeping would ease my heart- My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread!" With eyelids heavy and red, In poverty, hunger, and dirt; SILENCE. THERE is a silence where hath been no sound, Of antique palaces, where man hath been, And owls, that fit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true silence is, self-conscious and alone. DEATH. It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this,-but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft,-and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men. A RUSTIC ODE. Оn! well may poets make a fuss And turns me "dust to dust." My sun his daily course renews His setting shows more tamely still, But down a chimney's pot! Oh! but to hear the milk-maid blithe, The dewy meads among! Oh! but to smell the woodbine sweet! For meadow buds, I get a whiff That marks the Bell and Crown! Where are ye, birds! that blithely wing From tree to tree, and gayly sing Or mourn in thickets deep? My blackbird is a sweep! Where are ye, linnet! lark! and thrush! Are all my "tuneful throng." Of calimanco-dyes. Sweet are the little brooks that run O'er pebbles glancing in the sun, Singing in soothing tones: Not thus the city streamlets flow; They make no music as they go, Though never "off the stones." Where are ye, pastoral, pretty sheep, And skin-not shear-the lambs. The rank weed-" piping hot." All rural things are vilely mock'd, With objects hard to bear: An Ingram's rustic chair! Where are ye, London meads and bowers, And gardens redolent of flowers Wherein the zephyr wons? Alas! Moor Fields are fields no more! No pastoral scene procures me peace; With brokers, not with bees. Oh! well may poets make a fuss Of city pleasures sick : My heart is all at pant to rest In greenwood shades,-my eyes detest FROM AN ODE TO MELANCHOLY. OH! clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, A thought that shows so stern as this: Forgive, if somewhile I forget, In wo to come, the present bliss. As frighted Proserpine let fall Her flowers at the sight of Dis, Even so the dark and bright will kiss. The sunniest things throw sternest shade, And there is even a happiness That makes the heart afraid! Now let us with a spell invoke The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes; Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud Lapp'd all about her, let her rise All pale and dim, as if from rest The ghost of the late buried sun Had crept into the skies. The moon! she is the source of sighs, The very face to make us sad; If but to think in other times The same calm quiet look she had, As if the world held nothing base, TO A COLD BEAUTY. Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad; The same fair light that shone in streams, The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad; For so it is, with spent delights She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad All things are touch'd with melancholy, Born of the secret soul's mistrust, To feel her fair ethereal wings Weigh'd down with vile degraded dust; Bring on conclusions of disgust, I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. I REMEMBER, I remember, The house where I was born, I remember, I remember, The roses-red and white; The violets and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! And where my brother set I remember, I remember, Where I was used to swing; And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing: My spirit flew in feathers then, That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops It was a childish ignorance, To know I'm farther off from heaven LADY, wouldst thou heiress be, Thou dost still lock up thy heart;— Thou that shouldst outlast the snow, But in the whiteness of thy brow? Scorn and cold neglect are made For winter gloom and winter wind, But thou wilt wrong the summer air, Breathing it to words unkind,Breath which only should belong To love, to sunlight, and to song! When the little buds unclose, Red, and white, and pied, and blue, And that virgin flower, the rose, Opes her heart to hold the dew, Wilt thou lock thy bosom up With no jewel in its cup? Let not cold December sit Thus in love's peculiar throne;Brooklets are not prison'd now, But crystal frosts are all agone, And that which hangs upon the spray, It is no snow, but flower of May! LOVE. LOVE, dearest lady, such as I would speak, BY A LOVER. Br every sweet tradition of true hearts, By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts, Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear By Hero's faith, and the forboding tear That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall; By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear That sigh'd around her flight; I swear by all, The world shall find such pattern in my act, As if love's great examples still were lack'd. ROBERT POLLOK. THIS poet was born of parents in humble circumstances at Eaglesham, in Ayrshire, in 1799. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and in 1827 took orders in the Scottish Secession Church. In the same year he published The Course of Time, and, on account of impaired health, left Scotland with an intention to proceed to Italy, but died, on his way, at Southampton, on the fifteenth of September. The Course of Time was written during his student life, and when, unfriended and unknown, he offered it to the publishers of Edinburgh, none of them were willing to bring it out. The manuscript was fortunately seen by Professor WILSON, who quickly perceived its merits, and effected an arrangement between the poet and Messrs. Blackwood, which resulted in its publication. The plot of the poem is very simple: The events of time are finished, and a being from some remote world arrives in Paradise, where he inquires the meaning of the hell he has seen on his way BYRON. ADMIRE the goodness of Almighty God! He riches gave, he intellectual strength, To few, and therefore none commands to be Or rich, or learn'd; nor promises reward Of peace to these. On all, He moral worth Bestow'd, and moral tribute ask'd from all. And who that could not pay who born so poor, Of intellect so mean, as not to know What seem'd the best; and, knowing, might not do? As not to know what God and conscience bade, And what they bade not able to obey? And he, who acted thus, fulfill'd the law Eternal, and its promise reaped of peace; Found peace this way alone: who sought it else, Sought mellow grapes beneath the icy pole, Sought blooming roses on the cheek of death, Sought substance in a world of fleeting shades. Take one example, to our purpose quite, A man of rank, and of capacious soul, Who riches had and fame, beyond desire, An heir of flattery, to titles born, And reputation, and luxurious life; Yet, not content with ancestorial name, Or to be known because his fathers were, He on this height hereditary stood, And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart heavenward; a bard, once of our earth, sings the story of humanity, from the beginning until time is finished, the righteous saved, the wicked damned, And God's eternal government approved. The subject is a noble one, and in the poem there are graphic conceptions and passages of beauty and tenderness; but it is disfigured by amplifications and a redundancy of moral pictures; it has no continuous interest, and in parts of it which should have been and which the author endeavoured to make the most impressive, particularly those in which he subjects himself to a comparison with DANTE and MILTON, he utterly failed. The Course of Time has been almost universally read. I have been informed that not less than twenty editions of it have been sold in the United States, and it has been frequently reprinted in Scotland. For its popularity, however, both here and in Great Britain, it is more indebted to its theology than to its merits as a poem. To take another step. Above him seem'd, He touch'd his harp, and nations heard, entranced, 66 And open'd new fountains in the human heart. And seem'd to mock the ruin he had wrought. [much, Great man! the nations gazed, and wonder'd And praised; and many call'd his evil good. Wits wrote in favour of his wickedness, And kings to do him honour took delight. Thus, full of titles, flattery, honour, fame, Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full, He died. He died of what? Of wretchedness;— Proof this, beyond all lingering of doubt, And with the unsubstantial shade of time, THE MILLENNIUM. THE animals, as once in Eden, lived In peace. The wolf dwelt with the lamb, the bear And leopard with the ox. With looks of love, The tiger and the scaly crocodile Together met, at Gambia's palmy wave. Perch'd on the eagle's wing, the bird of song, Singing, arose, and visited the sun; And with the falcon sat the gentle lark. The little child leap'd from his mother's arms And stroked the crested snake, and roll'd unhurt Among his speckled waves, and wish'd him home; And sauntering school-boys, slow returning, play'd At eve about the lion's den, and wove, Into his shaggy mane, fantastic flowers. To meet the husbandman, early abroad, Hasted the deer, and waved its woody head; And round his dewy steps, the hare, unscared, Sported, and toy'd familiar with his dog. The flocks and herds, o'er hill and valley spread, Exulting, cropp'd the ever-budding herb, The desert blossom'd, and the barren sung. Justice and Mercy, Holiness and Love, Among the people walk'd. Messiah reign'd, And earth kept jubilee a thousand years. |