But there

I lay thee in thy grave,

And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,

Thou hast forgotten me;

And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart,
In thinking still of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,

As fancy never could have drawn,

And never can restore!

CHARLES WOLFE (1791-1823).

XV.

HESTER.

WHEN maidens such as Hester die,
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try,
With vain endeavour.

A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate

Of pride and joy no common rate
That flushed her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call:- if 'twas not pride,

It was a joy to that allied,

She did inherit.

Her parents held the Quaker rule,
Which doth the human feeling cool,
But she was trained in Nature's school,
Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

My sprightly neighbour, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet forewarning?

XVI.

CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834).

THE SHEPHERD'S ELEGY.

GLIDE soft, ye silver floods,

And every spring.

Within the shady woods

Let no bird sing!

Nor from the grove a turtle dove
Be seen to couple with her love.

But silence on each dale and mountain dwell,
Whilst Willy bids his friend and joy farewell.

But of great Thetis' train

Ye mermaids fair

That on the shores do plain
Your sea-green hair,

As ye in trammels knit your locks
Weep ye; and so enforce the rocks
In heavy murmurs through the broad shores tell,
How Willy bade his friend and joy farewell.

Cease, cease, ye murmuring winds,

To move a wave;

But if with troubled minds

You seek his grave,

Know 'tis as various as yourselves
Now in the deep, then on the shelves,
His coffin tossed by fish and surges fell,
Whilst Willy weeps, and bids all joy farewell.

Had he, Arion like

Been judged to drown,

He on his lute could strike

So rare a sown,

A thousand dolphins would have come
And jointly strive to bring him home.
But he on shipboard died, by sickness fell,
Since when his Willy paid all joy farewell.

Great Neptune, hear a swain!
His coffin take,

And with a golden chain

(For pity) make

It fast unto a rock near land!

Where ev'ry calmy morn I'll stand,

And ere one sheep out of my fold I tell,

Şad Willy's pipe shall bid his friend farewell.

WILLIAM BROWNE (1590–1645).

XVII.

ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON.

O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi' a woodie

Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
O'er hurcheon hides,

And like stockfish came o'er his studdie
Wi' thy auld sides!

He's gane! he's gane! he's frae us torn, The ae best fellow e'er was born!

Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn By wood and wild,

Where, haply, Pity strays forlorn,

Frae man exiled.

Ye hills, near neibours o' the starns, That proudly cock your cresting cairns! Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns,

Where Echo slumbers!

Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, My wailing numbers!

Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens!
Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens!
Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens,
Wi' toddlin' din,

Or foaming strang, wi' hasty stens,
Frae lin to lin.

Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves, fair to see;

Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie
In scented bowers;

Ye roses on your thorny tree,

The first o' flowers.

At dawn, when every grassy blade
Droops with a diamond at its head,
At even, when beans their fragrance shed,
I' the rustling gale,

Ye maukins, whiddin' through the glade,
Come join my wail!

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood;
Ye grouse, that crap the heather bud;

Ye curlews, calling through a clud;
Ye whistling plover;

And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood —
He's gane for ever!

Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals;
Ye fisher herons, watching eels;
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels

Circling the lake;

Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels,

Rair for his sake!

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day,
'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay;
And when ye wing your annual way
Frae our cauld shore,

Tell thae far warlds, wha lies in clay,
Wham we deplore.