'Tis by the rolling moon we measure
The date between our nuptial night
And that blest hour which brings to light
The pledge of faith-the fruit of bliss;
When we impress upon the treasure
A father's earliest kiss.

The Moon's the Earth's enamour'd bride;
True to him in her very changes,
To other stars she never ranges:

Though, cross'd by him, sometimes she dips

Her light, in short offended pride,
And faints to an eclipse.

The fairies revel by her sheen;
'Tis only when the Moon's above
The fire-fly kindles into love,
And flashes light to show it:

The nightingale salutes her Queen
Of Heaven, her heav'nly poet.

Then ye that love-by moonlight gloom
Meet at my grave, and plight regard.
Oh! could I be the Orphéan bard
Of whom it is reported,

That nightingales sung o'er his tomb,
Whilst lovers came and courted.

SONG ON OUR QUEEN.

SET TO MUSIC BY CHARLES NEATE, ESQ.

VICTORIA'S Sceptre o'er the deep

Has touch'd, and broken slavery's chain; Yet, strange magician! she enslaves

Our hearts within her own domain.

Her spirit is devout, and burns

With thoughts averse to bigotry;

Yet she herself, the idol, turns
Our thoughts into idolatry.

24

CORA LINN, OR THE FALLS OF THE

CLYDE.

WRITTEN ON REVISITING IT IN 1837.

THE time I saw thee, Cora, last,

"Twas with congenial friends;

And calmer hours of pleasure past→→

My memory seldom sends.

It was as sweet an Autumn day

As ever shone on Clyde,

And Lanark's orchards all the way

Put forth their golden pride;

Ev'n hedges, busk'd in bravery,

Look'd rich that sunny morn ;
The scarlet hip and blackberry
So prank'd September's thorn.

In Cora's glen the calm how deep!
That trees on loftiest hill
Like statues stood, or things asleep,
All motionless and still.

The torrent spoke, as if his noise
Bade earth be quiet round,

And give his loud and lonely voice
A more commanding sound.

His foam, beneath the yellow light Of noon, came down like one Continuous sheet of jaspers bright, Broad rolling by the sun.

Dear Linn! let loftier falling floods Have prouder names than thine; And king of all, enthroned in woods, Let Niagara shine.

Barbarian, let him shake his coasts
With reeking thunders far,
Extended like th' array of hosts
In broad, embattled war!

His voice appalls the wilderness :
Approaching thine, we feel
A solemn, deep melodiousness,
That needs no louder peal.

More fury would but disenchant
Thy dream-inspiring din;

Be thou the Scottish Muse's haunt,
Romantic Cora Linn.

CHAUCER AND WINDSOR.

LONG shalt thou flourish, Windsor! bodying forth
Chivalric times, and long shall live around
Thy Castle-the old oaks of British birth,
Whose gnarled roots, tenacious and profound,
As with a lion's talons grasp the ground.
But should thy towers in ivied ruin rot,
There's one, thine inmate once, whose strain
renown'd

Would interdict thy name to be forgot;

For Chaucer loved thy bowers and trode this very spot.

Chaucer! our Helicon's first fountain-stream,
Our morning star of song-that led the way
To welcome the long-after coming beam
Of Spenser's light and Shakspeare's perfect day.
Old England's fathers live in Chaucer's lay,
As if they ne'er had died. He group'd and drew
Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay,
That still they live and breathe in Fancy's view,
Fresh beings fraught with truth's imperishable

hue.