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To watch with tip-toe foot and eager eye
Some mere device of Pride,
Meaningless pomp of regal vanity

The void of Truth to hide ?

To feed some popular lust which cautious power
Would, for wise ends, restrain,

Not bartering to the passion of an hour
What ages toiled to gain?

Thanks, thanks to Heaven, that in these evil days,
Days of hard hearts and cold,

Days where no love is found in all our ways,
Where Man is overbold,

And loathes all tender mutual offices,
And nothing old reveres,
Unwilling to be seen upon his knees,
Ashamed of his own tears,-

My soul the gracious privilege of this sight,
This priceless sight, has won,

A people of too simple faith to slight
A Father's benison ;-

Not in low flattery, not in selfish dread,
Before one meek old man,

A People, a whole People, prostrated,

Infant and veteran.

K

By that High-Priest in prelude of deep prayer

Implored and sanctified,

The benediction of paternal care
Can never be denied.

Most surely from that narrow gallery
The oriflamme unfurled,
Shelters within its grand benignity

Rome and the orbed world.

The faintest wretch may catch the dew that falls
From those anointed lips,

And take away a wealth that never palls,
A joy without eclipse.

Old pines that darkly skirt the circling hills,
Bend down in grateful awe,—
Infuse the earth's dry heart, prolific rills!
With Love's unbroken law.

Bear the glad tidings to your sister seas,
Mediterranean waves !

Let every muttering storm be hushed in peace,
Silent the thunderous caves!

And would my spirit from Earth's embasing rule
Were in this moment riven !

That I might pass through such fit vestibule
Up to the face of Heaven!

SIR WALTER SCOTT AT THE TOMB OF THE STUARTS IN ST. PETER'S.*

EVE's tinted shadows slowly fill the fane
Where Art has taken almost Nature's room,
While still two objects clear in light remain,
An alien pilgrim at an alien tomb.-

-A sculptured tomb of regal heads discrown'd,
Of one heart-worshipped, fancy-haunted, name,
Once loud on earth, but now scarce else renown'd
Than as the offspring of that stranger's fame.

There lie the Stuarts !-There lingers Walter Scott!
Strange congress of illustrious thoughts and things!
A plain old moral, still too oft forgot,-

The power of Genius and the fall of Kings.

* When Sir Walter Scott was at Rome, the year of his death, the history and localities of the Stuarts seemed to absorb all other objects of his interest. The circumstance of this poem fell within the observation of the writer.

The curse on lawless Will high-planted there,
A beacon to the world, shines not for him;
He is with those who felt their life was sere,
When the full light of loyalty grew dim.

He rests his chin upon a sturdy staff,
Historic as that sceptre, theirs no more;
His gaze is fixed; his thirsty heart can quaff,
For a short hour the spirit-draughts of yore.

Each figure in its pictured place is seen,
Each fancied shape his actual vision fills,
From the long-pining, death-delivered, Queen,
To the worn Outlaw of the heathery hills.

grace of life, which shame could never mar!
O dignity, that circumstance defied!
Pure is the neck that wears the deathly scar,
And sorrow has baptised the front of pride.

But purpled mantle, and blood-crimson'd shroud,
Exiles to suffer and returns to woo,

Are gone, like dreams by daylight disallow'd;
And their historian,-he is sinking too!

A few more moments and that labouring brow
Cold as those royal busts and calm will lie;
And, as on them his thoughts are resting now,
His marbled form will meet the attentive eye.

Thus, face to face, the dying and the dead,
Bound in one solemn ever-living bond,
Communed; and I was sad that ancient head
Ever should pass those holy walls beyond.

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TEMPLE! where Time has wed Eternity,
How beautiful Thou art, beyond compare,
Now emptied of thy massive majesty,
And made so faery-frail, so faery-fair:
The lineaments that thou art wont to wear
Augustly traced in ponderous masonry,
Lie faint as in a woof of filmy air,
Within their frames of mellow jewelry.-

But yet how sweet the hardly-waking sense,

That when the strength of hours has quenched those gems,

Disparted all those soft-bright diadems,

Still in the Sun thy form will rise supreme

In its own solid clear magnificence,

Divinest substance then, as now divinest dream.

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