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The antlers on his front

Hang heavy, that were wont

To rise rejoicing in their large command.

Now up the cliff he tries a sharp short bound,
Expiring action of his speedy pride,

And but once gazing pitifully round
The tangled bramble-heap he tears aside,
Seeking his solemn grave

Within the same lone Cave,

Where, through recorded time, his sires have died.

Sons of the greenwood and free mountain air,
Children of open life and herding ways,

Why should they seek this solitary lair,
Soon as their conscious energy decays?
How should they one and all

Select this common pall

Of cold damp rock for their departing days?

There is an ill repute of all that kind,

That, when the leader of the troop is weak
With age or wounds, at once both stag and hind
The

wrongs of years on his poor members wreak;
Yet here it is not so,-

For mark his pace, how slow!

And all their looks, how sorrowful and meek!

Rather believe that to that voiceless creat ure
The decencies of Death are someway known,
That on the remnant of his living nature
The Last a shadow of itself has thrown,
Impelling him to teach,

More strongly than by speech,

That Death stands everywhere apart,-alone!

Wisdom incumbent on the heirs of life! Not visible least in those whose sole behest Is to enjoy the world of peace or strife, Holding necessity their only best;

No part of thee is mean,

For each, devoutly seen,

Shall aid the pupil Man to read the rest.

ELYSIAN FIELDS AT LOWTHER,

IN WESTMORELAND.

A YOUTH caressed and nurtured long,
Beneath the sky, beside the sea,
Where rules a vivid world of song
The clear-eyed Queen Parthenope,-
And wont to blend with outward grace
The soul Virgilian memory yields,
Might seek with dull, uneager, pace,
The cloudy north's Elysian Fields.

"Lowther," he cried, " of ancient strength
Thy lofty towers the harness wear ;-
Thy terraces their mossy length
Extend through centuries of care;
In thine old oaks may Fancy read
A green traditionary chain

Of Worth and Power ;-Thou dost not need

To take the classic name in vain."

Up Lowther's banks, that very eve,
This scornful youth was seen to wind
Still tardier steps, that seem'd to grieve
For joy or beauty left behind;

But ere he reached the lordly roof,
High portal and cathedral stair,
His thoughts in other, fairer, woof,
Were offer'd to the attentive air.

"Not once to Baia's column'd bay, Or Cuma's glade my spirit fled, While on that storm-cast trunk I lay, Above yon torrent's stormy bed : Crystal and

green sufficed so well

To solace and delight mine eyes,

They yearn'd for no remember'd spell Fashion'd beneath serener skies.

"If golden light or azure void
The Poet's radiant dream fulfils,
Are clouds and shadows unenjoy'd,
The ghostly guardians of the hills ?
Nature an open Faith demands,
And we have little else to do

But take the blessing from her hands,
Feeling-Here is Elysium too."

ON THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN,

AT FROME, IN SOMERSETSHIRE.

LET other thoughts, where'er I roam,
Ne'er from my memory cancel
The coffin-fashioned tomb at Frome
That lies behind the chancel ;
A basket-work where bars are bent,
Iron in place of osier,

And shapes above that represent

A mitre and a crosier.

These signs of him that slumbers there

The dignity betoken;

These iron bars a heart declare

Hard bent but never broken;

This form pourtrays how souls like his,
Their pride and passion quelling,
Preferr'd to earth's high palaces

This calm and narrow dwelling.

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