While to the sheltering convent's hallow'd walls
A softer voice the laurell'd hero calls,

Where, from the bloody scene of fight removed,
Trembling 'mid hope and fear for all she loved,
Elsitha prostrate on the earth implored
Blessings on Albion's arms and Albion's lord.
Sweet were the warrior's feelings when he press'd
His lovely consort to his beating breast;

Sweet too, Elsitha, thine-with conquest crown'd
To see the mighty chief in arms renown'd,
Though loud the cheering shouts of conquest rise,
And war's triumphant clangour rends the skies,
Forego the scenes of public joy awhile,

To share the bliss of love's domestic smile.
Yet such, alas! of human joy the state,

Some grief on Fortune's brightest hours must wait
Amid the victor laurel's greenest wreath,
Twines the funereal bough of pain and death.
Elsitha's eye among the conquering train
Seeks many a friend and near ally in vain.
Leofric, her brother's heir, whose ardent breast
Her influence mild and bland had oft repress'd,
Would Indignation's angry frown reprove,
Or warn him from the dangerous smiles of Love:
Leofric, who when the dawn awoke her fears,
Dried, with consoling voice, her gushing tears,
Mangled and lifeless from the combat borne,
Refutes at eve the promised hope of morn.
And, as her heart the painful image draws,
Of youthful Donald bleeding in her cause,
The royal warrior, beautiful and brave,
A timeless victim of the silent grave,
O'er her swol'n breast a softer sorrow steals,
Her heart a warmer sense of pity feels,

While tears, as pure as seraph eyes might shed,
Flow o'er his memory and embalm him dead.
Even Alfred, when his firmer looks survey
The field of fate in morning's sober ray,

Sees Victory's guerdon, though with safety fraught,
By blood of kindred heroes dearly bought.
Though myriads saved from slavery and death,
Their spirits waft to Heaven with grateful breath :
Yet chiefs of noble race and nobler worth,
Glory and grace of Albion's parent earth,
Extended pale and lifeless in his sight,
Check the tumultuous tide of full delight;
And as the hymns of praise ascend the air,

His bosom bows in penitence and prayer,

O'er the red sward Contrition's sorrows flow,

Though Freedom steel'd its edge and Justice sped the blow.

But when he views along the tented field,

With trailing banner and inverted shield,
Young Donald borne by Scotia's weeping bands,
In deeper woe the generous hero stands.

“O, early lost," with faltering voice he cried,

"

In the fresh bloom of youth and glory's pride;
Dear, gallant friend! while memory here remains,
While flows the tide of life through Alfred's veins,
Ne'er shall thy virtues from this breast depart,
Ne'er Donald's worth be blotted from this heart.
Yet the stern despot of the silent tomb,
Who spreads o'er youth and age an equal doom,
Shall here no empire boast—his ruthless dart
That pierced with cruel point thy manly heart,
Snatch'd from his iron grasp by hovering Fame,
Graves in eternal characters thy name.

All who the radiance of thy morn have seen,
Shall augur what thy noon-tide ray had been
If Fate's decree had given thy rising sun
Its full career of glory to have run;

But oft are Valour's fires, that early blaze,

Quench'd in the crimson cloud their ardours raise.
Äh, wretched Gregor! how can words relate
To thy declining age thy Donald's fate?
For while of such a son the untimely doom
Drags thy gray hairs in sorrow to the tomb,
Each tale of praise that tries to soothe thy care,
But wounds thy heart and plants new horrors there.
On me, on England's cause, the curse shall fall,
On me the wretched sire shall frantic call;
Who from his arms his soul's last solace led
On distant plains to mingle with the dead.
Then, O, my valiant friends, whose ears attest
Of Donald's dying voice the sad bequest,
With yours my dearest care shall be combined
To soothe the tempests of your monarch's mind;
With you protect from War's, from Faction's rage,
The feeble remnant of his waning age.

As round our isle the azure billow roars,
From all the World dividing Britain's shores,
Within its fence be Britain's nations join'd

A world themselves, yet friends of human kind."

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Born in Bristol, 1774.

Made Laureate in 1813. Died in 1843.

(Reigns of George III., George IV., William IV., and Victoria.)

SOUTHEY'S acknowledged power as a prose writer has obscured his fame as a poet. Then he has suffered by comparison with his greater associates, Wordsworth and Coleridge. But viewing his poetical work by itself, it will be found that it has qualities which go far to justify his own delight and confidence in it. The world is beginning not only to estimate Southey as he deserves, but to realise that it needs him and his work. The romantic revival of the present time will inevitably make his warlike and spirited epics popular, and the charm of his pure and healthful views of life will be found to be irresistible. Poets have not inappropriately been termed a waiting race. The man of genius obtains his rightful place at last, even if it takes wearisome years. For fifty years or more Southey has been as much underrated as Byron has been overrated. These two extremes of view have been a literary disease which is not easily cured. But finally character tells, and has its due effect upon the public. Without moral strength and dignity in poetical work,-the outgrowth of strength and dignity of life,-no work can be permanent, nor appeal to humanity with abiding power.

The faults of Southey's poetry are obvious enough. He was unfortunate, often, in his choice of subjects, which have little human interest. He struck a new and original vein in his epics, and they are full of picturesque beauty, have many thrilling situations, many magnificent thoughts, and strike with a tender and powerful touch many chords of the most tragic feeling; and yet they lack constructive skill, are too voluminous, and the introduction of occasional peurilities mars their symmetry. Southey's work is all unequal. Far-reaching thoughts which show imaginative grasp and true poetic passion, original and exquisite forms of versification, go side by side with commonplace ideas and a diction differing little from that of prose. Southey pleases most by his descriptive powers, his splendour of imagery, his skill in narrative; by his novel and musical versification,-treating blank verse even in a wholly original way,—and by the sympathetic tenderness and delicate humour he displays when