One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung! "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; "They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan; Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode, and they ran; There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, SIR WALTER SCOTT, The Convict Ship. wwwwww MORN on the waters!—and, purple and bright, O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun, Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail, And her pennon streams onward, like hope in the gale; Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below! Night on the waves !—and the moon is on high, Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky, Treading its depths in the power of her might, And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light! Look to the waters !-asleep on their breast, Seems not the ship like an island of rest ? Bright and alone on the shadowy main, Like a heart-cherish'd home on some desolate plain! A phantom of beauty-could deem with a sigh, That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin, And that souls that are smitten lie bursting within ? 'Tis thus with our life, while it passes along, As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears; And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know, Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below; Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore Where the dreams of our childhood are vanish'd and o'er. To the Rainbow. TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky HERVEY. I ask not proud philosophy To teach me what thou art : Still seem as to my childhood's sight, For happy spirits to alight Betwixt the earth and heaven. Can all that optics teach unfold As when I dream'd of gems and gold When Science from Creation's face And yet, fair bow, no fabled dreams, Was woven in the sky. When o'er the green undeluged earth Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's grey father's To watch thy sacred sign. forth And when its yellow lustre smiled Each mother held aloft her child Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, Nor ever shall the Muse's eye The earth to thee her incense yields, How glorious is thy girdle cast Or mirror'd in the ocean vast, As fresh in yon horizon dark, |