SONG.
I.

O say not that my heart is cold

To aught that once could warm it--
That Nature's form so dear of old

No more has power to charm it;
Or that th' ungenerous world can chill
One glow of fond emotion

For those who made it dearer still,

And shared my wild devotion.

II.

Still oft those solemn scenes I view
In rapt and dreamy sadness;
Oft look on those who lov'd them too
With fancy's idle gladness;
Again I long'd to view the light

In Nature's features glowing;
Again to tread the mountain's height,
And taste the soul's o'erflowing.

III.

Stern Duty rose, and frowning flung
His leaden chain around me ;
With iron look and sullen tongue
He mutter'd as he bound me-

"The mountain breeze, the boundless heaven,
Unfit for toil the creature ;

These for the free alone are given,―

But what have slaves with Nature ?"

A description of an enchanting scene in the county Wicklow the Dargle," or "Glen of the Oak"cannot fail to interest any one who has had the happiness to visit it, and is gifted with taste to enjoy it. This little sketch, though written in prose, is animated by the very spirit of poetry, and is so graphically accurate

in the delineation of every feature of that lovely spot, that it seems capable of summoning up before the imagination, as by magic, the whole scene, in all its vivid colouring and its distinctive forms of beauty.

THE DARGLE.

We found ourselves at Bray about ten in the morning, with that disposition to be pleased which seldom allows itself to be disappointed; and the sense of our escape from every thing not only of routine, but of regularity, into the country of mountains and glens and valleys and waterfalls, inspired us with a sort of gay wildness and independence, that disposed us to find more of the romantic and picturesque than perhaps Nature ever intended. If, therefore, gentle reader, thou shouldest here meet with any extravagances at which thy sober feelings may be inclined to revolt, bethink thee, that the immortal Syntax himself, when just escaped from the everlasting dulness of a school, did descry a landscape even in a post,—a circumstance which probably no one had ever discovered before.

We proceeded to the Dargle along the small river whose waters were flowing gently towards us after having passed through the beautiful scenes we were to visit. It was here a tranquil stream, and its banks but thinly clothed; but at the opening of the Dargle-gate, the scene was instantly changed. At once we were immersed in a sylvan wilderness, where the trees were thronging and crowding around us; and the river had suddenly changed its tone, and was sounding wildly up the wooded bank that sloped down to its edge. We precipitated ourselves towards the sound,-and when we stopped and looked around us, the mountains, the champaign, and almost the sky had disappeared. We were at the bottom of a deep winding glen, whose steep sides had suddenly shut out every appearance of the world that we had left. At our feet a stream was struggling with the multitude of rude rocks, which

Nature, in one of her primeval convulsions, had flung here and there in masses into its current; sometimes uniting into irregular ledges, over which the water swept with impetuosity ;-sometimes standing insulated in the stream, and increasing the energies of the river by their resistance ;-sometimes breaking forward from the bank, and giving a bolder effect to its romantic outline. The opposite side of the glen, that rose steeply and almost perpendicularly from the very brink of the river, was one precipice of foliage from top to bottom, where the trees rose directly above each other (their roots and backs being in a great degree concealed by the profusion of leaves in those below them,) and a broken sunbeam now and then struggled through the boughs, and sometimes contrived to reach the river.

The side along which we proceeded was equally high, but more sloping and diversified; and the wooding, at one time retiring from the stream, while at another a close cluster of trees of the freshest verdure advanced into the river, bending over it in attitudes at once graceful and fantastic, and forming a picturesque and luxuriant counterpart to the little naked promontories of rock which we before observed. Both sides of the glen completely enclosed us from the view of every thing external, except a narrow tract of sky just over our heads, which corresponded in some degree to the course of the stream below; so that in fact the sun seemed a stranger, only occasionally visiting us from another system. Sometimes while we were engaged in contemplating the strong darkness of the river as it rushed along, and the pensive loveliness of the foliage overhanging it, a sudden gleam of sunshine quietly yet instantaneously diffused itself over the scene, as if it smiled almost from some internal perception of pleasure, and felt a glow of instinctive exhilaration. Thus did we wander from charm to charm, and from beauty to beauty, endlessly varying, though all breathing the same wild and secluded luxury, the same poetical voluptuousness. This new region, set apart from the

rest of creation, with its class of fanciful joys attached to it, seemed allotted to some creature of different elements from our own,-some airy being, whose only essence was imagination. As the thought occupied us, we opened upon a new object which seemed to confirm it. The profuse wooding which formed the steep and rich barrier of the opposite side of the river, was suddenly interrupted by a huge naked rock that stood out into the stream, as if it had swelled forward indignantly from the touch of cultivation, and, proud of its primitive barrenness, had flung aside the hand that was dispensing beauty around it, and that would have intruded upon its craggy and original majesty. It was here that our imaginations fixed a residence for the Genius of the river and the Spirit of the Dargle. A sort of watery cell was formed by the protrusion of this bold figure from the one side, and the thick foliage that met it across from the other, and threw a solemn darkness over the water. In front, a fragment of rock stood in the middle of the current, like a threshold, and a spreading tree hung its branches directly over it, like a spacious screen in face of the cell. From this we began gradually to ascend, until our side became nearly as steep as the opposite, while the wooding was thickening on both at every step; so that the glen soon formed one steep and magnificent gulf of foliage. The river at a vast distance, almost directly below us; the glad sparkling and flashing of its waters, only occasionally seen, and its wild voice mellowed and refined as it reached us through thousands of leaves and branches; the variety of hues, and the mazy irregularity of the trees that descended from our feet to the river,-were finely contrasted with the heavier and more monotonous mass that met it in the bottom, down the other side.

In stepping back a few paces, we just descried, over the opposite boundary, the top of Sugar-loaf, in dim and distant perspective. The sensations of a mariner, when, after a long voyage without sight of shore, he

suddenly perceives symptoms of land where land was not expected, could not be more novel and curious, than those excited in us by this little silent notice of regions which we had literally forgotten,-so totally were we engrossed in our present enchantment, and so much were our minds, like our view, bounded by the sides of the glen. This single object let in a whole train of recollections and associations: but the charm could not be more gradually and more pleasingly broken. The glen, still retaining all its characteristic luxuriance, began gracefully to widen,-the country to open upon us, and the mountains to rise; and at length, after a gentle descent, we passed the Daigle-gate, and found ourselves standing over the delightful valley of Powerscourt. It was like the transition from the enjoyments of an Ariel to those of human nature,—from the blissful abode of some sylphic genius, to the happiest habitations of mortal men,—from all the restless and visionary delights of fancy, to the calm glow of real and romantic happiness. Our minds that were before confused by the throng of beauties that enclosed and solicited them on every side, now expanded and reposed upon the scene before us. The Sun himself seemed liberated, and rejoicing in his emancipation. The valley indeed "lay smiling before us;" the river, no longer dashing over rock and struggling with impediments, was flowing brightly and cheerfully along in the sun, bordered by meadows of the liveliest green, and now and then embowered in a cluster of trees. One little field of the freshest verdure swelled forward beyond the rest, round which the river wound, so as to give it the appearance of an island. In this we observed a mower whetting his sithe, and the sound was just sufficient to reach us faintly and at intervals. To the left was the Dargle, where all the beauties that had so much enchanted us were now one undistinguishable mass of leaves. Confronting us, stood Sugar-loaf, with his train of rough and abrupt mountains, remaining dark in the midst of sunshine, like the frowning guardians of the