THE DIRGE OF WALLACE.

THEY lighted a taper at the dead of night,

And chanted their holiest hymn;

But her brow and her bosom were damp with affrightHer eye was all sleepless and dim!

And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord,

When a death-watch beat in her lonely room, When her curtain had shook of its own accord, And the raven had flapp'd at her window-boardTo tell of her warrior's doom.

"Now, sing ye the death-song and loudly pray
For the soul of my knight so dear;

And call me a widow this wretched day,
Since the warning of God is here.
For a nightmare rides on my strangled sleep :-
The lord of my bosom is doom'd to die;
His valorous heart they have wounded deep;
And the blood-red tears shall his country weep
For Wallace of Elderslie !"

Yet knew not his country that ominous hour,
Ere the loud matin bell was rung,
That a trumpet of death on an English tower
Had the dirge of her champion sung!
When his dungeon light look'd dim and red

On the high-born blood of a martyr slain,
No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed;
No weeping there was when his bosom bled→→→
And his heart was rent in twain!

Oh, it was not thus when his oaken spear

Was true to that knight forlorn,

And hosts of a thousand were scatter'd, like deer
At the blast of the hunter's horn;

When he strode on the wreck of each well-fought field
With the yellow-hair'd chiefs of his native land;
For his lance was not shiver'd on helmet or shield-
And the sword that seem'd fit for Archangel to wield
Was light in his terrible hand!

Y at bleeding and bound, though the Wallace wight
For his long-loved country die,

The bugle ne'er sung to a braver knight

Than William of Elderslie !

But the day of his glory shall never depart;

His head unentomb'd shall with glory be palm'd: From its blood streaming altar his spirit shall start; Tho' the raven has fed on his mouldering heart, A nobler was never embalm'd!

CHAUCER AND WINDSOR.

LONG shalt thou flourish, Windsor! bodying forth
Chivalric times, and long shall live around
Thy Castle-the old oaks of British birth,
Whose gnarled roots, tenacious and profound,
As with a lion's talons grasp the ground.

But should thy towers in ivied ruin rot,

There's one, thine inmate once, whose strain renown'd Would interdict thy name to be forgot;

For Chaucer loved thy bow'rs and trode this very spot

Chaucer! our Helicon's first fountain-stream,
Our morning star of song-that led the way
To welcome the long-after coming beam
Of Spenser's light and Shakspeare's perfect day.
Old England's fathers live in Chaucer's lay,
As if they ne'er had died. He group'd and drew
Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay,

That still they live and breathe in Fancy's view,
Fresh beings fraught with truth's imperishable hue.

GILDEROY.

THE last, the fatal hour is come,
That bears my love from me:
I hear the dead note of the drum,
I mark the gallows' tree!

The bell has toll'd; it shakes my heart;
The trumpet speaks thy name;
And must my Gilderoy depart
To bear a death of shame?

No bosom trembles for thy doom;
No mourner wipes a tear;
The gallows' foot is all thy tomb,
The sledge is all thy bier.

Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then
So soon, so sad to part,
When first in Roslin's lovely glen

You triumph'd o'er my heart?

Your locks they glitter'd to the sheen,

Your hunter garb was trim;

And graceful was the riband green
That bound your manly limb!

Ah! little thought I to deplore
Those limbs in fetters bound;
Or hear, upon the scaffold floor,
The midnight hammer sound.

Ye cruel, cruel, that combined
The guiltless to pursue ;
My Gilderoy was ever kind,
He could not injure you!

A long adieu! but where shall fly
Thy widow all forlorn,
When every mean and cruel eye
Regards my wo with scorn?

Yes! they will mock thy widow's tears,
And hate thine orphan boy;
Alas! his infant beauty wears
The form of Gilderoy.

Then will I seek the dreary mound

That wraps thy mouldering clay, And weep and linger on the ground, And sigh my heart away.

STANZAS

ON THE THREATENED INVASION

1803.

OUR bosoms we'll bare for the glorious strife,
And our oath is recorded on high,

To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,

Or crush'd in its ruins to die!

Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

'Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust-
God bless the green Isle of the brave!
Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers' dust,
It would rouse the old dead from their grave!
Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

In a Briton's sweet home shall a spoiler abide,
Profaning its loves and its charms?

Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side?
To arms! oh, my Country, to arms!

Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen !—No!
His head to the sword shall be given-

A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe,
And his blood be an offering to Heaven!
Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!