PARAPHRASTIC HYMN.

Roм. ch. vii. v. 19.

"The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do."

Video meliora, proboque

Deteriora sequor.-TER.

V.

Hear me, O Heaven! for thou hast power
To quell my wild desires;
O quench, for thy Messiah's sake,
My soul's unhallow'd fires!

VI.

Restore me to thy love! and let
Thy wisdom rule my heart!
Thy Spirit can to me, tho' weak,
Resisting power impart.

GLASGUENSIS:

IMPROMPTU

ON READING

DR. CLAKE'S TRAVELS TO THE HOLY LAND.

BY T. PARK, ESQ.

WELL may our eyes suffuse with sacred dew, ·

Well may our souls with veneration thrill,

Cana, the mount, and Calvary to view,
The plain of Esdraelon and Sion's hill!

Yet is it not near Salem to have trod,

Or of her temples to display the chart,
Can draw the Christian nearer to his God;
That "holy land" must be-a pious heart!

THE STRID.

WRITTEN AT BOLTON ABBEY, NOV. 18, 1812.
BY I. GRANT, ESQ. *

"In the deep solitude of the woods betwixt Bolton and Barden, "three miles up the river from the abbey, the Wharf suddenly "contracts itself to a rocky channel, little more than four feet " wide, and pours through the tremendous fissure with a rapidity "proportioned to its confinement. This place was formerly, as it "is yet called, the Strid, from a feat often exercised by persons "with more agility than prudence, who stride from brink to brink, "regardless of the destruction which awaits a faltering step.

"The priory at Embsay, four miles east of Bolton, was founded "by William de Meschines and Cecilia his wife, in the year 1121, " and continued there about thirty-three years, when it is said by "tradition to have been translated to Bolton, on the following "account.

"The founders were now dead, and had left a daughter Adeliza, "who adopted her mother's name, Romille; and was married to "William Fitz Duncan, nephew to David king of Scotland. They "had issue a son, commonly called the Boy of Egremond, (one of "his grandfather's Baronies, where he was probably born) who, "surviving an elder brother, became the last hope of the family. "This youth having one day, in coursing, inconsiderately at"tempted to bound, with a greyhound in his leash, and fastened "to his thigh, over the chasm; the animal hung back, and drew "his unfortunate master into the torrent. His afflicted parents, on this occasion, removed the seat of the priory to Bolton, the "nearest eligible spot to the place where the accident happened.”

66

PAST are gay Summer's smiles: the wreaths of May

Have faded, Wharf, along thy sylvan shore: No more the wild-rose blossoms on the spray; Sad looks the leafless elm, and hawthorn hoar.

* Author of the Elegy written at Kirkstall Abbey. P. R. vol. vii. p. 39.

Yet touched by Winter's horizontal beam,

Frequent, the oak embrowned, and ruddier beech, Spread their faint glows, reflected, on the stream, Their solemn maxim, lingering but to teach :

To whisper youth,-how beautiful the brow
Whose faded looks heaven's peaceful smiles illume;
To counsel age,-that but a passing "Now,"
It boasts its grace, and drops into the tomb.

Not such thy fate, Romille! an early blast
Destroyed thy vernal hopes; thy Sunimer's pride:
Soon, hapless youth, thy days of promise passed;
Swift, as along these bickering waters glide.

Where sable rocks frown o'or the straitened flood,
That, 'twixt their ledges, forced of yore its way,
Wrapt as I muse, recoils my freezing blood;
Here, here thou sunk'st; the insatiate torrent's prey.

Fearless of danger, ardent in the chase,

I mark thee nimbly speeding down the hill; Mark the keen eye; the flush that lights thy face; Mark the gay, gallant, elegant Romille.

And now, thy greyhound leashing to thy side,

I hear thee breathe;-thou pausest where I stand:
Collect'st thy force to span the impetuous tide;
The tide by thee which never shall be spanned.

I see the huntsman's cap, the huntsman's spear;
The gaitres to the midleg dashed with dew:
The doubtful whimpering of thy hound I hear;
Afraid to leap,-yet anxious to pursue.

And lo! thou dar'st the bold, the dreadful bound;
And back art dragg'd, and plungest in the wave:
While vainly struggling, the reluctant hound
Sinks,-fatal clog-to share that watery grave.

Say! powers unseen, that love to linger near;

Oft rose the youth ere death had sealed his eyes? Oft called for aid, though none were nigh to hear; While echo mocked him with responsive cries.

Awful transition!-Now-brisk, joyous, bold:
Now-reft of life's warm pulse; its feeblest breath!
See! son of man!-thy pictured state behold!

A step; and but a step, 'twixt thee and death*.

How grieved the parents, when the pale cold corse Was borne with dripping locks, with ghastly mien ; The mother's anguish like the flood-stream's force, The sterner sire's, the spring that mines unseen!

But these have passed away: that sire is gone: Closed is that mother's span ;-and told her tale : Yet through the chasm thy waters, Wharf, roll on: And yet shall roll-when this right hand shall fail.

Snatch'd from the wrecks of time, should this rude verse Gain but a local and a lowly fame;

If some lone wanderer should its tale rehearse,

'Mid the wild landscape, still and still the same:

Thou, who shalt stand on this dark flood to gaze,
Let truth, let virtue moralize the theme!
O think, that in a few brief years, months, days,
Thou too shalt pass the irremeable stream.

* Vid. 1 Sam, xx. 3.