OLD AGE.

THE seas are quiet1 when the winds give o'er;
So calm1 are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things so certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection2 from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries,
The soul's dark cottage,3 battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.

Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Waller.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.5

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

(1) Quiet, calm-That is quiet which is made so by circumstances, and is, therefore, superficially at rest; that is calm which is quiet by constitution-or which is altogether at rest. An angry man may be quiet externally, but certainly not calm.

(2) Affection-i. e. love for the "fleeting things" of the world.

(3) Soul's dark cottage-i. e. the body, called in Job iv. 19, "a house of clay," and in 2 Cor. v. 1, "our earthly house of this tabernacle;" or, more correctly, "this earthly house, this tabernacle."

(4) Stronger by weakness-because the soul's strength increases as the body's decays. Milton, in his "Prose Works," employs a very fine expression, something like this of Waller's, when he speaks of "the martyrs, with the unresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness."

(5) This poem is doubtless one of the most affecting of its kind ever written. The conceptions, the language, the rhythm, all unite in forcibly impressing the reader with the reality of the scene, and making him not a spectator merely, but a sharer in the mournful ceremony. Sir John Moore died January 16th, 1809, at Corunna, of a wound which he received in the battle which took place there between the English under his command, and the French headed by Marshal Soult.

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,

By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.'

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,"
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.3

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

4

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ;-
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
Of the enemy sullenly firing."

(1) Lord Byron, who considered this poem one of the finest in our language, pronounced this stanza perfect. particularly the last two lines. The art with which the writer, under the semblance of a figure, displays the actual circumstances, is very striking. It reminds one of the Grecian artist's picture of a curtain, which was taken for the curtain itself.

(2) Face of the dead-Some copies read "face that was dead," which is discarded from the text, first, because we can scarcely with propriety speak of "a dead face," and secondly, if we could, the meaning is unnecessarily restricted by confining the triumph of death to a part only of the once active frame.

(3) The morrow-because the British troops were to embark the next morning. (4) Narrow bed--the conception of the bed and pillow gracefully harmonises with that of the warrior "taking his rest."

(5) Sullenly firing-As if in spite, because they had been defeated. One of the readings of these two lines is:

"And we heard by the distant and random gun

That the foe was suddenly firing."

That is, we heard by the firing that the enemy was suddenly firing, which is either a redundant expression, or else implies that the report of the guns notified a sudden, that is, a new attack, which, however, is inconsistent with the facts.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone

But we left him alone with his glory!

Wolfe.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.1

A ROMANCE.

SOME dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural, and full of contradictions;
Yet others of our most romantic schemes
Are something more than fictions.

It might be only on enchanted ground;
It might be merely by a thought's expansion;
But, in the spirit or the flesh, I found
An old deserted mansion;

A residence for woman, child, and man,
A dwelling-place-and yet no habitation;
A house-but under some prodigious ban
Of excommunication.

Unhinged, the iron gates half open hung,
Jarred by the gusty gales of many winters,
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung
One marble globe in splinters.

No dog was at the threshold, great or small;
No pigeon on the roof-no household creature-
No cat demurely dozing on the wall-

Not one domestic feature.

No human figure stirr'd, to go or come,

No face looked forth from shut or open casement;
No chimney smoked-there was no sign of home
From parapet to basement.

(1) The extract here given is a portion only of a poem of Hood's with the above title, but it gives a good idea of the author's skill in the choice of details, which, by accumulation, make up a striking picture. The aptness, too, of the epithets, which give tone and colour to the picture, and the musical flow of the verse, evince a high degree of artistical ingenuity.

With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd;
The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after;
And through the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd
With naked beam and rafter.

O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

The flower grew wild and rankly as the weed,
Roses with thistles struggled for espial,1
And vagrant plants of parasitic breed
Had overgrown the dial.

But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm,

No heart was there to heed the hour's duration;
All times and tides were lost in one long term
Of stagnant desolation.

The wren had built within the porch-she found
Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough;

And on the lawn, within its turfy mound,

The rabbit made his burrow:

The rabbit wild and grey, that flitted through

The shrubby clumps, and frisked, and sat, and vanished; But leisurely and bold, as if he knew

His enemy was banished.

The weary crow, the pheasant from the woods,
Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness,
Close to the mansion, like domestic broods,
Fed with a "shocking tameness."

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond,
Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted;
And in the weedy moat the heron, fond
Of solitude, alighted;

The moping heron, motionless and stiff,
That on a stone, as silently and stilly,
Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if
To guard the water-lily.

(1) i. e. to try which could look over the other.

No sound was heard, except, from far away,
The ringing of the whitwall's shrilly laughter,
Or now and then the chatter of the jay,
That echo murmur'd after.

But echo never mock'd the human tongue;
Some mighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon,
A secret curse on that old building hung,
And its deserted garden.

The beds were all untouch'd by hand or tool;
No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel;
Each walk was green as is the mantled pool,
For want of human travel.

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach,
Droop'd from the wall with which they used to grapple;
And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach,

Rotted the golden apple.

But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground,
The vagrant kept aloof, and daring poacher;
In spite of gaps, that through the fences round
Invited the encroacher.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

The pear and quince lay squander'd on the grass;
The mould was purple with unheeded showers
Of bloomy plums-a wilderness it was

Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers.

The marigold amidst the nettles blew,

The gourd embraced the rose-bush in its ramble,
The thistle and the stock together grew,

The hollyhock and bramble.

The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced,

The sturdy bur-dock choked its slender neighbour,
The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced

Of human care and labour.