BOW-MEETING SONG.

YE spirits of our Fathers,
The hardy, bold, and free,
Who chased o'er Cressy's gory field
A fourfold enemy!

From us who love your sylvan game,

To

you the

song shall flow,

To the fame of your name

Who so bravely bent the bow.

'Twas merry then in England,
(Our ancient records tell.)

With Robin Hood and Little John
Who dwelt by down and dell;
And yet we love the bold outlaw
Who braved a tyrant foe,
Whose cheer was the deer,

And his only friend the bow!

'Twas merry then in England.
In autumn's dewy morn,
When echo started from her hill
To hear the bugle-horn.

And beauty, mirth, and warrior worth

In garb of green did go

The shade to invade

With the arrow and the bow.

Ye spirits of our Fathers!

Extend to us your care,

Among your children yet are found
The valiant and the fair!

'Tis merry yet in Old England,

Full well her archers know;

And shame on their name

Who despise the British bow!

TO CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND,

ON HIS LINES PRAISING THE TRANQUILLITY OF A RIVER, WHILE THE SEA WAS HEARD ON THE NEIGHBOURING SHORE.

(See TOWNSHEND's Poems, p. 206.)

OH Townshend! couldst thou linger where scarce a ripple play'd

Across the lily's glossy stem, or beneath the willow's shade, And did that mighty chorus allure thy bark in vain,

The laughter of the dancing waves and music of the main ?

The breeze may tell his story of soft and still delight, As whispering through the woodbine bower he fans the cheek of night,

But louder, blither, sings the wind, his carol wild and free, When the harvest moon sails forth in pride above her subject

sea.

I love to thread the little paths the rushy banks between, Where Terne, in dewy silence, creeps through the meado green:

I love to mark the speckled trout beneath the sunbeam lie, And skimming past, on filmy wing, the danger-courting fly.

I praise the darker shadows where, o'er the runnel lone,
The regal oak or swarthy pine their giant arms have thrown
Or, from his couch of heather, where Skiddaw bends to view
The furrows of his rifted brow in Derwent's mirror blue.

But not that narrow stillness has equal charms for me,
With thy ten thousand voices, thou broad exulting sea!
Thy shining sands, thy rugged shores, thy breakers rolling
bright,

And all thy dim horizon speck'd with sails of moving light.

Oft on thy wonders may I gaze, oft on thy waters ride,
Oft with no timid arm essay thy dark transparent tide;
Oft may thy sound be in my dreams, far inland though I be,
For health and hope are in thy song, thou deep full-
voiced sea!

BOW-MEETING SONG.

By yon castle wall, 'mid the breezes of morning,
The genius of Cambria stray'd pensive and slow;
The oak-wreath was wither'd her tresses adorning,

And the wind through its leaves sigh'd its murmur of woe. She gazed on her mountains with filial devotion,

She gazed on her Dee as he roll'd to the ocean,

And, "Cambria! poor Cambria!" she cried with emotion, "Thou yet hast thy country, thy harp, and thy bow!

"Sweep on, thou proud stream, with thy billows all hoary;
As proudly my warriors have rush'd on the foe :
But feeble and faint is the sound of their glory,

For time, like thy tide, has its ebb and its flow.
Ev'n now, while I watch thee, thy beauties are fading;
The sands and the shallows thy course are invading;
Where the sail swept the surges the sea-bird is wading;
And thus hath it fared with the land of the bow!

cr

Smile, smile ye dear hills, 'mid your woods and your flowers,
Whose heather lies dark in the morn's dewy glow!
A time must await you of tempest and showers,

An autumn of mist; and a winter of snow!
For me, though the whirlwind has shiver'd and cleft me,
Of wealth and of empire the stranger bereft me,
Yet Saxon,—proud Saxon,-thy fury has left me
Worth, valour, and beauty, the harp and the bow!

"Ye towers, on whose rampire, all ruin'd and riven,

The wallflower and woodbine so lavishly blow;

I have seen when your banner waved broad to the Heaven,
And kings found your faith a defence from the foe;
Oh loyal in grief, and in danger unshaken,

For ages still true, though for ages forsaken,

Yet, Cambria, thy heart may to gladness awaken,

Since thy monarch has smiled on the harp and the bow!”

ON CROSSING THE RANGE OF HIGH LAND BETWEEN STONE AND MARKET DRAYTON,

JAN. 4, 1820.

DREAD inmate of the northern zone !

And hast thou left thine ancient throne
On Zembla's hills of snow,

Thine arrowy sleet and icy shower
On us, unbroken to thy power,

With reckless hand to throw?

Enough for us thy milder sway,
The yellow mist, the shorten'd day,

The sun of fainter glow;

The frost which scarce our verdure felt,

And rarely seen, and but to melt,

The wreath of transient snow.

I met thee once by Volga's tide,
Nor fear'd thy terrors to abide

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