FIELD FLOWERS. BY THOMAS CAMPBELL. YE field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true, Yet, wildings of nature, I dote upon you, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teem'd around me with fairy delight, I love you for lulling me back into dreams While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote, Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune I thought it delightful your beauties to find Even now what affections the violet awakes; What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks; Earth's cultureless buds! to my heart ye were dear Ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear, Had scathed my existence's bloom; Once I welcome you more, in life's passionless stage, SONG. BY THE REV. THOMAS DALE. O, BREATHE no more that simple air,— Though soft and sweet thy wild notes swell, To me the only tale they tell Is cold despair!— I heard it once from lips as fair, How have those well-known sounds renew'd Then all was bright, and fond, and fair,- where? Can I then love the air she loved? And thou to blame my tears forbear; FLODDEN FIELD. BY DELTA. 'TWAS on a sultry summer noon, Had clothed the slopes of Flodden Hill,— As rode we slowly o'er the plain, 'Mid wayside flowers and sprouting grain; The leaves on every bough seem'd sleeping, And wild bees murmur'd in their mirth, So pleasantly, it seem'd as earth A jubilee was keeping! And canst thou be, unto my soul I said, that dread Northumbrian field, The crash of Surrey's onward charging; Hark to the turmoil and the shout, The broken lance and draggled plume! Borne to the earth, with deadly force, Comes down the horseman and his horse; Round boils the battle like an ocean, While stripling blithe and veteran stern Pour forth their lifeblood on the fern, Amid its fierce commotion! Mown down like swathes of summer flowers, Yes! here thy life-star knew decline, Though hope, that strove to be deceived, Shaped thy lone course to Palestine, And what it wish'd full oft believed:An unhewn pillar on the plain Marks out the spot where thou wast slain; There pondering as I stood, and gazing On its gray top, the linnet sang, And, o'er the slopes where conflict rang, The quiet sheep were grazing. And were the nameless dead unsung, Whose locks no more were seen to wave, Wept for the beauteous and the brave, Who came not on the morrow! LYRE. H TO THE IVY. BY MRS. HEMANS. OH! how could fancy crown with thee Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound Where song's full notes once peal'd around, The Roman, on his battle-plains, Yet, there, though fresh in glossy green, Where sleep the sons of ages flown, Wreath of the tomb! art there. Thou o'er the shrines of fallen gods, On classic plains dost mantling spread, And veil the desolate abodes And cities of the dead; Deserted palaces of kings, Arches of triumph, long o'erthrown,— |