His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :there let him lay.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake
And monarchs tremble in their capitals ;

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into the yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And

many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts :-not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving ;--boundless, endless, and sublime

The image of Eternity--the throne -
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

THE LAST MINSTREL:
His address to his Native Country.

SIR WALTER SCOTT. *
THE

way was long, the wind was cold, The minstrel was infirm and old ; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy; The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry. For well-a-day! their date was fled His tuneful brethren all were dead ; And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest. No more, on prancing palfrey borne, He carolled, light as lark at morn; No longer courted and caressed, High-placed in hall, a welcome guest, He poured to lord and lady gay, The unpremeditated lay ; Old times were changed, old manners gone, A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time Had called his harmless art a crime. A wandering Harper, scorned and poor, He begged his bread from door to door ; And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, The harp a king had loved to hear.

He passed where Newark's stately. tower Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower; The Minstrel gazed with wishful eyeNo humbler resting-place was nigh.

With hesitating step, at last,
The embattled portal-arch he passed,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor
The Duchess* marked his weary pace,
His timid mien, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell,
That they should tend the old man well :
For she had known adversity,
Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb !

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride :
And he began to talk anon,
Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him God !
A braver ne'er to battle rode :
And how full many a tale he knew,
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch;
And, would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,
Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,
That, if she loved the harp to hear,
He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtained ;
The aged minstrel audience gained.
But, when he reached the room of state,
Where she, with all her ladies, sate,
Perchance he wished his boon denied :
For, when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please ;
And scenes, long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain-
He tried to tune his harp in vain.

The pitying Duchess praised its chime,
And

gave him heart, and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee
Was blended into harmony.
And then, he said, he would full fain
He could recal an ancient strain
He never thought to sing again.
It was not framed for village churls,
But for high dames, and mighty Earls ;
He had played it to King Charles the Good,
When he kept court in Holyrood;
And much he wished, yet feared, to try
The long forgotten melody.

Amid the strings his fingers strayed.
And an uncertain warbling made,
And oft he shook his hoary head.
But when he caught the measure wild,
The old man raised his face, and smiled ;
And lightened up his faded eye,
With all a poet's ecstacy!
In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along!
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot:
Cold diffidence, and age's frost,
In the full tide of soul were lost;
Each blank, in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied ;
And, while his harp responsive rung,

'Twas thus the Latest Minstrel sung :“ Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land ! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand ! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell ; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim · Despite those titles, power, and pelf The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child !
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires ! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand !
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left ;
And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.
By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble

way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot-stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan.
Sweet Teviot ! on thy silver tide

The glaring bale-fires blaze no more ;
No longer steel-clad warriors ride

Along thy wild and willowed shore ; Where'er thou wind'st by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still.

As if thy waves, since Time was born, Since first they rolled upon the Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed,

Nor started at the bugle-horn. Unlike the tide of human time,

Which, though it change in ceaseless flow, Retains each grief, retains each crime,

Its earliest course was doomed to know,
And, darker as it downward bears,
Is stained with past and present tears.