And soon they saw the crowded strand Wear dimly from their view; And soon they saw the distant land, A line of hazy blue. In all her gallant pride, That rippled far and wide. O'er wave and surge careering; Her wings the sea-foam sheering. Sometimes, with poles and rigging bare, She scudded before the blast; Her anchor dropt at last. Join'd with the brave and great, I may not here relate. With champion on the plain, l'th' breach with clustering foes he fought, Choked up with grisly slain. Most valiant by the valiant styled, Their praise his deeds proclaim'd, To hear their leader named. And dim the loftiest brow; Was in the dust laid low. As sunk life's flickering flame, That o'er his senses came. Did on his vision fall, The ancient seneschal. His misty senses fled ; Was bending o'er his bed. And then, his eyelids raising, Intently on him gazing. His battles I've fought and won; Christians I scorn, their creeds deny, But honour Mary's Son. And set her parent free ; Shall e'er be thrall’d by me. All wrong, all hatred smother; Whate'er I feel, thou art secure, As though thou wert my brother.”— “ And thou hast wedded an English dame !" Sir Maurice said no more, He sigh'd and wept full sore. With the Moslem chief stay'd he, One glimpse of the fair lady. As he paced the court below, If word or accent low Traversed the garden green, Might on the turf be seen. His listening ear, who told, Within that Syrian hold; Upon the battle field, He was obliged to yield: So boldly cross the sea To set her father free: She and her people fell ; She sought him in his cell; Till grief her sex betray'd, Spoke gently to the maid : And solemn promise gave, With every Christian slave; Felt the stern rule of vice ;) Then paid the fearful price.- His faded eyes to weep; And saw it in his sleep. Again to battle calls; Are near those Moslem walls, Sad to be thought upon : And bade his guest be gone. By thee so well maintain'd! L ADDRESS TO A STEAM-VESSEL. Sir Maurice took him by the hand, “God bless thee, too,”—he cried ; Then to the nearest Christian band With mingled feelings hied. 'Gainst foemen, foemen stood; And soon the fatal field was dyed With many a brave man's blood. Their valiant chief was slain; And bore it from the plain. A dull and dismal sound: And safe protection found. Look'd calm and cheerfully ; And bent him on his knee. What words of penitence or suit He utter'd, pass we by ; Then gave this firm reply: “ That thou didst doubt my maiden pride (A thought that rose and vanish'd So fleetingly) I will not chide ; 'Tis from remembrance banish'd. “But thy fair fame, earn’d by thy sword, Still spotless shall it be: And will never be bride to thee.” Hope i' the instant fied: And from her presence sped. God serving day and night; And he of blest Jerusalem A brave and zealous knight. Wot ye, because of this In sooth ye judge amiss. For alms her wealth is stored; Man's grateful blessings pour'd. In arms his prowess prove; And oft of siege or battle talk, And sometimes of his love. The gentlest of the kind; Her like ye shall not find. Too good for a monarch's bride; I would not give her in her nun's coif dress'd For all her sex beside. FREIGHTED with passengers of every sort, straying, Towers from this clustering group thy pillar'd mast, Thou hold'st thy course in independent pride ; rise To gaze upon the sight with wondering eyes. Thou hast to those “ in populous city pent," Glimpses of wild and beauteous nature lent; A bright remembrance ne'er to be destroy'd, Which proves to them a treasure, long enjoy'd, And for this scope to beings erst confined, I fain would hail thee with a grateful mind. They who had naught of verdant freshness seen But suburb orchards choked with colworts green, Now, seated at their ease may glide along, Lochlomond's fair and fairy isles among; Where bushy promontories fondly peep At their own beauty in the nether deep, O’er drooping birch and berried row'n that lave Their vagrant branches in the glassy wave; They, who on higher objects scarce have counted Than church's spire with gilded vane surmounted, May view, within their near, distinctive ken, The rocky suinmits of the lofty Ben ; Or see his purpled shoulders darkly lower To whose free robes the graceful right is given Through the din drapery of a summer shower. To play and dally with the winds of heaven. Where, spread in broad and fair expanse, the Beholding thee, the great of other days Clyde And modern men with all their alter'd ways, Mingles his waters with the briny tide, Across my mind with hasty transit gleam, Along the lesser Cumra's rocky shore, Like fleeting shadows of a feverish dream: TO MRS. SIDDONS. GIFTED of Heaven ! who hast, in days gone by, Than chimney'd walls with slated roofs between, Moved every heart, delighted every eye, Which hard and harshly edge the smoky sky, While age and youth, of high and low degree, May Aron's softly-vision'd peaks descry, In sympathy were join'd, beholding thee, Cooping with graceful state her steepy sides, As in the drama's ever changing scene O'er which the cloud's broad shadow swiftly glides, Thou heldst thy splendid state, our tragic queen! And interlacing slopes that gently merge No barriers there thy fair domain confined, Into the pearly mist of ocean's verge. Thy sovereign sway was o'er the human mind; Eyes which admired that work of sordid skill, And, in the triumph of that witching hour, The storied structure of a cotton mill, Thy lofty bearing well became thy power. May, wondering, now behold the unnumber'd host Th' impassion'd changes of thy beauteous face, Of marshall'd pillars on fair Ireland's coast, Thy stately form and high imperial grace ; Phalanx on phalanx ranged with sidelong bend, Thine arms impetuous tost, thy robe's wide flow, Or broken ranks that to the main descend, And the dark tempest gather'd on thy brow, Like Pharaoh's army, on the Red Sea shore, What time thy flashing eye and lip of scorn Which deep and deeper went to rise no more. Down to the dust thy mimic foes have borne ; Yet ne'ertheless, whate'er we owe to thee, Remorseful musings, sunk to deep dejection, Rover at will on river, lake, and sea, The fix'd and yearning looks of strong affection ; As profit's bait or pleasure's lure engage, The action'd turmoil of a bosom rending, Thou offspring of that philosophic sage, When pity, love, and honour are contending :Watt, who in heraldry of science ranks, Who have beheld all this, right well I ween! With those to whom men owe high meed of thanks, A lovely, grand, and wondrous sight have seen. And shall not be forgotten, e'en when fame Thy varied accents, rapid, fitful, slow, Graves on her annals Davy's splendid name! Loud rage, and fear's snatch'd whisper, quick and Dearer to fancy, to the eye more fair, Are the light skiffs, that to the breezy air The burst of stifled love, the wail of grief, Unfurl their swelling sails of snowy hue And tones of high command, full, solemn, brief; Upon the moving lap of ocean blue: The change of voice and emphasis that threw As the proud swan on summer lake displays, Light on obscurity, and brought to view With plumage brightening in the morning rays, Distinctions nice, when grave or comic mood, Her fair pavilion of erected wings, Or mingled humours, terse and new, elude They change, and veer, and turn like living things. Common perception, as earth's smallest things So fairly rigg'd, with shrouding, sails and mast, To size and form the vesting hoarfrost brings, To brave with manly skill the winter blast Which seem'd as if some secret voice, to clear Of every clime,-in vessels rigg'd like these The ravell’a meaning, whisper'd in thine ear, Did great Columbus cross the western seas, And thou had'st even with him communion kept, And to the stinted thoughts of man reveald Who hath so long in Stratford's chancel slept, : What yet the course of ages had conceal’d. Whose lines, where Nature's brightest traces shine, In such as these, on high adventure bent Alone were worthy deem'd of powers like thine ; Round the vast world Magellan's comrades went. They, who have heard all this, have proved full well To such as these are hardy seamen found As with the ties of kindred feeling bound, Of soul-exciting sound the mightiest spell. Boasting, as cans of cheering grog they sip, But though time's lengthen'd shadows o'er thee The varied fortunes of“ our gallant ship.” glide, The offspring these of bold sagacious man And pomp of regal state is cast aside, Think not the glory of thy course is spent ; Which from the mental world can never fade, Till all who've seen thee in the grave are laid. Opposed to gentle nymph or lady gay, Thy graceful form still moves in nightly dreams, And what thou wert to the wrapt sleeper seems : • The common or vulgar name of a water-bird frequent- While feverish fancy oft doth fondly trace ing that coast. Within her curtain'd couch thy wondrous face. low, Yea; and to many a wight, bereft and lone, And now in crowded room or rich saloon, stand) Amongst the virtuous matrons of the land. Yet, ne'ertheless, in strong array, A VOLUNTEER SONG. YE, who Britain's soldiers be, TO A CHILD. And curly pate and merry eye, And soft and fair ? thou urchin sly! First call'd thee his, or squire or hind ? - Dost now a friendly playmate find. As fringed eyelids rise and fall, 'Tis infantine coquetry all! With mocks and threats half lisp'd, half spoken, I feel thee pulling at my gown, Of right goodwill thy simple token. And thou must laugh and wrestle too, A mimic warfare with me waging, To make, as wily lovers do, Thy after kindness more engaging. The wilding rose, sweet as thyself, And new-cropt daisies are thy treasure : I'd gladly part with worldly pelf, To taste again thy youthful pleasure. But yet for all thy merry look, Thy frisks and wiles, the time is coming, When thou shalt sit in cheerless nook, The weary spell or horn-book thumbing. Well; let it be ! through weal and wo, Thou know'st not now thy future range; Life is a motley, shifting show, And thou a thing of hope and change. * It was then frequently said, that our seamen excelled our soldiers. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. Robert BLOOMFIELD, the son of a tailor at prospect that his production could be printed, yet Honington, in Suffolk, was born on the 3d of he found attention by his repeated calls, and by the December, 1766. His mother, who was the village humility of his expectations, which were limited to school-mistress, gave him the only education he half-a-dozen copies of the magazine. At length, ever received, and placed him first, with a farmer on his name being announced when a literary of Sapiston, as his assistant, and afterward with gentleman, particularly conversant in rural economy, George, the brother of our poet, who was a shoe- happened to be present, the poem was finally remaker in London. His principal occupation was examined, and its general aspect excited the risito wait upon the journeymen, in fetching their bility of that gentleman in so pointed a manner, dinners, &c.; and, in his intervals of leisure, he that Bloomfield was called into the room, and exread the newspaper, and, with the help of a dic- horted not to waste his time, and neglect his emtionary, was soon able to comprehend and admire ployment, in making vain attempts, and particularly the speeches of Burke, Fox, and other statesmen of in treading on the ground which Thomson had the day. His next step toward improvement was in sanctified. His earnestness and confidence, howhis attendance at a dissenting meeting-house, where, ever, led the editor to advise him to consult his he says, he soon learned to accent “hard words,"countryman, Mr. Capel Lofft, of 'Trooton, to whom besides which, he also visited a debating society, he gave him a letter of introduction. On bis went sometimes to the theatre, and read the His- departure, the gentleman present warmly comtory of England, the British Traveller, and a book ! plimented the editor on the sound advice which of geography. A perusal of some poetry in the he had given the poor fellow;' and it was mutually London Magazine, led to his earliest attempts in verse, conceived that an industrious man was thereby which he sent to a newspaper, under the title of the likely to be saved from a ruinous infatuation.” Milk-maid, or the First of May, and the Sailor's The poem at length reached the hands of Mr. Return. Indeed, says his biographer, in the An- Capel Lofft, who sent it, with the strongest recomnual Obituary, he had so generally and diligently mendations, to Mr. Hill, the proprietor of the improved himself, that, although only sixteen or Monthly Mirror, who negotiated the sale of the seventeen years of age, his brother George and poem with the publishers, Messrs. Vernor and his fellow workmen began to be instructed by his Hood. These gentlemen acted with great liberality conversation. towards Bloomfield, by voluntarily giving him In 1784, anxious to avoid a part in some disputes £200 in addition to the £50 originally stipulated which had arisen between the journeymen and for, and by securing to him a moicty of the copymaster shoemakers, by whom himself and his right of his poem, which, on its appearance, was brother were employed, Robert returned to his received with a burst of wonder and applause from relation at Sapiston, and, for two months, worked all quarters. The most eminent critics and literati at farming. At the expiration of that time he was of the day were profuse in their praise of both the put apprentice to Mr. Dudbridge, a ladies' shoe- author and his poem ; and the most polished circles maker, and soon became expert at his trade. In of society were smitten with the charms of rural 1790, he married the daughter of a boat-builder, life, as depicted by the Farmer's Boy. He also and after some years of conjugal poverty, hired a received some substantial proofs of the estimation room up one pair of stairs, at No. 14 Bell Alley, in which he was held, by presents from the Duke Coleman Street. The master of the house, it is of York and other persons of distinction; and the said, giving him leave to work in the light garret, Duke of Grafton, after having had him down to two pair of stairs higher, he not only there carried Whittlebury Forest, of which his grace was ranger, on his occupation, but, in the midst of six or seven settled upon him a gratuity of a shilling a-day, and other workmen, actually completed his Farmer's subsequently appointed him under-sealer in the Boy: the parts of Autumn and Winter having been Seal office. Subscriptions were also entered into composed in his head before a line of them was for his benefit at various places; in addition to committed to paper. When the manuscript was fit which, he derived considerable emolument from the for publication, he offered it, but in vain, to various sale of his work, of which, in a short space of time, booksellers, and to the editor of the Monthly near forty thousand copies were sold. Magazine, who, in his number for September, 1823, His good fortune, which, he said, appeared to hini gives the following interesting account of the as a dream, enabled him to remove to a comfortable affair :-“ He brought his poem to our office; and, and commodious habitation in the City Road, though his unpolished appearance, his coarse hand- where, having given up his situation at the Seal writing, and wretched orthograply, afforded no office, in consequence of ill health, he worked at 51 1 2 401 |