229 60. THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. H. W. LONGFELLOW. [See page 173.] A MIST was driving down the British Channel, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe, and Dover, To see the French war-steamers speeding over, Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance, And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations On every citadel; Each answering each, with morning salutations, That all was well. And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No drum-beat from the wall, No morning gun from the black fort's embrazure, Awaken with its call! No more, surveying with an eye impartial The long line of the coast, Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field-Marshal For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, He did not pause to parley or dissemble, But smote the Warden hoar: Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble 61.-CASA WAPPY. DAVID MACBETH MOIR. [Very familiar to the readers of "Blackwood's Magazine," under the signature of "Delta," the poems of this writer were always read with pleasure. By profession a surgeon, he still devcted much of his time to literature, and from the age of nineteen, when he first published a small volume of poems, to his death in 1851, his name was seldom absent from his favourite magazine. Besides his poems, he published "The Life of Mansie Wauch," a tale embodying the humorous side of the Scottish character, "Outlines on the Ancient History of Medicine," and "Six Lectures on the Poetic Literature of the last half century." He was born at Musselburgh in 1798.] AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home, Our fond, dear boy? The realms where sorrow dare not come, Pure at thy death as at thy birth, Casa Wappy! Despair was in our last farewell, Tears of our anguish may not tell, Words may not paint our grief for thee, Sighs are but bubbles on the sea Of our unfathomed agony, Thou wert a vision of delight, To bless us given; Beauty embodied to our sight, Casa Wappy! So dear to us thou wert, thou art Casa Wappy! Thy bright brief day knew no decline, Sunrise and night alone were thine, This morn beheld thee blithe and gay, Gem of our hearth, our household pride, Could love have saved, thou hadst not died, Humbly we bow to fate's decree ; Yet had we hoped that time should see Methinks thou smil'st before me now, With glance of stealth; The hair thrown back from thy full brow I see thine eyes' deep violet light, The nursery shows thy pictured wall, Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball; A corner holds thine empty chair, Casa Wappy! Even to the last thy every word— Was sweet as sweetest song of bird In outward beauty undecayed, Casa Wappy! We mourn for thee when blind blank night We pine for thee when morn's first light The Are changed-we saw the world through thee, And though, perchance, a smile may gleam It doth not own, whate'er may seem, We miss thy small step on the stair; Casa Wappy! Yet 'tis sweet balm to our despair, That heaven is God's, and thou art there, There past are death and all its woes, Farewell, then-for a while, farewell— It cannot be that long we dwell, Time's shadows like the shuttle flee: Casa Wappy! 62.-POPE'S WILLOW. JAMES MONTGOMERY. [James Montgomery was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, November 4, 1771. He commenced his literary career at the age of twenty as a newspaper editor. His principal poems are, "The Ocean," "The West Indies," "The World before the Flood," "Greenland," and The Pelican Island." In his later years he wrote a number of very beautiful "Original Hymns." Died at Sheffield, 1854.] ERE Pope resign'd his tuneful breath, That willow, from Euphrates' strand. Long, as revolving seasons flew, Old Time beheld its silvery head, Till arch'd around, there seem'd to shoot, Thither, at summer noon, he view'd The lovely Nine retreating, |