JEFFREY AND "AULD LANG SYNE."

Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb :
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

DON JUAN.

JEFFREY AND "AULD LANG SYNE."

127

OLD enemies who have become new friends
Should so continue-'tis a point of honour;
And I know nothing which could make amends
For a return to hatred: I would shun her
Like garlic, howsoever she extends

Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.

And all our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine

To make such puppets of us things below),
Are over: Here's a health to "Auld Lang Syne !"
I do not know you, and may never know

Your face-but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

And when I use the phrase of " Auld Lang Syne!" 'Tis not addressed to you—the more's the pity For me, for I would rather take my wine

With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city. But somehow, it may seem a schoolboy's whine, And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,

But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred

A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—

As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all, Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall, [streams, All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams

Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,

Like Banquo's offspring :-floating past me seems My childhood in this childishness of mine:

I care not-'tis a glimpse of " Auld Lang Syne."

And though, as you remember, in a fit,

Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly, I rail'd at Scots to show my wrath and wit,

Which must be own'd was sensitive and surly, Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit,

They cannot quench your feelings fresh and early; I" scotch'd not kill'd" the Scotchman in my blood, And love the land of "mountain and of flood."

DON JUAN.

NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

To Norman Abbey whirl'd the noble pair,-
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion,-of a rich and rare
Mix'd Gothic, such as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal it lies perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferr'd a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind.

It stood embosom'd in a happy valley,

Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak Stood, like Caractacus in act to rally

His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunderstroke,

NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

129

And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters-as day awoke,

The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird.

Before the mansion lay a lucid Lake,

Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around the wildfowl nestled in the brake

And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed :
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood.

Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding,
Its shriller echoes-like an infant made
Quiet-sank into softer ripples, gliding

Into a rivulet; and thus allay'd,

Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue, According as the skies their shadows threw.

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile

(While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle. These last had disappear'd—a loss to art:

The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil,

And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,

Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march, In gazing on that venerable arch.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,

Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone;

But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,

But in the war which struck Charles from his throne

VOL. II.

K

When each house was a fortalice-as tell

The annals of full many a line undone,― The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain For those who knew not to resign or reign.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,

The Virgin Mother of the God-born Child,
With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round,
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd :
She made the earth below seem holy ground.

This may be superstition, weak or wild,
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,

Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings,
all desolate; now loud, now fainter,

Now yawns

The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.

But in the noontide of the moon, and when
The wind is winged from one point of heaven,
There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then
Is musical-a dying accent driven

Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given
Back to the night wind by the waterfall,
And harmonised by the old choral wall.

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd,
Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint—
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,

And here perhaps a monster, there a saint:

AURORA RABY.

131

The spring gush'd through grim mouths of granite made,

And sparkled into basins, where it spent

Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,

Like man's vain glory, and his vainer troubles.

AURORA RABY.

DON JUAN.

RICH, noble, but an orphan; left an only
Child to the care of guardians good and kind;
But still her aspect had an air so lonely!
Blood is not water; and where shall we find
Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie
By death, when we are left, alas! behind,
To feel, in friendless palaces, a home
Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb?

Early in years, and yet more infantine

In figure, she had something of sublime
In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine.

All youth-but with an aspect beyond time;
Radiant and grave-as pitying man's decline ;

Mournful-but mournful of another's crime; She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door,

And grieved for those who could return no more.

She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere,

As far as her own gentle heart allow'd,

And deem'd that fallen worship far more dear

Perhaps because 'twas fallen: her sires were proud

Of deeds and days when they had fill'd the ear

Of nations, and had never bent or bow'd