For he to Greenland sailed, and much she told
How he should guard against the climate's cold,
Yet saw not danger, dangers he'd withstood,
Nor could she trace the fever in his blood.
His messmates smiled at flushings in his cheek,
And he, too, smiled, but seldom would he speak ;
For now he found the danger, felt the pain,
With grievous symptoms he could not explain.
He called his friend, and prefaced with a sigh
A lover's message: Thomas, I must die;
Would I could see my Sally, and could rest
My throbbing temples on her faithful breast,
And gazing go! if not, this trifle take,
And say, till death I wore it for her sake.
Yes, I must die-blow on, sweet breeze, blow on!
Give me one look before my life be gone;
Oh, give me that! and let me not despair-
One last fond look-and now repeat the prayer.
He had his wish, and more. I will not paint
The lovers' meeting: she beheld him faint-
With tender fears she took a nearer view,
Her terrors doubling as her hopes withdrew;
He tried to smile, and half succeeding, said:
'Yes, I must die '-and hope for ever fled.

Still long she nursed him; tender thoughts mean-
time

Were interchanged, and hopes and views sublime.
To her he came to die, and every day
She took some portion of the dread away;
With him she prayed, to him his Bible read,
Soothed the faint heart, and held the aching head;
She came with smiles the hour of pain to cheer,
Apart she sighed, alone she shed the tear;
Then, as if breaking from a cloud, she gave
Fresh light, and gilt the prospect of the grave.
One day he lighter seemed; and they forgot
The care, the dread, the anguish of their lot;
They spoke with cheerfulness, and seemed to think,
Yet said not so- Perhaps he will not sink.'
A sudden brightness in his look appeared,
A sudden vigour in his voice was heard;
She had been reading in the Book of Prayer,
And led him forth, and placed him in his chair;
Lively he seemed, and spoke of all he knew,
The friendly many, and the favourite few;
Nor one that day did he to mind recall,
But she has treasured, and she loves them all.
When in her way she meets them, they appear
Peculiar people-death has made them dear.

He named his friend, but then his hand she pressed,
And fondly whispered: "Thou must go to rest.'
'I go,' he said, but as he spoke she found

His hand more cold, and fluttering was the sound;
Then gazed affrightened, but she caught a last,
A dying look of love, and all was past.

She placed a decent stone his grave above,
Neatly engraved, an offering of her love :
For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,
Awake alike to duty and the dead.

She would have grieved had they presumed to spare
The least assistance-'twas her proper care.
Here will she come, and on the grave will sit,
Folding her arms, in long abstracted fit;
But if observer pass, will take her round,
And careless seem, for she would not be found;
Then go again, and thus her hour employ,
While visions please her, and while woes destroy.

[An English Fen-Gipsies.]
[From Tales-Lover's Journey.]
On either side

Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide,

With dikes on either hand by ocean's self supplied: Far on the right the distant sea is seen,

And salt the springs that feed the marsh between :

Beneath an ancient bridge, the straitened flood
Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud;
Near it a sunken boat resists the tide,
That frets and hurries to the opposing side;
The rushes sharp that on the borders grow,
Bend their brown flowerets to the stream below,
Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow:
Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom,
Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume;
The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread,
Partake the nature of their fenny bed.
Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom,
Grows the salt lavender that lacks perfume;
Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh,
And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh;
Low on the ear the distant billows sound,
And just in view appears their stony bound;
Nor hedge nor tree conceals the glowing sun;
Birds, save a watery tribe, the district shun,
Nor chirp among the reeds where bitter waters run.
Again, the country was enclosed, a wide
And sandy road has banks on either side;
Where, lo! a hollow on the left appeared,
And there a gipsy tribe their tent had reared;
"Twas open spread to catch the morning sun,
And they had now their early meal begun,
When two brown boys just left their grassy seat,
The early traveller with their prayers to greet;
While yet Orlando held his pence in hand,
He saw their sister on her duty stand;
Some twelve years old, demure, affected, sly,
Prepared the force of early powers to try;
Sudden a look of languor he descries,
And well-feigned apprehension in her eyes;
Trained, but yet savage, in her speaking face
He marked the features of her vagrant race,
When a light laugh and roguish leer expressed
The vice implanted in her youthful breast;
Forth from the tent her elder brother came,
Who seemed offended, yet forbore to blame
The young designer, but could only trace
The looks of pity in the traveller's face.
Within the father, who from fences nigh,
Had brought the fuel for the fire's supply,
Watched now the feeble blaze, and stood dejected by;
On ragged rug, just borrowed from the bed,
And by the hand of coarse indulgence fed,
In dirty patchwork negligently dressed,
Reclined the wife, an infant at her breast;
In her wild face some touch of grace remained,
Of vigour palsied, and of beauty stained;
Her bloodshot eyes on her unheeding mate
Were wrathful turned, and seemed her wants to
state,

Cursing his tardy aid. Her mother there
With gipsy state engrossed the only chair;
Solemn and dull her look; with such she stands,
And reads the milkmaid's fortune in her hands,
Tracing the lines of life; assumed through years,
Each feature now the steady falsehood wears;
With hard and savage eye she views the food,
And grudging pinches their intruding brood.
Last in the group, the worn-out grandsire sits
Neglected, lost, and living but by fits;
Useless, despised, his worthless labours done,
And half protected by the vicious son,
Who half supports him, he with heavy glance
Views the young ruffians who around him dance,
And, by the sadness in his face, appears
To trace the progress of their future years;
Through what strange course of misery, vice, deceit,
Must wildly wander each unpractised cheat;
What shame and grief, what punishment and pain,
Sport of fierce passions, must each child sustain,
Ere they like him approach their latter end,
Without a hope, a comfort, or a friend!

[Gradual Approaches of Age.]

[From Tales of the Hall.]

Six years had passed, and forty ere the six, When time began to play his usual tricks; The locks once comely in a virgin's sight,

Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroaching white;
The blood, once fervid, now to cool began,
And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man.

I rode or walked as I was wont before,
But now the bounding spirit was no more;
A moderate pace would now my body heat;
A walk of moderate length distress my feet.

I shewed my stranger guest those hills sublime,
But said: "The view is poor; we need not climb.'
At a friend's mansion I began to dread
The cold neat parlour and the gay glazed bed:
At home I felt a more decided taste,
And must have all things in my order placed.
I ceased to hunt; my horses pleased me less-
My dinner more; I learned to play at chess.
I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute
Was disappointed that I did not shoot.

My morning walks I now could bear to lose,

And blessed the shower that give me not to choose: In fact, I felt a languor stealing on;

The active arm, the agile hand, were gone;

Small daily actions into habits grew,
And new dislike to forms and fashions new.
I loved my trees in order to dispose;

I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose;
Told the same story oft-in short, began to prose.

[Song of the Crazed Maiden.]
[From the same.]

Let me not have this gloomy view
About my room, about my bed;
But morning roses, wet with dew,

To cool my burning brow instead;
As flowers that once in Eden grew,

Let them their fragrant spirits shed, And every day their sweets renew,

Till I, a fading flower, am dead.

O let the herbs I loved to rear

Give to my sense their perfumed breath! Let them be placed about my bier,

And grace the gloomy house of death.
I'll have my grave beneath a hill,
Where only Lucy's self shall know,
Where runs the pure pellucid rill
Upon its gravelly bed below:
There violets on the borders blow,

And insects their soft light display,
Till, as the morning sunbeams glow,
The cold phosphoric fires decay.

That is the grave to Lucy shewn;

The soil a pure and silver sand; The green cold moss above it grown, Unplucked of all but maiden hand. In virgin earth, till then unturned,

There let my maiden form be laid; Nor let my changed clay be spurned,

Nor for new guest that bed be made. There will the lark, the lamb, in sport, In air, on earth, securely play: And Lucy to my grave resort,

As innocent, but not so gay.

I will not have the churchyard ground
With bones all black and ugly grown,
To press my shivering body round,
Or on my wasted limbs be thrown.

With ribs and skulls I will not sleep,

In clammy beds of cold blue clay, Through which the ringed earth-worms creep, And on the shrouded bosom prey. I will not have the bell proclaim When those sad marriage rites begin, And boys, without regard or shame, Press the vile mouldering masses in.

Say not, it is beneath my care

I cannot these cold truths allow; These thoughts may not afflict me there, But oh! they vex and tease me now! Raise not a turf, nor set a stone,

That man a maiden's grave may trace, But thou, my Lucy, come alone, And let affection find the place!

[Sketches of Autumn.]

[From the same.]

It was a fair and mild autumnal sky,
And earth's ripe treasures met the admiring eye,
As a rich beauty when her bloom is lost,
Appears with more magnificence and cost:
The wet and heavy grass, where feet had strayed,
Not yet erect, the wanderer's way betrayed;
Showers of the night had swelled the deepening rill,
The morning breeze had urged the quickening mill;
Assembled rooks had winged their seaward flight,
By the same passage to return at night,
While proudly o'er them hung the steady kite,
Then turned them back, and left the noisy throng,
Nor deigned to know them as he sailed along.
Long yellow leaves, from osiers, strewed around,
Choked the dull stream, and hushed its feeble sound,
While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees,
Our squire beheld not with his wonted ease;
But to his own reflections made reply,
And said aloud: 'Yes; doubtless we must die.'
'We must,' said Richard; 'and we would not live
To feel what dotage and decay will give;
But we yet taste whatever we behold;
The morn is lovely, though the air is cold:
There is delicious quiet in this scene,
At once so rich, so varied, so serene;
Sounds, too, delight us-each discordant tone
Thus mingled please, that fail to please alone;
This hollow wind, this rustling of the brook,
The farm-yard noise, the woodman at yon oak-
See, the axe falls !-now listen to the stroke:
That gun itself, that murders all this peace,
Adds to the charm, because it soon must cease.'

great painters whose works adorned his walls. By slow decay, and without any suffering, he died in St James's Place, 18th December 1855.' The poet bequeathed three of his pictures—a Titian, a Guido, and a Giorgione-to the National Gallery. The Titian he considered the most valuable in his possession. It had been in the Orleans Gallery, and when that princely collection was broken up, it was sold for four hundred guineas. Mr Rogers, however, gave more than double that sum for it in 1828.

It was as a man of taste and letters, as a patron of artists and authors, and as the friend of almost every illustrious man that has graced our annals, for the last half-century and more, that Mr Rogers chiefly challenged the public attention. At his celebrated breakfast-parties, persons of almost all classes and pursuits were found. He made the morning meal famous as a literary rallying-point; and during the London season there was scarcely a day in which from four to six persons were not assembled at the hospitable board in St James's Place. There, discussion as to books or pictures, anecdotes of the great of old, some racy saying of Sheridan, Erskine, or Horne Tooke, some social trait of Fox, some apt quotation or fine passage read aloud, some incident of foreign travel recounted-all flowed on without restraint, and charmed the hours till mid-day. A certain quaint shrewdness and sarcasm, though rarely taking an offensive form, also characterised Rogers's conversation. Many of his sayings circulated in society and got into print. Some one said that Gally Knight was getting deaf: 'It is from want of practice,' remarked Rogers, Mr Knight being a great speaker and bad listener. The late Lord Dudley (Ward) had been free in his criticisms on the poet, who retaliated with that epigrammatic couplet, which has never been surpassed

Ward has no heart they say; but I deny it;
He has a heart-he gets his speeches by it.

The poet, it is said, on one occasion tried to extort a confession from his neighbour, Sir Philip Francis, that he was the author of Junius, but Francis gave a surly rebuff, and Rogers remarked that if he was not Junius, he was at least Brutus. We may remark that the poet's recipe for long life was, 'temperance, the bath and flesh-brush, and don't fret.' The felicity of his own lot he has thus gracefully alluded to:

[From the Pleasures of Memory.'] Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village green, With magic tints to harmonise the scene. Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke, When round the ruins of their ancient oak The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play, And games and carols closed the busy day. Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more With treasured tales and legendary lore. All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows To chase the dreams of innocent repose. All, all are fled; yet still I linger here! What secret charms this silent spot endear?

Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees, Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze. That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade, First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed. The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown court, Once the calm scene of many a simple sport; When nature pleased, for life itself was new, And the heart promised what the fancy drew.

See, through the fractured pediment revealed, Where moss inlays the rudely sculptured shield, The martin's old hereditary nest.

Long may the ruin spare its hallowed guest!

Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm;
Thee would the Muse invoke !-to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song,
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned,
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.
The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn:
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf, but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.

Down by yon hazel copse, at evening, blazed
The gipsy's fagot-there we stood and gazed;
Gazed on her sunburnt face with silent awe,
Her tattered mantle and her hood of straw;
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore,
Imps in the barn with mousing owlets bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed;

Whose dark eyes flashed through locks of blackest shade,

When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed:
And heroes fled the sibyl's muttered call,

Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall.

As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew,

And traced the line of life with searching view,

How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears,

To learn the colour of my future years!

Ah, then, what honest triumph flushed my breast; This truth once known-to bless is to be blest! We led the bending beggar on his wayBare were his feet, his tresses silver-graySoothed the keen pangs his aged spirit felt, And on his tale with mute attention dwelt: As in his scrip we dropt our little store, And sighed to think that little was no more, He breathed his prayer, 'Long may such goodness live!'

'Twas all he gave-'twas all he had to give.

The adventurous boy that asks his little share,
And hies from home with many a gossip's prayer,
Turns on the neighbouring hill, once more to see
The dear abode of peace and privacy;

And as he turns, the thatch among the trees,
The smoke's blue wreaths ascending with the breeze,
The village-common spotted white with sheep,
The churchyard yews round which his fathers sleep;
All rouse Reflection's sadly pleasing train,
And oft he looks and weeps, and looks again.

So, when the mild Tupia dared explore
Arts yet untaught, and worlds unknown before,
And, with the sons of Science, wooed the gale
That, rising, swelled their strange expanse of sail;
So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu,
Borne from his leafy hut, his carved canoe,
And all his soul best loved-such tears he shed,
While each soft scene of summer-beauty fled.
Long o'er the wave a wistful look he cast,
Long watched the streaming signal from the mast;
Till twilight's dewy tints deceived his eye,
And fairy forests fringed the evening sky.

So Scotia's queen, as slowly dawned the day,
Rose on her couch, and gazed her soul away.
Her eyes had blessed the beacon's glimmering height,
That faintly tipped the feathery surge with light;
But now the morn with orient hues portrayed
Each castled cliff and brown monastic shade:
All touched the talisman's resistless spring,

And lo, what busy tribes were instant on the wing!
Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire,
As summer-clouds flash forth electric fire.
And hence this spot gives back the joys of youth,
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth.
Hence home-felt pleasure prompts the patriot's
sigh;

This makes him wish to live, and dare to die.
For this young Foscari, whose hapless fate
Venice should blush to hear the Muse relate,
When exile wore his blooming years away,
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey,
When reason, justice, vainly urged his cause,
For this he roused her sanguinary laws;
Glad to return, though Hope could grant no more,
And chains and torture hailed him to the shore.
And hence the charm historic scenes impart;
Hence Tiber awes, and Avon melts the heart.
Aerial forms in Tempe's classic vale

Glance through the gloom and whisper in the gale;
In wild Vaucluse with love and Laura dwell,
And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell.
'Twas ever thus. Young Ammon, when he sought
Where Ilium stood, and where Pelides fought,
Sat at the helm himself. No meaner hand
Steered through the waves, and when he struck the
land,

Such in his soul the ardour to explore,
Pelides-like, he leaped the first ashore.
'Twas ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb
We bless the shade, and bid the verdure bloom:
So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time,
On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime;
When at his feet in honoured dust disclosed,
The immortal sage of Syracuse reposed.
And as he long in sweet delusion hung
Where once a Plato taught, a Pindar sung;
Who now but meets him musing, when he roves
His ruined Tusculan's romantic groves?
In Rome's great forum, who but hears him roll
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul?

And hence that calm delight the portrait gives:
We gaze on every feature till it lives!
Still the fond lover sees the absent maid;
And the lost friend still lingers in his shade!
Say why the pensive widow loves to weep,
When on her knee she rocks her babe to sleep:

Tremblingly still, she lifts his veil to trace
The father's features in his infant face.
The hoary grandsire smiles the hour away,
Won by the raptures of a game at play;
He bends to meet each artless burst of joy,
Forgets his age, and acts again the boy.

What though the iron school of war erase
Each milder virtue, and each softer grace;
What though the fiend's torpedo-touch arrest
Each gentler, finer impulse of the breast;
Still shall this active principle preside,
And wake the tear to Pity's self denied.

The intrepid Swiss, who guards a foreign shore,
Condemned to climb his mountain-cliffs no more,
If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild
Which on those cliffs his infant hours beguiled,
Melts at the long-lost scenes that round him rise,
And sinks a martyr to repentant sighs.

*

*

Recall the traveller, whose altered form
Has borne the buffet of the mountain-storm;
And who will first his fond impatience meet?
His faithful dog's already at his feet!
Yes, though the porter spurn him from the door,
Though all that knew him know his face no more,
His faithful dog shall tell his joy to each,
With that mute eloquence which passes speech.
And see, the master but returns to die!
Yet who shall bid the watchful servant fly?
The blasts of heaven, the drenching dews of earth,
The wanton insults of unfeeling mirth,
These, when to guard Misfortune's sacred grave,
Will firm Fidelity exult to brave.

Led by what chart, transports the timid dove
The wreaths of conquest or the vows of love?
Say, through the clouds what compass points her flight?
Monarchs have gazed, and nations blest the sight.
Pile rocks on rocks, bid woods and mountains rise,
Eclipse her native shades, her native skies:
"Tis vain! through ether's pathless wild she goes,
And lights at last where all her cares repose.

Sweet bird! thy truth shall Harlem's walls attest, And unborn ages consecrate thy nest. When, with the silent energy of grief, With looks that asked, yet dared not hope relief, Want with her babes round generous Valour clung, To wring the slow surrender from his tongue, 'Twas thine to animate her closing eye; Alas! 'twas thine perchance the first to die, Crushed by her meagre hand when welcomed from the sky.

Hark! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course, And many a stream allures her to its source. 'Tis noon-'tis night. That eye so finely wrought, Beyond the search of sense, the soar of thought, Now vainly asks the scenes she left behind; Its orb so full, its vision so confined! Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell? With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue Of summer-scents, that charmed her as she flew? Hail, Memory, hail! thy universal reign Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain.

As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower Awes us less deeply in its morning-hour, Than when the shades of Time serenely fall On every broken arch and ivied wall; The tender images we love to trace Steal from each year a melancholy grace! And as the sparks of social love expand, As the heart opens in a foreign land; And, with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile, The stranger greets each native of his isle;