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Rosabelle

CCXXXV

THE DEATH BED

We watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

But when the morn came dim and sad
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had

Another morn than ours.

T. HOOD

CCXXXVI

ROSABELLE

O listen, listen, ladies gay!

No haughty feat of arms I tell

;

Soft is the note, and sad the lay
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

'Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

Last night the gifted Seer did view
A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay;
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch;
Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?'

Rosabelle

'Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
Tonight at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my lady-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

'Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
If 'tis not fill'd by Rosabelle.'

-O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
'Twas broader than the watch-fire's light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Roslin's castled rock,

It ruddied all the copse-wood glen ;
'Twas scen from Dryden's groves of oak,
And seen from cavern'd Hawthornden.

Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie,
Each Baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seem'd all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,

And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,

Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair-
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high Saint Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle !

257

S

258

On an Infant Dying

And each Saint Clair was buried there

With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

SIR W. SCOTT

CCXXXVII

ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN

I saw where in the shroud did lurk

A curious frame of Nature's work;
A flow'ret crushéd in the bud,
A nameless piece of Babyhood,
Was in her cradle-coffin lying;
Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:
So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb !

She did but ope an eye, and put

A clear beam forth, then straight up
For the long dark : ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.
Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know

What thy errand here below?

Shall we say, that Nature blind

shut

Check'd her hand, and changed her mind

Just when she had exactly wrought

A finish'd pattern without fault?

Could she flag, or could she tire,

Or lack'd she the Promethean fire

(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd)
That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure

Life of health, and days mature:

Woman's self in miniature !

Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)

On an Infant Dying
The sculptor to make Beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry
That babe or mother, one must die;
So in mercy left the stock

And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widow'd, and the pain
When Single State comes back again
To the lone man who, reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maiméd life ?
The economy of Heaven is dark,
And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark
Why human buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral

That has his day; while shrivell❜d crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of an hundred years.
-Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss :
Rites, which custom does impose,
Silver bells, and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips
Which pale death did late eclipse;

Music framed for infants' glee,

Whistle never tuned for thee;

Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,

Loving hearts were they which gave them.

Let not one be missing; nurse,

See them laid upon the hearse

Of infant slain by doom perverse.
Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave,
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie-
A more harmless vanity?

C. LAMB

259