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THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

WITH fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread-
Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch,
She sang the "Song of the Shirt!"
"Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work-work-work,

Till the stars shine through the roof! It's oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,-
If THIS is Christian work!
"Work-work-work!

Till the brain begins to swim ;
Work-work-work,

Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band;

Band, and gusset, and seam; Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in my dream! "Oh! men with sisters dear!

Oh! men with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out,

But human creatures' lives! Stitch-stitch-stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt; Sewing at once, with a double thread, A SHROUD as well as a shirt!

"But why do I talk of death,

That phantom of grisly bone;
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own!
It seems so like my own-

Because of the fast I keep;

O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
"Work-work-work!

My labour never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread-and rags:

A shatter'd roof-and this naked floor-
A table-a broken chair-

And a wall so blank my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work-work-work!
From weary chime to chime;
Work-work-work,

As prisoners work, for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam;

Seam, and gusset, and band;

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd As well as the weary hand!

"Work-work-work,

In the dull December light, And work-work-work,

When the weather is warm and bright:

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,
As if to show me their sunny backs,
And twit me with the spring.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet;
With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet;
For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,

And the walk that costs a meal! "Oh! but for one short hour!

A respite, however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope;
But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart-
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop

Hinders needle and thread!"
With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread;
Stitch-stitch-stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch-
Would that its tone could reach the rich!—
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

SILENCE.

THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found, [found;
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep pro-
No voice is hush'd-no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls

Of antique palaces, where man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,

And owls, that fit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true silence is, self-conscious and alone.

DEATH.

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this,-but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft,-and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men.

A RUSTIC ODE.

Оn! well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh, “ O rus!"
Of London pleasures sick :
My heart is all at pant to rest
In greenwood shades,-my eyes detest
This endless meal of brick!
What joy have I in June's return?
My feet are parch'd, my eyeballs burn;
I scent no flowery gust:
But faint the flagging zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,

And turns me "dust to dust."

My sun his daily course renews
Due east, but with no eastern dews;
The path is dry and hot!

His setting shows more tamely still,
He sinks behind no purple hill,

But down a chimney's pot!

Oh! but to hear the milk-maid blithe,
Or early mower whet his scythe

The dewy meads among!
My grass is of that sort,-alas!
That makes no hay, call'd sparrow-grass
By folks of vulgar tongue!

Oh! but to smell the woodbine sweet!
I think of cowslip-cups,-but meet
With very vile rebuffs!

For meadow buds, I get a whiff
Of Cheshire cheese, or only sniff
The turtle made at Cuff's.
How tenderly Rousseau review'd
His periwinkles! mine are stew'd!
My rose blooms on a gown!
I hunt in vain for eglantine,
And find my blue-bell on the sign

That marks the Bell and Crown! Where are ye, birds! that blithely wing From tree to tree, and gayly sing

Or mourn in thickets deep?
My cuckoo has some ware to sell,
The watchmen is my Philomel,

My blackbird is a sweep!

Where are ye, linnet! lark! and thrush!
That perch on leafy bough and bush,
And tune the various song?
Two hurdy-gurdis, and a poor
Street-Handel grinding at my door,

Are all my "tuneful throng."
Where are ye, early-purling streams,
Whose waves reflect the morning beams,
And colours of the skies?
My rills are only puddle-drains
From shambles, or reflect the stains

Of calimanco-dyes.

Sweet are the little brooks that run O'er pebbles glancing in the sun,

Singing in soothing tones: Not thus the city streamlets flow; They make no music as they go, Though never "off the stones."

Where are ye, pastoral, pretty sheep,
That wont to bleat, and frisk, and leap
Beside your woolly dams?
Alas! instead of harmless crooks,
- My Corydons use iron hooks,

And skin-not shear-the lambs.
The pipe whereon, in olden day,
The Arcadian herdsmen used to play
Sweetly, here soundeth not;
But merely breathes unwelcome fumes,
Meanwhile the city boor consumes

The rank weed-" piping hot."

All rural things are vilely mock'd,
On every hand the sense is shock'd

With objects hard to bear:
Shades-vernal shades! where wine is sold!
And for a turfy bank, behold

An Ingram's rustic chair!

Where are ye, London meads and bowers, And gardens redolent of flowers

Wherein the zephyr wons?

Alas! Moor Fields are fields no more!
See Hatton's Garden brick'd all o'er;
And that bare wood,-St. John's.

No pastoral scene procures me peace;
I hold no leasowes in my lease,
No cot set round with trees:
No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks;
And omnium furnishes my banks

With brokers, not with bees.

Oh! well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh, "O rus!"

Of city pleasures sick :

My heart is all at pant to rest

In greenwood shades,-my eyes detest
This endless meal of brick.

FROM AN ODE TO MELANCHOLY.

OH! clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine,
And do not take my tears amiss;
For tears must flow to wash away

A thought that shows so stern as this: Forgive, if somewhile I forget,

In wo to come, the present bliss.

As frighted Proserpine let fall

Her flowers at the sight of Dis,

Even so the dark and bright will kiss. The sunniest things throw sternest shade, And there is even a happiness That makes the heart afraid!

Now let us with a spell invoke

The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes; Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud Lapp'd all about her, let her rise All pale and dim, as if from rest The ghost of the late buried sun Had crept into the skies.

The moon! she is the source of sighs,

The very face to make us sad; If but to think in other times

The same calm quiet look she had, As if the world held nothing base,

TO A COLD BEAUTY.

Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad; The same fair light that shone in streams, The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad; For so it is, with spent delights

She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad All things are touch'd with melancholy,

Born of the secret soul's mistrust, To feel her fair ethereal wings

Weigh'd down with vile degraded dust;
Even the bright extremes of joy

Bring on conclusions of disgust,
Like the sweet blossoms of the May,
Whose fragrance ends in must.
Oh give her, then, her tribute just,
Her sighs and tears, and musings holy!
There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter solely;
There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I REMEMBER, I remember,

The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn:
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,

The roses-red and white; The violets and the lily-cups,

Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,

And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birth-day,-
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to swing; And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing: My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,

The fir trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,
But now 't is little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.

LADY, wouldst thou heiress be,
To winter's cold and cruel part?
When he sets the rivers free,

Thou dost still lock up thy heart;— Thou that shouldst outlast the snow, But in the whiteness of thy brow? Scorn and cold neglect are made

For winter gloom and winter wind, But thou wilt wrong the summer air,

Breathing it to words unkind,Breath which only should belong To love, to sunlight, and to song! When the little buds unclose,

Red, and white, and pied, and blue, And that virgin flower, the rose,

Opes her heart to hold the dew, Wilt thou lock thy bosom up With no jewel in its cup?

Let not cold December sit

Thus in love's peculiar throne;Brooklets are not prison'd now,

But crystal frosts are all agone, And that which hangs upon the spray, It is no snow, but flower of May!

LOVE.

LOVE, dearest lady, such as I would speak,
Lives not within the humour of the eye;-
Not being but an outward phantasy,
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,—
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,
As if the rose made summer,—and so lie
Amongst the perishable things that die,
Unlike the love which I would give and seek:
Whose health is of no hue-to feel decay
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.
Love is its own great loveliness alway,
And takes new lustre from the touch of time;
Its bough owns no December and no May,
But bears its blossom into winter's clime.

BY A LOVER.

Br every sweet tradition of true hearts,
Graven by time, in love with his own lore;

By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts,
Wherein love died to be alive the more;
Yea, by the sad impression on the shore,

Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear
That coast for ever, where the billow's roar
Moaneth for pity in the poet's ear;

By Hero's faith, and the forboding tear That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall; By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear That sigh'd around her flight; I swear by all, The world shall find such pattern in my act, As if love's great examples still were lack'd.

ROBERT POLLOK.

THIS poet was born of parents in humble circumstances at Eaglesham, in Ayrshire, in 1799. He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and in 1827 took orders in the Scottish Secession Church. In the same year he published The Course of Time, and, on account of impaired health, left Scotland with an intention to proceed to Italy, but died, on his way, at Southampton, on the fifteenth of September.

The Course of Time was written during his student life, and when, unfriended and unknown, he offered it to the publishers of Edinburgh, none of them were willing to bring it out. The manuscript was fortunately seen by Professor WILSON, who quickly perceived its merits, and effected an arrangement between the poet and Messrs. Blackwood, which resulted in its publication. The plot of the poem is very simple: The events of time are finished, and a being from some remote world arrives in Paradise, where he inquires the meaning of the hell he has seen on his way

BYRON.

ADMIRE the goodness of Almighty God! He riches gave, he intellectual strength, To few, and therefore none commands to be Or rich, or learn'd; nor promises reward Of peace to these. On all, He moral worth Bestow'd, and moral tribute ask'd from all. And who that could not pay who born so poor, Of intellect so mean, as not to know What seem'd the best; and, knowing, might not do? As not to know what God and conscience bade, And what they bade not able to obey? And he, who acted thus, fulfill'd the law Eternal, and its promise reaped of peace; Found peace this way alone: who sought it else, Sought mellow grapes beneath the icy pole, Sought blooming roses on the cheek of death, Sought substance in a world of fleeting shades. Take one example, to our purpose quite, A man of rank, and of capacious soul, Who riches had and fame, beyond desire, An heir of flattery, to titles born, And reputation, and luxurious life; Yet, not content with ancestorial name, Or to be known because his fathers were, He on this height hereditary stood, And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart

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heavenward; a bard, once of our earth, sings the story of humanity, from the beginning until time is finished,

the righteous saved, the wicked damned, And God's eternal government approved.

The subject is a noble one, and in the poem there are graphic conceptions and passages of beauty and tenderness; but it is disfigured by amplifications and a redundancy of moral pictures; it has no continuous interest, and in parts of it which should have been and which the author endeavoured to make the most impressive, particularly those in which he subjects himself to a comparison with DANTE and MILTON, he utterly failed.

The Course of Time has been almost universally read. I have been informed that not less than twenty editions of it have been sold in the United States, and it has been frequently reprinted in Scotland. For its popularity, however, both here and in Great Britain, it is more indebted to its theology than to its merits as a poem.

To take another step. Above him seem'd,
Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
Of canonized bards; and thitherward,
By nature taught, and inward melody,
In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye. [read;
No cost was spared. What books he wish'd, he
What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see,
He saw.
And first in rambling school-boy days
Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes,
And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks,
And maids, as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul
With grandeur fill'd, and melody, and love.
Then travel came, and took him where he wish'd.
He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp;
And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows;
And mused on battle-fields, where valour fought
In other days; and mused on ruins gray
With years; and drank from old and fabulous wells,
And pluck'd the vine that first-born prophets pluck'd,
And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave
Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste;
The heavens and earth of every country saw.
Where'er the old inspiring genii dwelt,
Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul,
Thither he went, and meditated there.

He touch'd his harp, and nations heard, entranced,
As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flow'd,

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And open'd new fountains in the human heart.
Where fancy halted, weary in her flight,
In other men, his, fresh as morning, rose,
And soar'd untrodden heights, and seem'd at home
Where angels bashful look'd. Others, though great,
Beneath their argument seem'd struggling whiles;
He from above descending stoop'd to touch
The loftiest thought; and proudly stoop'd, as though
It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self
He seem'd an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.
He laid his hand upon the ocean's mane,"
And play'd familiar with his hoary locks;
Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,
And with the thunder talk'd, as friend to friend;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance, seem'd;
Then turn'd, and with the grasshopper, who sung
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed.
Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds, his sisters were;
Rocks, mountains, meteors,seas and winds and storms
His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deem'd. All passions of all men,
The wild and tame, the gentle and severe;
All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds, all seasons, Time, Eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man;
He toss'd about, as tempest, wither'd leaves,
Then, smiling, look'd upon the wreck he made.
With terror now he froze the cowering blood,
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness;
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
So ocean from the plains his waves had late
To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,

And seem'd to mock the ruin he had wrought.
As some fierce comet of tremendous size,
To which the stars did reverence, as it pass'd,
So he through learning and through fancy took
His flight sublime, and on the loftiest top
Of fame's dread mountain sat; not soil'd and worn,
As if he from the earth had labour'd up;
But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair,
He look'd, which down from higher regions came,
And perch'd it there, to see what lay beneath.
The nations gazed, and wonder'd much, and prais'd.
Critics before him fell in humble plight,
Confounded fell, and made debasing signs [selves
To catch his eye, and stretch'd, and swell'd them-
To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words
Of admiration vast: and many, too,
Many that aim'd to imitate his flight,
With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made,
And gave abundant sport to after days.

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Great man! the nations gazed, and wonder'd And praised; and many call'd his evil good. Wits wrote in favour of his wickedness, And kings to do him honour took delight.

Thus, full of titles, flattery, honour, fame,

Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full,

He died. He died of what? Of wretchedness;—
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame, drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts
That common millions might have quench'd; then
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink. [died
His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoy'd,
Fell from his arms, abhorr'd; his passions died,
Died, all but dreary, solitary pride;
And all his sympathies in being died.
As some ill-guided bark, well built and tall,
Which angry tides cast out on desert shore,
And then, retiring, left it there to rot
And moulder in the winds and rains of heaven;
So he, cut from the sympathies of life,
And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge,
A wandering, weary, worn, and wretched thing,
Scorch'd, and desolate, and blasted soul,
A gloomy wilderness of dying thought,-
Repined, and groan'd, and wither'd from the earth.
His groanings fill'd the land, his numbers fill'd;
And yet he seem'd ashamed to groan: Poorman!-
Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help.

Proof this, beyond all lingering of doubt,
That not with natural or mental wealth
Was God delighted, or his peace secured;
That not in natural or mental wealth
Was human happiness or grandeur found.
Attempt, how monstrous, and how surely vain!
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul!
Attempt, vain inconceivably! attempt,
To satisfy the ocean with a drop,
To marry immortality to death,

And with the unsubstantial shade of time,
To fill the embrace of all eternity!

THE MILLENNIUM.

THE animals, as once in Eden, lived In peace. The wolf dwelt with the lamb, the bear And leopard with the ox. With looks of love, The tiger and the scaly crocodile Together met, at Gambia's palmy wave. Perch'd on the eagle's wing, the bird of song, Singing, arose, and visited the sun; And with the falcon sat the gentle lark. The little child leap'd from his mother's arms And stroked the crested snake, and roll'd unhurt Among his speckled waves, and wish'd him home; And sauntering school-boys, slow returning, play'd At eve about the lion's den, and wove, Into his shaggy mane, fantastic flowers. To meet the husbandman, early abroad, Hasted the deer, and waved its woody head; And round his dewy steps, the hare, unscared, Sported, and toy'd familiar with his dog. The flocks and herds, o'er hill and valley spread, Exulting, cropp'd the ever-budding herb, The desert blossom'd, and the barren sung. Justice and Mercy, Holiness and Love, Among the people walk'd. Messiah reign'd, And earth kept jubilee a thousand years.

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