NORHAM CASTLE.

FROM "MARMION."

[The ruinous castle of Norham (anciently called Ubbanford) is situated on the southern bank of the Tweed, about six miles above Berwick, and where that river is still the boundary between Eng. land and Scotland. The extent of its ru ns, as well as its historical importance, shows it to have been a place of magnificence as well as strength. Edward I. resided there when he was created umpire of the dispute concerning the Scottish succession. It was repeatedly taken and retaken during the wars between England and Scotland, and, indeed, scarce any happened in which it had not a principal share. Norhain Castle is situated on a steep bank, which overhangs the river. The ruins of the castle are at present considerable, as well as picturesque. They consist of a large shattered tower, with many vaults, and fragments of other edifices, inclosed within an outward wall of great circuit.]

DAY set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone :
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loop-hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow luster shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze
In lines of dazzling light.

St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray

Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warder kept his guard;
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border-gathering song.

A distant trampling sound he hears;
He looks abroad, and soon appears,
O'er Horncliff hill, a plump of spears,
Beneath a pennon gay;

A horseman, darting from the crowd,
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud
Before the dark array.

Beneath the sable palisade,
That closed the castle barricade,

His bugle-horn he blew ;
The warder hasted from the wall,
And warned the captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

"Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,,
Bring pasties of the doe,

And quickly make the entrance free,
And bid my heralds ready be,
And every minstrel sound his glee,

And all our trumpets blow;
And, from the platform, spare ye not
To fire a noble salvo-shot:

Lord Marmion waits below."
Then to the castle's lower ward
Sped forty yeomen tall,
The iron-studded gates unbarred,
Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard,
The lofty palisade unsparred,

And let the drawbridge fall.

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddle-bow;
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalworth knight, and keen,
And had in many a battle been.
The scar on his brown cheek revealed
A token true of Bosworth field;
His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire,
Showed spirit proud, and prompt to ire;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
His forehead, by his casque worn bare,
His thick mustache, and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,

But more through toil than age;
His square-turned joints, and strength of limb,
Showed him no carpet-knight so trim,
But in close fight a champion grim,

In camps a leader sage.

Well was he armed from head to heel,
In mail and plate of Milan steel;
But his strong helm, of mighty cost,
Was all with burnished gold embossed;

Amid the plumage of the crest,
A falcon hovered on her nest,
With wings outspread, and forward breast;
E'en such a falcon, on his shield,
Soared sable in an azure field:
The golden legend bore aright,
Who checks at me to death is dight.
Blue was the charger's broidered rein;
Blue ribbons decked his arching maue;
The knightly housing's ample fold
Was velvet blue, and trapped with gold.
Behind him rode two gallant squires
Of noble name and knightly sires;
They burned the gilded spurs to claim ;
For well could each a war-horse tame,
Could draw the bow, the sword could sway,
And lightly bear the ring away;
Nor less with courteous precepts stored,
Could dance in hall, and carve at board,
And frame love-ditties passing rare,
And sing them to a lady fair.

Four men-at-arms came at their backs,
With halbert, bill, and battle-ax;

They bore Lord Marmion's lance so strong,

And led his sumpter-mules along,

And ambling palfrey, when at need
Him listed ease his battle-steed.
The last and trustiest of the four
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like swallow's tail, in shape and hue,
Fluttered the streamer glossy blue,
Where, blazoned sable, as before,
The towering falcon seemed to soar.
Last, twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hosen black, and jerkins blue,
With falcons broidered on each breast,
Attended on their lord's behest:
Each, chosen for an archer good,
Knew hunting-craft by lake or wood;
Each one a six-foot bow could bend,
And far a cloth-yard shaft could send ;
Each held a boar-spear tough and strong,
And at their belts their quivers rung.
Their dusty palfreys and array
Showed they had marched a weary way.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

MELROSE ABBEY.

FROM THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL."

If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;

Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven,
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,
Around the screened altar's pale;
And there the dying lamps did burn,
Before thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant chief of Otterburne!

And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale !
O fading honors of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!

The moon on the east oriel shone
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,

By foliaged tracery combined; Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand

In many a freakish knot had twined; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone. The silver light, so pale and faint,

Showed many a prophet, and many a saint, Whose image on the glass was dyed; Full in the midst, his Cross of Red Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride. The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

ON ROUSSEAU'S ISLE.

ALONE and sad I sat me down
To rest on Rousseau's narrow Isle,
Below Geneva. Mile on mile,
And set with many a shining town,
Toward Dent du Midi danced the wave
Beneath the moon. Winds went and came,
And fanned the stars into a flame.

I heard the far lake, dark and deep,

Rise up and talk as in its sleep.

I heard the laughing waters lave

And lap against the farther shore,

An idle oar, and nothing more

Save that the Isle had voice, and save

That round about its base of stone

There plashed and flashed the foamy Rhone.

A stately man, as black as tan,
Kept up a stern and broken round
Among the strangers on the ground.
I named that awful African
A second Hannibal. I gat
My elbows on the table, sat

With chin in upturned palm to scan
His face, and contemplate the scene.
The moon rode by, a crownèd queen.
I was alone. Lo! not a man
To speak my mother-tongue. Ah me!
How more than all alone can be
A man in crowds! Across the Isle
My Hannibal strode on. The while
Diminished Rousseau sat his throne
Of books, unnoticed and unknown.

This strange, strong man with face austere
At last drew near. He bowed; he spake
In unknown tongues. I could but shake
My head. Then, half a-chill with fear,
I rose, and sought another place.
Again I mused. The kings of thought
Came by, and on that storied spot
I lifted up a tearful face.

The star-set Alps they sang a rune
Unheard by any soul but mine.
Mont Blanc, as lone and as divine
And white, seemed mated to the moon.

While summer's wind blew soft and low,
Seated by gallant Hotspur's side,
His Katherine was a happy bride,
A thousand years ago.

I wandered through the lofty halls
Trod by the Percys of old fame,
And traced upon the chapel walls
Each high, heroic name,

From him who once his standard set
Where now, o'er mosque and minaret,

Glitter the Sultan's crescent moons,
To him who, when a younger son,
Fought for King George at Lexington,
A major of dragoons.

That last half-stanza, it has dashed
From my warm lip the sparkling cup;
The light that o'er my eyebeam flashed,
The power that bore my spirit up
Above this bank-note world, is gone ;
And Alnwick 's but a market town,
And this, alas! its market day,

And beasts and borderers throng the way;
Oxen and bleating lambs in lots,
Northumbrian boors and plaided Scots,

Men in the coal and cattle line; From Teviot's bard and hero land, From royal Berwick's beach of sand, From Wooller, Morpeth, Hexham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

These are not the romantic times
So beautiful in Spenser's rhymes,

So dazzling to the dreaming boy;
Ours are the days of fact, not fable,
Of knights, but not of the round table,
Of Bailie Jarvie, not Rob Roy;
'Tis what "Our President," Monroe,
Has called "the era of good feeling";
The Highlander, the bitterest foe
To modern laws, has felt their blow,
Consented to be taxed, and vote,
And put on pantaloons and coat,

And leave off cattle-stealing :
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings;
And noble name and cultured land,
Palace, and park, and vassal band,
Are powerless to the notes of hand
Of Rothschild or the Barings.

The age of bargaining, said Burke,
Has come to-day the turbaned Turk
(Sleep, Richard of the lion heart!
Sleep on, nor from your cerements start)
Is England's friend and fast ally;

The Moslem tramples on the Greek,
And on the Cross and altar-stone,
And Christendom looks tamely on,
And hears the Christian maiden shriek,
And sees the Christian father die;
And not a saber-blow is given

For Greece and fame, for faith and heaven,
By Europe's craven chivalry.

You'll ask if yet the Percy lives

In the armed pomp of feudal state.
The present representatives

Of Hotspur and his "gentle Kate,"
Are some half-dozen serving-men
In the drab coat of William Penn;

A chambermaid, whose lip and eye,
And cheek, and brown hair, bright and curling,
Spoke nature's aristocracy;

And one, half groom, half seneschal,
Who bowed me through court, bower, and hall,
From donjon keep to turret wall,
For ten-and-sixpence sterling.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

LONDON.

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, 1803.

EARTH has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will.
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

NUREMBERG.

IN the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands

Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,

Memories haunt thy pointed gables like the rooks that round them throng:

Had their dwellings in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;

obscure and dismal lanes, Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains;

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the door,

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,

As the old man gray and dovelike, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,

Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye

Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard,

But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region