INVOCATION.

[Written in the neighbourhood of Abbotsford, during the last illness of Sir Walter Scott.]

SPIRITS! Intelligences! Passions! Dreams!

Ghosts! Genii! Sprites!

Muses, that haunt the Heliconian streams,

Inspiring Lights!

Whose intellectual fires, in Scott combined,
Supplied the sun of his omniscient mind!

Ye who have o'er-informed and overwrought

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His teeming soul,

Bidding it scatter galaxies of thought

From pole to pole;

Enlightening others till itself grew dark,

A midnight heaven, without one starry spark;—

Spirits of Earth and Air-of Light and Gloom!

Awake! arise!

Restore the victim ye have made-relume
His darkling eyes.

Wizards! be all your magic skill unfurl'd,

To charm to health the Charmer of the World!

The scabbard, by its sword outworn, repair;

Give to his lips

Their lore, than Chrysostom's more rich and rare : Dispel the eclipse

That intercepts his intellectual light,

And saddens all mankind with tears and night,

Not only for the Bard of highest worth,

But best of men,

Do I invoke ye, Powers of Heaven and Earth!

Oh! where and when

Shall we again behold his counterpart

Such kindred excellence of head and heart?

So good and great-benevolent as wise

On his high throne

How meekly hath he borne his faculties!

How finely shown

A model to the irritable race,

Of generous kindness, courtesy, and grace!

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If he must die, how great to perish thus

In Glory's blaze;

A world, in requiem unanimous,

Weeping his praise!

While Angels wait to catch his parting breath—

Who would not give his life for such a death?

THE MOTHER'S MISTAKE.

HEARD you that piercing shriek-the throe

Of fear and agonising woe?

It is a mother, who with wild

Despairing looks and gasping breath,

Thinks she beholds her only child

Extended on the floor in death!

That darling Babe whose natal cry
Had thrill'd her heart with ecstasy,
As with baptizing tears of bliss

Her nestling treasure she bedew'd, Then clasp'd him with a silent kiss,,

And heavenward look'd her gratitude :

That darling babe who, while he press'd
His rosebud lips around her breast,

Would steal an upward glance, and bless

With smiles his mother's tenderness;

Confining laughter to his eyes,

Lest he should lose the teeming prize :

That darling Babe who, sleeping, proved,
More than when waking, how she loved.
Then was her ever watchful ear

Prepared to catch the smallest noise, Which sometimes hope and sometimes fear

Would liken to her infant's voice.

With beating heart and timid flush,

On tiptoe to his cot she crept,

Lifting the curtain with a hush,

To gaze upon him as he slept.

Then would she place his outstretch'd arm

Beside his body, close and warm;

Adjust his scatter'd clothes aright,

And shade his features from the light,

And look a thousand fond caressings

And move her lips in speechless blessings,