And though it be long since daisies grew Where Irk and Irwell flow, If human love springs up anew, And angels come and go, What matters it that the skies were blue A hundred years ago? Bessie Rayner Parkes. IN LIVERPOOL. Liverpool, the good old town, we miss The grand old relics of a reverend past, Cathedrals, shrines that pilgrims come to kiss, Walls wrinkled by the blast. Some crypt or keep, historically dear, You find, go where you will, all England through: But what have we to venerate, - all here Ridiculously new. We have our Castle Street, but castle none; Huge warehouses for cotton, rice, and corn, These we can show, but nothing to restore An ancient mansion with palatial door, In some degenerate square. Then rise the merchant princes of old days, Their silken dames, their skippers from the strand, Who brought their sea-borne riches, not always Quite free from contraband. And these their mansions, to base uses come, - We have a church that one almost reveres, And there's St. Peter's, too, not quite so frail, For when the sun has clomb the middle sky, They give us 'Home, Sweet Home" in plaintive key, And in its turn breaks out "The Scolding Wife," To show that home, however sweet it be, Is yet not free from strife But sometimes "Auld Lang Syne" comes clinking forth, Yet all is so ridiculously new, Except, perhaps, the river and the sky, Ay, they are old, but new as well as old, The same refiltered stream. Robert Leighton. STR THE DINGLE. TRANGER! that with careless feet Where the fern, in fringéd pride, Decks the lonely valley's side; Where the white-throat chirps his song, Flitting as thou tread'st along: Know, where now thy footsteps pass O'er the bending tufts of grass, Bright gleaming through the encircling wood, Once a Naiad rolled her flood. If her urn, unknown to fame, Clear and constant rolled the tide. Grateful for the tribute paid, Stranger, curious, wouldst thou learn Ere yon neighboring spires arose, Once the maid, in summer's heat, Forgetful of her daily toil, To trace each humid tract of soil, From dews and bounteous showers to bring The limpid treasures of her spring. Enfeebled by the scorching ray, And when she oped her languid eye, Heedless stranger! who so long Hast thou no urn that asks thy care? William Roscoe. Lockswell. LOCKSWELL. URE fount, that, welling from the wooded hill, Dost wander forth, as into life's wide vale, Thou to the traveller dost tell no tale Of other years; a lone, unnoticed rill, In thy forsaken track, unheard of men, Melting thy own sweet music through the glen. Time was when other sounds and songs arose : When o'er the pensive scene, at evening's close, The distant bell was heard; or the full chant At morn came sounding high and jubilant; Or, stealing on the wildered pilgrim's way, The moonlight Miserere died away, Like all things earthly. Stranger, mark the spot; No echoes of the chiding world intrude. |