A covering mantle, given, Oh! lightly, lightly tread! Ye know not what ye do, Her soul is far away, In her childhood's land, perchance, Where her young sisters play, Where shines her mother's glance. Some old sweet native sound A harmony profound Of woods with all their leaves: A murmur of the sea, A laughing tone of streams:- Each voice of love is there, HIGHLAND MARY. MRS. NORTON. I WOULD I were the light fern growing I would I were in yonder heaven A silver star, whose soft dim light Would rise to bless each summer even, And watch my Mary all the night! I would, beneath these small white fingers, I were the lute her breath has fannedThe gentle lute, whose soft note lingers, As loath to leave her fairy hand! Ah, happy things! ye may not wander And dream my Mary watches too! THE PILGRIMS OF THE WORLD. WILLIAM HOWITT. I SEE a city of the East, A city great and wide; The evening sunlight richly falls Its marble founts and porticoes, The murmur of its multitudes Is like the ocean's voice; Yet may'st thou hear the children's cries, That in streets and squares rejoice. How glorious looks that antique town! But the evening falls-the gates are closed, Their steps are faint, their garbs are quaint, Their travel has been sore: With what a wild and hungry glance On goes the first-What cries are those? Rebellious shouts, despairing rage, The second, with a mutter'd curse, Mine eye is on a broad, rich realm, What green and cattle-traversed hills! How lightly glide those merchant-sails But that pilgrim three !—that fearful three! And darkness, and despair. What cursed vision have I seen? Is this the land they paced? Along the wormwood waste? This-where the wild ass snuffs the wind. The silent ostrich stands; And the column, like a ruin'd king, Frowns proudly on the sands? A home! there is a happy home! An old, ancestral tower; And blessed is the family That peoples it this hour. Honours their valiant fathers won, But the love that is in their kindred souls, Now vengeance on the wandering fiends! I see them lowering at the gate, Oh! there are tears-wild, burning tears, Terror, and scorn, and hate ; Mad words, dark looks, sad breaking hearts, And partings desperate. Can no one stop those wizards curst? Stand back! stand back ! thou desperate man ! Those feet have stood in Adam's bower; Those gaunt forms round the world have gone, Through centuries of guilt, |