XI.

Knights, little used to pity, sighed,

They softened to his suit;

For her voice to their hearts was felt to glide
Like music from a lute;

"Our arms," Gonsalvo said, "achieve

The buttress, not the bower;

My falchion's edged the oak to cleave,

And not to crush the flower.

XII.

"Peace be to both; you both are free!

Live happy; and whene'er

To you a Christian bends his knee,

Believe Gonsalvo there!"

They silent kissed his robes, and sped

To their own dear Darro's water,
And thus Gazúl Zorayda wed,

Granada's noblest daughter!

Woburn Abbey.

R.

THE MUSIC OF THE REEDS.

I.

A VOICE of music swells from yonder reeds,
Where flits on feeble wing the rising blast,
Low as the sound when gentle Pity pleads,
Or lone remembrance mourns the cherished past;
Now, with wild notes upon the waters cast,
Like solemn voices joined in holy strain ;—
Anon with measures intermingling fast,

As peals the distant choir,—and hushed again,

Like Hope that cheers Despair-or Grief that weeps in

vain!

II.

It is the native harmony of earth,—

The slow, and awful hymn of solitude;
A melting strain which owns no mortal birth,
But breathed by Nature, in her softest mood,
From heath, or sunless grove, or mountain rude,

Where fountains in their leafy twilight rise,

And blooms that graceful tenant of the wood,

Grief's golden emblem, with the plant which vies In name with Friendship's self, in hue like summer's skies.

III.

And well the Arcadian Deity of yore,

Beneath the shade of moss-grown boughs reclined, Where nodding thickets crowned the pebbled shore, And raised the reed its answer to the wind,

Amidst the whispered melody might find The infant breathings of that conquering power, The first, and mightiest mistress of the mind, While lasts Affliction's storm, or Danger's hour, Raising the drooping soul, as dews the withered flower.

IV.

Sigh on thou breeze! and ye, light leaves, that make

The forest musical, the desart mild,

And fill with sounds of peace each rustling brake ; Be tuneful still!-amidst this pathless wild, The western sky with clouds of glory piled, Night's star above-earth-ocean calm below, And fair as when creation's morning smiled; I would not change the strains which ye bestow, For all that art can teach-for all that skill can shew.

BORRODAILE.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

THE Gulfs of Borrodaile !-My soul delights
In these drear desarts. Now methinks a sense
Of something mightier than the common world
Runs trembling through the heart. A spirit born
Of mountain solitudes and sights sublime,
Of earth, and sky, and the wide-wandering air,
Is present here. Unlike the royal power
Of Skiddaw, or Helvellyn crowned with clouds,
Or Kirkstone, guardian of the mountain way!
Here vague and barren grandeur spreads abroad,
And Darkness and Dismay and Danger dwell.
No grassy sward of green is nourished here,
Like that which (as old song proclaims) sprang freshly
On shores Sicilian and in Tempe's vale;

Nor streams of silver, such as Echo once

Haunted; or on whose banks the Wood-nymphs played; Or pensive pale Narcissus loved to lie.

But here a wilful, riotous torrent comes

Mad from the mountains, and when July drought
Scorches the hills, here all-subdued yet wild,

The muttering river drags its lazy course,

And makes hoarse discord with the rocks and stones.

No solitary tree puts forth its head,

Nor flowering shrub: the palmy fern' has left

A place so desolate; and the clinging moss

The last friend of the desart, here has died!

SONNET TO THE SWALLOW TRIBE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF SOLITARY WALKS THROUGH
MANY LANDS.'

WHITE-bosomed strangers, wandering tribe, that bring
News to our isle, of pleasant summer weather;
From what far shore did ye set out together,
To shew us your red beak, and purple wing?
I guess 'tis pleasant for ye, feathered people,
When winds are still, and evening waxes dim,
To wheel and frolic round the silent steeple,
Or down the stream, or o'er the lake to skim.
Pr'ythee, dear bird, indulge me in my whim ;
Come, cease your twittering play, and tell me where
Ye live when ye're at home, and all about it;
And how such tiny things as you are, dare
(For I, my summer friends, do somewhat doubt it)
Trust
your frail wings to the wide fields of air.