mind and a fragile body, Scott has delineated with force and pathetic beauty; and reminds us strongly of those characters, on which Rousseau delighted to expend his enchanting tenderness and delicious colouring. Behold the picture drawn at length:--Nought of his sire's ungenerous part Polluted Wilfrid's gentle heart;
A heart, too soft from early life
To hold with fortune needful strife.
His sire, while yet a hardier race
Of numerous sons were Wycliffe's grace,
On Wilfrid set contemptuous brand,
For feeble heart and forceless hand;
But a fond mother's care and joy
Were centred in her sickly boy.
No touch of childhood's frolic mood
Showed the elastic spring of blood;
Hour after hour he loved to pore
On Shakspeare's rich and varied lore,
But turned from martial scenes and light,
From Falstaff's feats and Percy's fight,
To ponder Jaques' moral strain,
And muse with Hamlet, wise in vain;
And weep himself to soft repose
O'er gentle Desdemona's woes.
In youth, he sought not pleasures found
By youth in horse, and hawk, and hound,
But loved the quiet joys that wake
By lonely stream and silent lake;
In Deepdale's solitude to lie,
Where all is cliff, and copse, and sky;
To climb Catcastle's dizzy peak,
Or lone Pendragon's mound to seek.
Such was his wont; and there his dream
Soared on some wild fantastic theme,
Of faithful love, or ceaseless Spring,
Till Contemplation's wearied wing
The enthusiast could no more sustain,
And sad he sunk to earth again.
He loved as many a lay can tell,
Preserved in Stanmore's lonely dell;
For his was minstrel's skill, he caught
The art unteachable, untaught;
He loved--his soul did nature frame
For love, and fancy nursed the flame;
Vainly he loved-for seldom swain
Of such soft mould is loved again;
Silent he loved-in every gaze
Was passion, friendship in his phrase.
So mused his life away-till died
His brethren all, their father's pride.
Wilfrid is now the only heir
Of all his stratagems and care,
And destined, darkling, to pursue
Ambition's maze by Oswald's clue.
Wilfrid must love and woo the bright
Matilda, heir of Rokeby's knight.
To love her was an easy hest,
The secret empress of his breast;
To woo her was a harder task
To one that durst not hope or ask;
Yet all Matilda could, she gave
In pity to her gentle slave;
Friendship, esteem, and fair regard,
And praise, the poet's best reward!
She read the tales his taste approved,
And sung the lays he framed or loved;
Yet, loth to nurse the fatal flame
Of hopeless love in friendship's name,
In kind caprice she oft withdrew
The favouring glance to friendship due,
Then grieved to see her victim's pain,
And gave the dangerous smiles again.
The following lines are exquisitely beautiful; and the song which concludes them, has somewhere about it that soft melancholy of genius, which, like the vagrant grace of a fine countenance, you feel in your heart, though it eludes detection:
More wouldst thou know-yon tower survey,
Yon couch unpressed since parting day,
Yon untrimmed lamp, whose yellow gleam
Is mingling with the cold moon-beam,
And yon thin form!—the hectic red
On his pale cheek unequal spread;
The head reclined, the loosened hair,
The limbs relaxed, the mournful air.-
See, he looks up;-a woful smile
Lightens his wo-worn cheek awhile,-
'Tis Fancy wakes some idle thought,
To gild the ruin she has wrought;
For, like the bat of Indian brakes,
Her pinion fans the wound she makes,
And, soothing thus the dreamer's pain,
She drinks his life-blood from the vein.
Now to the lattice turn his eyes,
Vain hope! to see the sun arise.
The moon with clouds is still o'ercast,
Still howls by fits the stormy blast;
Another hour must wear away,
Ere the east kindle into day,
And, hark! to waste that weary hour,
He tries the minstrel's magie power.
SONG-TO THE MOON.
Hail to thy cold and clouded beam,
Pale pilgrim of the troubled sky!
Hail, though the mists that o'er thee stream
Lend to thy brow their sullen dye!
How should thy pure and peaceful eye
Untroubled view our scenes below,
Or how a tearless beam supply
To light a world of war and wo!
Fair Queen! I will not blame thee now,
As once by Greta's fairy side;
Each little cloud that dimmed thy brow
Did then an angel's beauty hide.
And of the shades I then could chide,
Still are the thoughts to memory dear,
For, while a softer strain I tried,
They hid my blush, and calmed my fear.
Then did I swear thy ray serene
Was formed to light some lonely dell,
By two fond lovers only seen,
Reflected from the chrystal well;
Or sleeping on their mossy cell,
Or quivering on the lattice bright
Or glancing on their couch to tell
How swiftly wanes the summer night.
The courage of Wilfrid's mind burst out with peculiar nobleness, on the unconscious avowal of Bertram, that he had slain Mortham. He exclaims:
"Thou slay him?"-thou?-With conscious start
He heard, then manned his haughty heart.
"I slew him?-I! I had forgot,
Thou, strippling, knewest not of the plot.
But it is spoken-nor will I
Deed done, or spoken word, deny.
I slew him, I for thankless pride;
'Twas by this hand that Mortham died."
Wilfrid, of gentle hand and heart,
Averse to every active part,
But most averse to martial broil,
From danger shrunk, and turned from toil,
Yet the meek lover of the lyre
Nursed one brave spark of noble fire;
Against injustice, fraud, or wrong,
His blood beat high, his hand waxed strong.
Not his the nerves that could sustain
Unshaken, danger, toil, and pain;
But when that spark blazed forth to flame,
He rose superior to his frame.
And now it came, that generous mood;
And, in full current of his blood,
On Bertram he laid desperate hand,
Placed firm his foot, and drew his brand.
"Should every fiend to whom thou'rt sold,
Rise in thine aid, I keep my hold.
Arouse there, ho! take spear and sword!
Attach the murderer of your lord!"
A moment, fixed as by a spell,
Stood Bertram-it seemed miracle,
That one so feeble, soft, and tame,
Set grasp on warlike Risingham.
But when he felt a feeble stroke,
The fiend within the ruffian woke!
To wrench the sword from Wilfrid's hand
To dash him headlong on the sand,
Was but one moment's work-one more,
Had drenched the blade in Wilfrid's gore;
But, in the instant it arose,
To end his life, his love, his woes,
A warlike form, that marked the scene,
Presents his rapier sheathed between.
We can afford no more space to Wilfrid, except the following lines, and his song of the "Cypress Wreath." The song is pretty, and highly characteristical. We judge it will be often quoted and often sung-but we do not think so well of it as the one we have already inserted. It has in it too much of the common places of poetry, and is not so highly finished as Collins's "Ode to Fidelia," on the same subject:
The blood left Wilfrid's ashen cheek;
Matilda sees, and hastes to speak.
"Happy in friendship's ready aid,
Let all my murmurs here be staid!
And Rokeby's maiden will not part
From Rokeby's hall with moody heart.
This night at least, for Rokeby's fame
The hospitable hearth shall flame,
And, ere its native heir retire,
Find for the wanderer rest and fire,
While this poor harper, by the blaze,
Recounts the tale of other days.
Bid Harpool ope the door with speed,
Admit him, and relieve each need.-
Meantime, kind Wycliffe, wilt thou try
Thy minstrel skill?-nay, no reply-
And look not sad!--I guess thy thought,
Thy verse with laurels would be bought,
And poor Matilda, landless now,
Has not a garland for thy brow.
True, I must leave sweet Rokeby's glades,
Nor wander more in Greta's shades,
But sure, no rigid jailor, thou
Wilt a short prison-walk allow,
Where summer flowers grow wild at will,
On Marwood chace and Toller-hill;
Then holly green and lily gay
Shan twine in guerdon of thy lay."-
The mournful youth, a space aside
To tune Matilda's harp applied;
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