LINES.

The following lines were composed in January 1830, while passing the night in the wilderness before a huntsman's fire, in company with a party of friends engaged in a hunting expedition.

Above, the starry dome;
Beneath, the frozen ground;
And the flickering blaze that breaks the gloom,
And my comrades sleeping sound.
Well may they sleep; their sportive toil
Has found a mirthful close,
And dreams of home, of love's sweet smile,
And prattling childhood void of guile,
Invite them to repose.
O! never more on me,
Such dear illusions e'en in sleep can fall;
Scared by the frown of stern reality
The forms my yearning spirit would recall.
The dead! the dead! The ne'er forgotten dead,
In slumber's shadowy realm so vainly sought,
Yet haunt my path, and hover round my bed,
Unseen, unheard, but present still to thought.
Breathe not their voices in the linnet's strain?
Glow not their beauties in the opening flower?
Fond fantasies of grief! alas! how vain,
While cruel memory tells "they are no more."
But this spangled roof is their mansion bright,
Though the icy earth is their lowly tomb;
And this mounting flame is their spirit's light,
That seeks its native home.
And that oak that frowns o'er the desolate waste,
While its withered arms are tossing wide,
As if to screen from the whirling blast
The scattered wreck of its summer pride—
'Tis I: thus left alone on earth,
Thus fixed in my spirit's lonely mood,
Mid the strifes of men, in the halls of mirth,
Or the desart's solitude.
For never can I stoop
To bandy malice with the base and vile;
And in the grave is quenched the cherished hope,
Kindled and fed by Beauty's favoring smile.
The grave! the grave! It will not restore
The victims to its hunger given;
And this weary spirit can rest no more,
Till it sleep with them to wake in heaven.

ALLITERATION.

"Pierce Plowman's Vision," by William Langlande, in the reign of Edward III, is the longest specimen extant of alliterative poetry. It proceeds in this manner without rhyme, and with few pretensions to metre—

It befell on a Friday two friars I mette
Maisters of the minours, men of great wytte.