The Maid of Landoga.

Return, my Llewellyn, the glory

That heroes may gain o'er the sea,

Though nations may feel

Their invincible steel,

By falsehood is tarnish'd in story;

Why tarry, Llewellyn, from me?

Thy sails, on the fathomless ocean,

Are swell'd by the boisterous gale;

How rests thy tir'd head

On the rude rocking bed?

While here not a leaf is in motion,

And melody reigns in the dale.

The mountains of Monmouth invite thee;

The WYE, O how beautiful here!

This woodbine, thine own,

Hath the cottage o'ergrown,

O what foreign shore can delight thee,

And where is the current so clear?

Can lands where false pleasure assails thee,

And beauty invites thee to roam;

Can the deep orange grove

Charm with shadows of love?

Thy love at LANDOGA bewails thee;

Remember her truth and thy home.

Adieu, LANDOGA, scene most dear,

Farewell we bade to ETHEL'S WIER;

Round many a point then bore away,

Till morn was chang'd to beauteous day:

And forward on the lowland shore,

Silent majestic ruins wore

The stamp of holiness; this strand

The steersman hail'd, and touch'd the land.

SUDDEN the change; at once to tread

The grass-grown mansions of the dead!

Awful to feeling, where, immense,

Rose ruin'd, gray magnificence;

The fair-wrought shaft all ivy-bound,

The tow'ring arch with foliage crown'd,

That trembles on its brow sublime,

Triumphant o'er the spoils of time.

Here, grasping all the eye beheld,

Thought into mingling anguish swell'd.

And check'd the wild excursive wing,

O'er dust or bones of priest or king;

Or rais'd some STRONGBOW warrior's ghost

To shout before his banner'd host.

But all was still.— The chequer'd floor

Shall echo to the step no more;

Nor airy roof the strain prolong,

Of vesper chant or choral song.

TINTERN, thy name shall hence sustain

A thousand raptures in my brain;

Joys, full of soul, all strength, all eye,

That cannot fade, that cannot die.

No loitering here, lone walks to steal,

Welcome the early hunter's meal;

For time and tide, stern couple, ran

Their endless race, and laugh'd at man;

Deaf, had we shouted, “turn about?”

Or, “wait a while, till we come out;”

To humour them we check'd our pride,

And ten cheer'd hearts stow'd side by side;

Push'd from the shore with current strong,

And, “Hey for Chepstow,” steer'd along.

Amidst the bright expanding day,

Solemnly deep, dark shadows lay,

Of that rich foliage, tow'ring o'er

Where princely abbots dwelt of yore.

The mind, with instantaneous glance,

Beholds his barge of state advance,

Borne proudly down the ebbing tide,

She turns the waving boughs aside;

She winds with flowing pendants drest,

And as the current turns south-west,

She strikes her oars, where full in view,

Stupendous WIND-CLIFF greets his crew.

But, Fancy, let thy day-dreams cease,

With fallen greatness be at peace;

Enough; for WIND-CLIFF still was found

To hail us as we doubled round.

Bold in primeval strength he stood;

His rocky brow, all shagg'd with wood,

O'er-look' d his base, where, doubling strong,

The inward torrent pours along;

Then ebbing turns, and turns again,

To meet the Severn and the Main,

Beneath the dark shade sweeping round,

Of beetling PERSFIELD'S fairy ground,

By buttresses of rock upborne,

The rude APOSTLES all unshorn.

Long be the slaught'ring axe defy'd;

Long may they bear their waving pride;

Tree over tree, bower over bower,

In uncurb'd nature's wildest power;

Till WYE forgets to wind below,

And genial spring to bid them grow.

And shall we e'er forget the day,

When our last chorus died away?

When first we hail'd, then moor'd beside

Rock-founded CHEPSTOW'S mouldering pride?

Where that strange bridge, light, trembling, high,

Strides like a spider o'er the WYE;

When, for the joys the morn had giv'n,

Our thankful hearts were rais'd to heav'n?

Never;— that moment shall be dear,

While hills can charm, or sun-beams cheer.

Pollett, farewell! Thy dashing oar

Shall lull us into peace no more;

But where Kyrl trimm'd his infant green,

Long mayst thou with thy bark be seen;

And happy be the hearts that glide

Through such a scene, with such a guide.

The verse of gravel walks that tells,

With pebble rocks and mole-hill swells,

May strain description's bursting cheeks,

And far out-run the goal it seeks.

Not so when ev'ning' s purpling hours,

Hied us away to Persfield bowers:

Here no such danger waits the lay,

Sing on, and truth shall lead the way;

Here sight may range, and hearts may glow,

Yet shrink from the abyss below;

Here echoing precipices roar,

As youthful ardour shouts before;

Here a sweet paradise shall rise

At once to greet poetic eyes.

Then why does he dispel, unkind,

The sweet illusion from the mind,

That giant, with the goggling eye,

Who strides in mock sublimity?

Giants, identified, may frown,

Nature and taste would knock them down:

Blocks that usurp some noble station,

As if to curb imagination,

That, smiling at the chissel's pow'r,

Makes better monsters erery hour.

Beneath impenetrable green,

Down‘ midst the hazel stems was seen

The turbid stream, with all that past;

The lime-white deck, the gliding mast;

Or skiff with gazers darting by,

Who rais'd their hands in extasy.

Impending cliffs hung overhead;

The rock-path sounded to the tread,

Where twisted roots, in many a fold,

Through moss, disputed room for hold.

The stranger thus who steals one hour

To trace thy walks from bower to bower,

Thy noble cliffs, thy wildwood joys,

Nature's own work that never cloys,

Who, while reflection bids him roam,

Exclaims not, “PERSFIELD is my home”

Can ne'er, with dull unconscious eye,

Leave them behind without a sigh.

Thy tale of truth then, Sorrow, tell,

Of one who bade this home farewell;

MORRIS of PERSFIELD.— Hark, the strains!

Hark!‘ tis some Monmouth bard complains!

The deeds, the worth, he knew so well,

The force of nature bids him tell.