LAY FROM HOME
Its music beareth o'er my widow'd heart
A tale of vanish'd innocence and love,
And bliss that screw'd around the ark of life
Sweet flow'rs of summer hue. It hath the tone,
The very tone which wrapt my spirit up,
In silent dreams mid visions. Oft, at eve,
I heard it wandering thro' the silver air,
As if some sylph had witch'd the stringed shell
Of woods and lonely fountains:—and the birds
That sang in the blue glow of heaven, the trees
That whisper'd like a timid maiden's lips,
The bees that kiss'd their bride-flow'rs into sleep,
All breath'd the spell of that enchanting lay!
Whence came it now? perchance from yonder dell,
O'er which the skies, in sunny beauty fix'd,
Their sapphire mantle hang. Its Eden home
Is in some beauteous place where faces beam
In loveliness and joy! To hail the morn,
The infant pours it from his rosy mouth,
Ere, o'er the fields, with blissful heart he roams,
To watch the syren lark, or mark the sun
Surround with golden light the rainbow clouds.
That music-lay awak'd within my heart
Thoughts, that had wept themselves to death, like clouds
In summer hours.—It brought before mine eyes
The haunts so often worshipped, the forms
Revealing heav'n and holiness in vain.
Alas, sweet lay, the freshness of the heart
Is wasted, like an unfed stream, away;
And dreams of Home, by Fancy treasurd up,
Remain as wrecks around the tomb of Being!
REGINALD AUGUSTINE.
Deal.
TYRE
"And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard"—Ezekiel, chap. xxvi. verse 13.
"It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Ezekiel, chap xxvi. verse 5.
Thy harps are silent, mighty one!
Thy melody no more:
For ocean's mourning dirge alone
Breaks on thy rocky shore.
The fisher there his net has spread,
Thy prophecy to show;
Nor dreams he that thy doom was read,
Two thousand years ago.
On Chebar's banks the captive seer,
Thy future ruin told:
Visions of woe, how true and clear,
With power divine unroll'd!
The tall ship there no more is riding,
Of Lebanon's proud cedars made;
But the wild waves ne'er cease their chiding,
Where Tyre's past pomp and splendour fade.
The traveller to thy desert shore
No cherish'd record found of thee;
But fragments rude are scatter'd o'er
Thy dreary land's blank misery.
The sounds of busy life were hush'd,
But still the moaning blast,
That o'er the rocky barrier rush'd,
Sang wildly as it pass'd:—
Spirit of Time, thine echoes woke,
And thus the mighty Genius spoke:—
"Seek no more, seek no more,
Splendour past and glories o'er,
Here bleak ruin ever reigns;
See him scatter o'er the plains,
Arches broken, temples strew'd,
O'er the dreary solitude!
Long ago the words were spoken,
Words which never can be broken.
Where are now thy riches spread?
Where wilt thou thy commerce spread?
Thou shalt be sought but found no more!
Wanderers to thy desert shore
Former splendours bring thee never,
Tyre is fallen, fallen forever!"
Kirton Lindsey.
ANNIE R.
LINES ON THE DEATH OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, BART. 2
Let science weep and droop her head,
Her favourite champion, Davy's dead!
The brightest star among the bright,
Alas! has ceased to shed its light.
Yet say not darkness reigns alone,
While "Safety Lamps" are burning on,
And shedding life that never dies.
Around the tomb where Davy lies
J.F.C.
HAMPTON COURT: BIRTH OF EDWARD THE SIXTH, AND DEATH OF QUEEN JANE SEYMOUR
Every hint, every ray of light, which tends, in the most distant manner, to illustrate an obscure passage in the history of our country, cannot we presume, while it affords great pleasure and satisfaction to the student attentively employed in such researches, be deemed either insignificant or uninteresting by the general reader.
The birth of Edward the Sixth must always be regarded as a bright star in the horizon of the Reformation, and one, which tended greatly to blast the prospects of those who were inimical to that glorious change in our religious constitution.
The marriage of Henry the Eighth, with the Lady Jane Seymour, 3 immediately after the death of his former Queen, Anne Boleyn, is so well known as to render it superfluous, if not presuming in us to enlarge upon it in this place: suffice it to say, that the nuptials were celebrated on the day following the execution of Anne, the twentieth of May, 1536, the King "not thinking it fit to mourn long, or much, for one the law had declared criminall." 4 Old Fuller says, "it is currantly traditioned, that at her [Jane's] first coming to court, Queen Anne Bolen espying a jewell pendant about her neck, snatched thereat, (desirous to see, the other unwilling to show it,) and casually hurt her hand with her own violence; but it grieved her heart more, when she perceived it the King's picture by himself bestowed upon her, who from this day forward dated her own declining and the other's ascending in her husband's affection." 5 About seventeen months after her marriage
See vol. xiii. MIRROR.
Jane Seymour, or as is sometimes written de Sancto Mauro, eldest daughter of Sir John Seymour, Knight, and Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Wentworth, of Nettlestead, in Suffolk was born at her father's seat of Wolf Hall, in Wiltshire. From her great accomplishments, and her father's connexions at court, (he being Governor of Bristol Castle, and Groom of the Chamber to Henry VIII.) she was appointed Maid of Honour to Queen Anne Boleyn, in which situation, her beauty attracted the notice of Henry, who soon found means to gratify his desires, by making her his wife. The family of the Seymours had since the time of Henry II. been keepers of the neighbouring Forest of Savernac, "in memory whereof," says Camden, "their great hunting horn, tipped with silver, is still preserved."
Herbert, p. 386.
Fuller's "Worthies."
