VIII.

And who is he? the blue-eyed northern child
Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild;
The fair-hair'd offspring of the Hebrides,
Where roars the Pentland with its whirling seas;
Rock'd in his cradle by the roaring wind,
The tempest-born in body and in mind,
His young eyes opening on the ocean-foam,
Had from that moment deem'd the deep his home,
The giant comrade of his pensive moods,
The sharer of his craggy solitudes,
The only Mentor of his youth, where'er

His bark was borne; the sport of wave and air;
A careless thing, who placed his choice in chance,
Nurs'd by the legends of his land's romance;
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear,
Acquainted with all feelings save despair.
Plac'd in the Arab's clime, he would have been
As bold a rover as the sands have seen,
And braved their thirst with as enduring lip
As Ishmael, wafted on his desert-ship; *
Fix'd upon Chili's shore, a proud cacique;
On Hellas' mountains a rebellious Greek;
Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane;
Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign.
For the same soul that rends its path to sway,
If rear'd to such, ean find no further prey
Beyond itself, and must retrace its way, t
Plunging for pleasure into pain: the same
Spirit which made a Nero, Rome's worst shame,
A humbler state and discipline of heart
Had form'd his glorious namesake's counterpart;
But grant his vices, grant them all his own,
How small their theatre without a throne!

IX.

Thou smilest;-these comparisons seem high
To those who scan all things with dazzled eye;
Link'd with the unknown name of one whose doom
Has nought to do with glory or with Rome,
With Chili, Hellas, or with Araby ;-
Thou smilest?-Smile; 'tis better thus than sigh;
Yet such he might have been; he was a man,
A soaring spirit, ever in the van,

A patriot hero or despotic chief,

To form a nation's glory or its grief,
Born under auspices which make us more
Or less than we delight to ponder o'er.

But these are visions; say, what was he here?
A blooming boy, a truant mutineer,

The fair-hair'd Torquil, free as ocean's spray,
The husband of the bride of Toobonai.

X.

By Neuha's side he sate, and watch'd the waters,Neuha, the sunflower of the island daughters, Highborn, (a birth at which the herald smiles, Without a scutcheon for these secret isles,)..

* The "ship of the desert" Is the Oriental figure for the camel or dromedary: and they deserve the metaphor well, the former for his endurance, the latter for his swiftness.

Of a long race, the valiant and the free,
The naked knights of savage chivalry,
Whose grassy cairns ascend along the shore;
And thine-I've seen-Achilles! do no more.
She, when the thunder-bearing strangers came,
In vast canoes, begirt with bolts of flame,
Topp'd with tall trees, which, loftier than the palm
Seem'd rooted in the deep amid its calm;
But when the winds awaken'd, shot forth wings
Broad as the cloud along the horizon flings,
And sway'd the waves, like cities of the sea,
Making the very billows look less free;
She, with her paddling oar and dancing prow,
Shot through the surf, like reindeer through the snow.
Swift-gliding o'er the breaker's whitening edge,
Light as a nereid in her ocean sledge,
And gazed and wonder'd at the giant bulk,
Which heaved from wave to wave its trembling hulk;
The anchor dropp'd; it lay along the deep,
Like a huge lion in the sun asleep,

While round it swarm'd the proas' flitting chain,
Like summer bees that hum around his mane.

XI.

The white man landed!-need the rest be told?
The New World stretch'd its dusk hand to the Old;
Each was to each a marvel, and the tie
Of wonder warm'd to better sympathy.
Kind was the welcome of the sun-born sires,
And kinder still their daughters' gentler fires.
Their union grew: the children of the storm
Found beauty link'd with many a dusky form;
While these in turn admired the paler glow,
Which seem'd so white in climes that knew no snow,
The chase, the race, the liberty to roam,
The soil where every cottage show'd a home;
The sea-spread net, the lightly-launch'd canoe,
Which stemm'd the studded archipelago,
O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles;
The healthy slumber, earn'd by sportive toils;
The palm, the loftiest dryad of the woods,
Within whose bosom infant Bacchus broods,
While eagles scarce build higher than the crest
Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her breast;
The cava feast, the yam, the cocoa's root,
Which bears at once the cup, and milk, and fruit;
The bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare,

yields

The unreap'd harvest of unfurrow'd fields,
And bakes its unadulterated loaves
Without a furnace in unpurchased groves,
And flings off famine from its fertile breast,
A priceless market for the gathering guest;
These, with the luxuries of seas and woods,
The airy joys of social solitudes,
Tamed each rude wanderer to the sympathies
Of those who were more happy, if less wise,
Did more than Europe's discipline had done,
And civilized civilization's son!

XII.

Of these, and there was many a willing pair, Neuha and Torquil were not the least fair; Both children of the isles, though distant far; Born both beneath a sea-presiding star;

XIII.

The love which maketh all things fond and fair,
The youth which makes one rainbow of the air,
The dangers past, that make even man enjoy
The pause in which he ceases to destroy,
The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel
Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel,
United the half savage and the whole,
The maid and boy, in one absorbing soul.
No more the thundering memory of the fight
Wrapp'd his wean'd bosom in its dark delight;
No more the irksome restlessness of rest
Disturb'd him like the eagle in her nest,
Whose whetted beak and far-pervading eye
Darts for a victim over all the sky;

His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state,
At once Elysian and effeminate,

Which leaves no laurels o'er the hero's urn:-
These wither when for aught save blood they burn;
Yet when their ashes in their nook are laid,
Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade?
Had Cæsar known but Cleopatra's kiss,
Rome had been free, the world had not been his.
And what have Cæsar's deeds and Cæsar's fame
Done for the earth? We feel them in our shame:
The gory sanction of his glory stains

The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains.
Though Glory, Nature, Reason, Freedom, bid
Roused millions do what single Brutus did-
Sweep these mere mock-birds of the despot's song
From the tall bough where they have perch'd so
long,-

Still are we hawk'd at by such mousing owls,
And take for falcons those ignoble fowls,
When but a word of freedom would dispel
These bugbears, as their terrors show too well.

XIV.

Rapt in the fond forgetfulness of life, Neuha, the South Sea girl, was all a wife,

• When very young, about eight years of age, after an attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, I was removed by medical advice into the Highlands. Here I passed occasionally some summers, and from this period date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few

With no distracting world to call her
From love; with no society to scoff
At the new transient flame; no babbling crowd
Of coxcombry in admiration loud,
Or with adulterous whisper to alloy
Her duty, and her glory, and her joy.
With faith and feelings naked as her form,
She stood as stands a rainbow in a storm,
Changing its hues with bright variety,
But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky,
Howe'er its arch may swell, its colors move,
The cloud-compelling harbinger of love.

XV.

Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn shore,
They pass'd the tropic's red meridian o'er;
Nor long the hours- they never pass'd o'er time,
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime,
Which deals the daily pittance of our span,
And points and mocks with iron laugh at man,
What deem'd they of the future or the past?
The present, like a tyrant, held them fast:
Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide
Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide;
Their clock the sun, in his unbounded tow'r;
They reckon'd not, whose day was but an hour;
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell,
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell; •
The broad sun set, but not with lingering sweep
As in the north he mellows o'er the deep,
But fiery, and fierce, as if he left
The world for ever, earth of light bereft,
Plunged with red forehead down along the wave
As dives a hero headlong to his grave.
Then rose they, looking first along the skies,
And then for light into each other's eyes,
Wondering that summer show'd so brief a sun,
And asking if indeed the day were done.

XVI.

And let not this seem strange: the devotee
Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy;
Around him days and worlds are heedless driven,
His soul is gone before his dust to heaven.
Is love less potent? No-his path is trod,
Alike uplifted gloriously to God;

Or link'd to all we know of heaven below,
The other better self, whose joy or wo
Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame
Which, kindled by another, grows the same,
Wrapp'd in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile,
Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile.
How often we forget all time, when lone,
Admiring Nature's universal throne,
Her woods, her wilds, her waters, the intense
Reply of hers to our intelligence!

Live not the stars and mountains? Are the waves
Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves
Without a feeling in their silent tears?
No, no;-they woo and clasp us to their spheres,
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before
Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore,
Strip off this fond and false identity!-
Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky?
And who, though gazing lower, ever thought,
In the young moments ere the heart is taught

Time's lesson, of man's baseness or his own? All nature is his realm, and love his throne.

XVII.

Neuha arose, and Torquil: twilight's hour
Come sad and softly to their rocky bower,
Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars,
Echoed their dim light to the mustering stars.
Slowly the pair, partaking nature's calm,

Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm;
Now smiling and now silent, as the scene;
Lovely as Love-the spirit!-when serene.
The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his swell,
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell,*
As, far divided from his parent deep,
The sea-born infant cries, and will not sleep,
Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave
For the broad bosom of his nursing wave:
The woods droop'd darkly, as inclined to rest,
The tropic bird wheel'd rock-ward to his nest,
And the blue sky spread round them like a lake
Of peace, where Piety her thirst might slake.

XVIII.

But through the palm and plantain, hark, a voice!
Not such as would have been a lover's choice,
In such an hour, to break the air so still;
No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill,
Striking the strings of nature, rock and tree,
Those best and earliest lyres of harmony,
With Echo for their chorus; nor the alarm
Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm;
Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl,
Exhaling all his solitary soul,

The dim though large-eyed winged anchorite,
Who peals his dreary pæan o'er the night;-
But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill
As ever started through a sea-bird's bill;
And then a pause, and then a hoarse "Hillo!
Torquil! my boy! what cheer? Ho! brother, ho!"
"Who hails?" cried Torquil, following with his eye
The sound. "Here's one," was all the brief reply.

XIX.

But here the herald of the self-same mouth
Came breathing o'er the aromatic south,
Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale,
But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale,
Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown
Its gentle odors over either zone,

And puff'd where'er winds rise or waters roll,
Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
Opposed its vapor as the lightning flash'd,
And reek'd, 'mid mountain billows unabash'd,
To Eolus a constant sacrifice,

Through every change of all the varying skies.
And what was he who bore it ?—I may err,
But deem him sailor or philosopher.t

If the reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell on his chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the text should appear obscure, he will find in "Gebir," the same idea better expressed in two lines.-The poem I never read, but have heard the lines quoted by a more recondite reader who seems to be of a different opinion from the editor of the Quarterly Review, who qualified it, in his answer to the Critical Reviewer of his Juvenal, as trash of the worst and most insane description. It is to Mr. Landor, the author, of "Gebir," so qualified, and of some Latin poems, which vie with Martial or Catullus in obscenity, that the immaculate Mr. Bouthey addresses his declamation against impurity!

Hobbe, the father of Locke's and other philosophy, was an inveterate smoker, even to pipes beyond computation.

Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
Cheers the tar's labor or the Turkman's rest ;
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand;
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe,

When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe ;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties-Give me a cigar!

XX.

Through the approaching darkness of the wood
A human figure broke the solitude,
Fantastically, it may be, array'd,

A seaman in a savage masquerade;
Such as appears to rise out from the deep,
When o'er the line the merry vessels sweep,
And the rough saturnalia of the tar
Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's borrow'd car;
And pleased the god of ocean sees his name
Revive once more, though but in mimic game
Of his true sons, who riot in the breeze
Undreamt of in his native Cyclades;
Still the old god delights, from out the main,
To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign.
Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim,
His constant pipe, which never yet burn'd dim,
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait,
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state;
But then a sort of kerchief round his head,
Not over-tightly bound, nor nicely spread;
And stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn!
For even the mildest woods will have their thorn)
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat
Now served for inexpressibles and hat;
His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face,
Perchance might suit alike with either race.
His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth,
Which two worlds bless for civilizing both;
The musket swung behind his shoulders broad
And somewhat stoop'd by his marine abode,
But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath,
His cutlass droop'd, unconscious of a sheath,
Or lost or worn away; his pistols were
Link'd to his belt, a matrimonial pair-
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff,
Though one miss'd fire, the other would go off;)
These, with a bayonet, not so free from rust
As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust,
Completed his accoutrements, as Night
Survey'd him in his garb heteroclite.

XXI.

"What cheer, Ben Bunting?" cried (when in full view

Our new acquaintance) Torquil, "Aught of new?"
"Ey, ey!" quoth Ben, "not new, but news enow;
A strange sail in the offing."-"Sail! and how?
What! could you make her out? It cannot be,
I've seen no rag of canvas on the sea."

Belike," said Ben, "you might not from the bay,
But from the bluff-head, where I watch'd to-day,
I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind
Was light and baffling."

."-"When the sun declined

• This rough but jovial ceremony, nsed in crossing the line, has been se often and so well described, that it need not be more than alluded to.

Where lay she? had she anchor'd?"-"No, but still She bore down on us, till the wind grew still." "Her flag?"-"I had no glass; but fore and aft, Egad! she seemed a wicked-looking craft." "Arm'd?"—" I expect so ;-sent on the look-out: 'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about." "About?-Whate'er may have us now in chase, We'll make no running-fight, for that were base, We will die at our quarters, like true men." "Ey, ey! for that 'tis all the same to Ben." "Does Christian know this?"-"Ay; he has piped

all hands

To quarters. They are furbishing the stands
Of arms; and we have got some guns to bear,
And scaled them. You are wanted."-" That's but
fair;

And if it were not, mine is not the soul

To leave my comrades helpless on the shoal.
My Neuha! ah! and must my fate pursue
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true?
But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha! now
Unman me not; the hour will not allow
A tear; I am thine whatever intervenes!"
"Right," quoth Ben, "that will do for the marines."

CANTO III.

I.

THE fight was o'er; the flashing through the gloom,
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased; and sulphury vapors upward driven
Had left the earth, and but polluted heaven:
The rattling roar which rung in every volley
Had left the echoes to their melancholy;
No more they shriek'd their horror, boom for boom;
The strife was done, the vanquish'd had their doom;
The mutineers were crush'd, dispersed, or ta'en,
Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain.
Few, few escaped, and those were hunted o'er
The isle they loved beyond their native shore.
No further home was theirs, it seem'd, on earth,
Once renegades to that which gave them birth;
Track'd like wild beasts, like them they sought the
wild,

As to a mother's bosom flies the child;
But vainly wolves and lions seek their den,
And still more vainly men escape from men.

II.

Beneath a rock whose jutting base protrudes
Far over ocean in his fiercest moods,
When scaling his enormous crag the wave
Is hurl'd down headlong, like the foremost brave,
And falls back on the foaming crowd behind,
Which fight beneath the banners of the wind,
But now at rest, a little remnant drew
Together, bleeding, thirsty, faint, and few,
But still their weapons in their hands, and still
With something of the pride of former will,
As men not all unused to meditate,

And strive much more than wonder at their fate.

• "That will do for the marines, but the sailors won't believe it," is as old saying; and one of the few fragments of former jealousies which still survive (la Jest only) between these gallant services,

Their present lot was what they had foreseen,
And dared as what was likely to have been;
Yet still the lingering hope, which deem'd their lo
Not pardon'd, but unsought for or forgot,
Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves
Might still be miss'd amid the world of waves,
Had wean'd their thoughts in part from what they

saw

And felt, the vengeance of their country's law.
Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won paradise,
No more could shield their virtue or their vice:
Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown
Back on themselves,-their sins remain'd alone.
Proscribed even in their second country, they
Were lost; in vain the world before them lay,
All outlets seem'd secured. Their new allies
Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice:
But what avail'd the club, and spear, and arm
Of Hercules against the sulphury charm,
The magic of the thunder, which destroy'd
The warrior ere his strength could be employ'd?
Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave
No less of human bravery than the brave!*
Their own scant numbers acted all the few
Against the many oft will dare and do;
But though the choice seems native to die free,
Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylæ,
Till now, when she has forged her broken chain
Back to a sword, and dies and lives again!

III.

Beside the jutting rock the few appear'd,
Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd;
Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn,
But still the hunter's blood was on their horn,
A little stream came tumbling from the height,
And straggling into ocean as it might,
Its bounding crystal frolick'd in the ray,
And gush'd from cliff to crag with saltless spray;
Close on the wild, wide ocean, yet as pure
And fresh as innocence, and more secure,
Its silver torrent glitter'd o'er the deep,
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,
While far below the vast and sullen swell
Of ocean's alpine azure rose and fell:
To this young spring they rush'd,-all feelings first
Absorb'd in passion's and in nature's thirst,-
Drank as they do who drink their last, and threw
Their arms aside to revel in its dew;

Cool'd their scorch'd throats, and wash'd the gory

His light-brown locks, so graceful in their flow,
Now rose like startled vipers o'er his brow,
Still as a statue, with his lips comprest
To stifle even the breath within his breast,
Fast by the rock, all menacing, but mute,
He stood; and, save a slight beat of his foot,
Which deepen'd now and then the sandy dint
Beneath his heel, his form seem'd turn'd to flint.
Some paces further Torquil lean'd his head
Against a bank, and spoke not, but he bled,-
Not mortally-his worst wound was within:
His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken in,
And blood-drops, sprinkled o'er his yellow hair,
Show'd that his faintness came not from despair,
But nature's ebb. Beside him was another,
Rough as a bear, but willing as a brother,-
Ben Bunting, who essay'd to wash, and wipe,
And bind his wound-then calmly lit his pipe,
A trophy which survived a hundred fights,

A beacon which had cheer'd ten thousand nights.
The fourth and last of this deserted group

Inquired into his state; and when he heard
The wound was slighter than he deem'd or fear'd,
A moment's brightness pass'd along his brow,
As much as such a moment would allow.
"Yes," he exclaim'd, "we are taken in the toil,
But not a coward or a common spoil;
Dearly they have bought us-dearly still may buy,
And I must fall; but have you strength to fly?
'Twould be some comfort still, could you survive;
Our dwindled band is now too few to strive.
Oh! for a sole canoe! though but a shell,
To bear you hence to where a hope may dwell'
For me, my lot is what I sought; to be,

In life or death, the fearless and the free."

VII.

Even as he spoke, around the promontory,
Which nodded o'er the billows high and hoary.

A dark speck dotted ocean: on it flew
Like to the shadow of a roused sea-mew;
Onward it came-and, lo! a second follow'd-

stoop

To pick a pebble up-then let it drop

Then hurry as in haste-then quickly stop-
Then cast his eyes on his companions-then
Half whistle half a tune, and pause again-
And then his former movements would redouble,
With something between carelessness' and trouble:
This is a long description, but applies
To scarce five minutes pass'd before the eyes;
But yet what minutes! Moments like to these
Rend men's lives into immortalities.

V.

low'd;

And near, and nearer, till their dusky crew
Presented well-known aspects to the view,
Till on the surf their skimming paddles play,
Buoyant as wings, and flitting through the spray;—
Now perching on the wave's high curl, and now
Dash'd downward in the thundering foam below,
Which flings its broad and boiling sheet on sheet,
And slings its high flakes, shiver'd into sleet:
But floating still through surf and swell, drew nigh
The barks, like small birds through a lowering sky.
Their art seem'd nature-such the skill to sweep
The wave of these born playmates of the deep.

VIII.

tense,

Nucleus of England's native eloquence,

As the Turk's "Allah" or the Roman's more
Pagan "Proh Jupiter!" was wont of yore
To give their first impressions such a vent,
By way of echo to embarrassment.
Jack was embarrass'd, never hero more,
And as he knew not what to say, he swore;
Nor swore in vain; the long congenial sound
Revived Ben Bunting from his pipe profound:
He drew it from his mouth, and look'd full wise,
But merely added to the oath his eyes;
Thus rendering the imperfect phrase complete,
A peroration I need not repeat.

VI.

But Christian, of a higher order, stood
Like an extinct volcano in his mood;
Silent, and sad, and savage,-with the trace
Of passion recking from his clouded face;
Till lifting up again his sombre eye,
It glanced on Torquil, who lean'd faintly by.
66 'And is it thus," he cried, "unhappy boy!
And thee, too, thee-my madness must destroy!"
He said, and strode to where young Torquil stood,
Yet dabbled with his lately flowing blood;
Seized his hand wistfully, but did not press,
And shrunk as fearful of his own caress:

And who the first that, springing on the strand, Leap'd like a nereid from her shell to land,

Shining with love, and hope, and constancy?
Neuha-the fond, the faithful, the adored-
Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent pour'd;
And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasp'd,
As if to be assured 'twas him she grasp'd;
Shudder'd to see his yet warm wound, and then,
To find it trivial, smiled and wept again.
She was a warrior's daughter, and could bear
Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair.
Her lover lived,-nor foes nor fears could blight
That full-blown moment in its all delight:
Joy trickled in her tears, joy fill'd the sob
That rock'd her heart till almost HEARD to throb;
And paradise was breathing in the sigh
Of nature's child in nature's ecstacy.

IX.

The sterner spirits who beheld that meeting
Were not anmoved: who are, when hearts are
greeting?

Even Christian gazed upon the maid and boy
With tearless eye, but yet a gloomy joy
Mix'd with those bitter thoughts the soul arrays,
In hopeless visions of our better days,
When all's gone-to the rainbow's latest ray,
"And but for me!" he said, and turn'd away,
Then gazed upon the pair, as in his den
A lion looks upon his cubs again;