As the old man toiled along by "Newark's ftately towers," The Duchess mark'd his weary pace, His timid mien and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell, That they should tend the old man well. The wants of the minstrel were readily supplied, and the kind attention which he received having pleafed and gratified the poor old man, he would repay the favours which he had received by once more wakening the mufic of his harp; for Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak, He thought even yet the sooth to speak; He could make music to her ear. He tried to tune his harp in vain! The pitying Duchess praised its chime, And gave him heart, and gave him time, Till every string's according glee Was blended into harmony. And then, he said, he would full fain He could recall an ancient strain He never thought to sing again. It was not framed for village churls, He had play'd it to King Charles the good, When he kept court in Holyrood; And much he wish'd, yet fear'd, to try The long-forgotten melody. Amid the strings his fingers stray'd, And an uncertain warbling made, And oft he shook his hoary head. But when he caught the measure wild, The old man raised his face and smiled; And lighten'd up his faded eye, With all a poet's ecstasy! In varying cadence, soft or strong, He swept the sounding chords along : The present scene, the future lot, What was the burden of that "Lay of the Laft Minstrel " we need not tell; for who has not lingered over "that bright confummate flower, in which all the deareft of Scott's youthful fancies found expansion for their strength, tenderness, and beauty." 149 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. HEERFULNESS was the characteristic of our fathers, not lefs in the genial spring, the glowing fummer, and the grateful autumn, than in the bleak season, when the smiling plains and valleys Put on their snowy robe of purest white. When winter spread its latest gloom, and " reigned tremendous o'er the conquered year," its rigours were softened by the kindly feeling and generous hospitality which prevailed in the caftles, the abbeys, and the manfions of old England. The hoar defpot was defpoiled of half his terrors, though he came in form more grim and terrible than even Chatterton has painted him, Pale, rugged Winter, bending o'er his tread, His train a motley, sanguine, sable cloud, In December's frostieft days-aye, even when fo "bitter chill" that with Keats we might fay, "The owl for all his feathers was a cold"-ftill the "defolate domain" of Winter was a limited one, for there were those who would fing that famous fong of Shakespere, When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And milk comes frozen home in pail; Tu-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw; Tu-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Those were the days when the Yule-log blazed and crackled in the gaping chimney, and its flood of light banished gloom from the lofty arched halls of our fathers. Shouts of boisterous |