"Green lie those thickly-timbered shores,
Fair sloping to the sea;

They're cumbered with the harvest stores,
That wave but for the free.
Our sickle is the gleaming sword,
Our garner the broad shield;
Let peasants sow, but still he's lord
Who's master of the field.
Let them come on, the bastard-born,
Each soil-stained churl!-alack,
What gain they but a splitten skull,
A sod for their base back?
They sow for us these goodly lands,
We reap them in our might,
Scorning all titles but the brands

That triumph in the fight!

It was thus the land-winners of old gained their glory,

And grey stones voiced their praise in the bays of

far isles.

X.

"The rivers of your island low

Glance redly in the sun;

But ruddier still they're doomed to glow,
And deeper shall they run:

The current of proud life shall swell
Each river to the brim;
And in that spate of blood how well
The headless corpse will swim!
The smoke of many a shepherd's cot
Curls from each peopled glen;
And hark; the song of maiden mild,
The shout of joyous men!

But one may hew the oaken tree,
The other shape the shroud,
As the LANDEYDA o'er the sea,
Sweep like a tempest cloud.'

So shouteth fierce Harold, so echo the Northmen,
As shoreward their ships like mad steeds are

careering.

"On rolled the Northmen's war, above
The Raven standard flew;

Nor tide nor tempest ever strove
With vengeance half so true.
'Tis Harold-'tis the sire-bereaved
Who goads the dread career;
And high amid the flashing storm
The flag of Doom doth rear.
'On, on,' the tall Death-seeker cries,
These earth-worms soil our heel;

Their spear points crash like creeping ice
On ribs of stubborn steel!'

Hurra, hurra! their whirlwind sweep,
And Harold's fate is sped;

Bear on the flag-he goes to sleep
With the life-scorning dead.

Thus fell the young Harold, as of old fell his sires,
And the bright hall of heroes bade hail to his
spirit."

The fire and vividness of this fine ode will not be denied. Our poet's biographer ventures timidly to prefer it to either of Gray's Scandinavian versions. He need

entertain no scruples on the subject. From our high judgment seat we hereby solemnly absolve him of all crime or misdemeanor in the criticism aforesaid; and authorize him to repeat it without let or hinderance on all suitable occasions; all literary coteries, quarterly, monthly, and weekly Reviews, blue-stocking oracles, and other standard authorities, notwithstanding.

But we must close; nor linger upon a theme which might lead us further than every reader would care to follow. We part with William Motherwell and his wild Northmen. The swift barques, hung with glittering shields, and the fierce landing, and the despairing flight, and the burning abbey, and the battle-horn of "thunder," and the magic raven ensign,† and the shout of onslaught, and the shriek of defeat,all vanish slowly into empty space, die off into their own irrecoverable Past, and leave us to soberer-though it may be safer

Tuba illi erat eburnea tonitruum nuncupata ;” 'Dudo de S. Quintin.

+ King's Sweyn's, woven with magic incantations by three of his sisters, and borne before the Danes in their terrible invasions of England at the dawn of the eleventh century. See the Heimskringla

truth. Be it so; we must be content with simple reality, the downright prose of tenements unburnt and throats safe, until the spell be cast upon us from some other region of Fancy, when in some unborn

Article lying as yet among the dim possibilities of the Future, we shall once more conduct our readers

"To fresh fields and pastures new."

From the British Quarterly Review.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

Poems and Songs by Allan Cunningham, now first collected, with an Introduction and Notes. By PETER CUNNINGHAM. London: John Murray, 1845.

THE late Allan Cunningham was one of those men of genius, whose aspirings were unquestionably derived from their intense admiration of the muse of Robert Burns.

That Cunningham lighted the torch of his poesy at that of the gifted ploughman of Ayrshire cannot be doubted; but we may add that, in our opinion, he is the brightest star of that galaxy of which Burns is the centre. Deriving much of his peculiar manner from a contemplation of the works of his great prototype, he is not an imitator in any servile sense of the word, but stands forth an original poet, upon the pedestal of his own fine and ardent intellect. Next to Cunningham, perhaps, comes the Ettrick Shepherd; but to the poetry of the former we must award the preference. There is, in almost every effort of Hogg, an inequality, and often a coarseness, from which the poems of Cunningham are free. As lyrists, both of them are far below their great leader, Burns; but such songs as Cunningham has written are better than those of Hogg. We may say the same of Cunningham's Ballads (a much inferior species of composition), most of which are exquisite, and will bear a comparison with the few ballads (proper) which Burns has written. We have already stated that with the exception of the exquisite Burns and the living Thomas Moore, neither Great Britain nor Ireland has produced a great song-writer. Before the time of Burns, the compositions that passed for songs in England, such as those of Carew, Suckling, Prior, &c., were merely elegant and witty, or prettily pointed copies of verses. The rest were mere insipidities moulded into metre, without one requisite of " song" but the name. Within the rigid line we have drawn, as to song-writers, we cannot admit Allan Cunningham. He has written a few real and beautiful lyrics; that is unques

tionable. But his lyrics in the mass must
class as ballads and not as songs, exquisite
as most of them are in poetry and in feel-
ing. Allan Cunningham has fallen short as
a lyrical writer, in the same way that other
aspirants to this difficult species of writing
have failed. He has not been sufficiently
steeped in the music to which he ought to
have written. In this lay the excellence of
Burns. The air, with him, inspired the
song. He "crooned" over it, until his in-
flammable soul caught fire; and in this
way his inimitable lyrics had birth. The
inspiration of Burns was through the ear.
That of Moore is evidently the same.
Other song-writers have written to the eye;
and a set of verses written to the eye, no
matter by whom, can only turn out to be a
song by mere accident. The ballad is less
difficult. It has less dependence upon its
air. The union between the two is less in-
timate. The ballad-tune partakes more of
the nature of a chant than of an air, and
the ancient ones are all of one single strain.
In ballad writing we are inclined to place
Allan Cunningham in the van of Scotch
poets. In this line he need not fear a com-
parison with Burns; for in this Burns has
done little, and he has done much. Let
him, however, speak for himself. The ad-
mirable strains of the "Lord's Marie," and
of "Bonnie Lady Anne," have been so often
quoted, that we pass them over, as familiar
to many of our readers. The following,
however, which purports to be a relic of the
times of " the Covenant," is less known.

Thou hast sworn by thy God, my Jeannie,
By that pretty white hand o' thine,
And by a' the lowing stars in heav'n,

That thou wad aye be mine!

And I hae sworn by my God, my Jeannie,
And by that kind heart o' thine,
By a' the stars sown thick owre heav'n,
That thou shalt ay be mine!

The book maun be ta'en when the carle comes becomes a ready victim, newly wed as he is.

"O! seek anither bridegroom, Marie,
On these bosom faulds to sleep;
My bride is the yellow water-lilie,
Its leaves my bridal sheet!'”

The poet's youngest son, to whom we owe this publication of his father's poems and songs, has, we see, divided them into three series. We have first the ballads. Next the poems and miscellaneous verses. Last,

and best, the songs. This distribution is
a judicious one; but our young friend's suc-
cess in the division has not been quite
equal to his good sense in determining so to
divide his matter. In sooth it was a diffi-
cult and delicate task; and, in our humble
notion, some one or two of the effusions,
classed as miscellaneous, might have been
better classed amongst the ballads; such,
for instance, as "Gordon of Brackley;"
whilst others, perhaps, might take rank as
songs; as why not the "Farewell to Dal-
swinton," through every stanza of which one
feeling flows? The first-mentioned strain
is, in our notion, one of the most spirited
ballads ever achieved by the genius of the
poet. It is full of fire; and we regret that
our limits do not permit us to give the
whole of it. The story is a sad one. The
false spouse of "Gordon of Brackley" is be-
loved by Inveraye, and returns his unlawful
passion. The guilty pair contrive his death.
Inveraye comes before the gate of Brackley
Castle and insults Gordon, who, having a
slender retinue, hesitates to attack the well-
attended traitor Inveraye; the ballad open-
ing thus:-

"Down Dee side came Inveraye
Whistling and playing;
And call'd loud at Brackley-gate
Ere day was dawning.

"Come, Gordon of Brackley,
Proud Gordon, come down;
A sword's at your threshold

Mair sharp than your own!"

Gordon, who is almost alone, declines the challenge, until stung to madness by his treacherous partner.

"Arise all my maidens
With roke and with fan;
How blest had I been

Had I married a man.

Arise all my maidens,
Take buckler and sword;
Go, milk the ewes, Gordon,
And I shall be lord!"

The generous chieftain, touched to the quick by this insidious appeal, rushes on his fate, having first kissed and taken leave of

the traitress, who sends him to his contrived doom. The ballad thus touchingly concludes

"O! cam ye by Brackley,
An what saw ye there?
Was his young widow weeping
And tearing her hair?'
"I came in by Brackley,
I came in, and oh!

There was mirth, there was feasting,
But nothing of woe.'

As a rose bloom'd the lady
And blythe as a bride;
Like a bridegroom bold Inveraye

Smil'd at her side.

And she feasted him there

As she ne'er feasted lord,
Though the blood of her husband
Was moist on his sword!'

"There's grief in the cottage,
And tears in the ha',
For the gay gallant Gordon
That's dead and awa'.
To the bush comes the bird;
And the flow'r to the plain;
But the good and the brave

They come never again.'

We now come to the songs, properly so called. As in a galaxy, it is by no means easy to fix upon "some bright particular star," and award it the preference; so where almost all is beautiful, selection is not easy. Of the songs which Cunningham has thrown off, perhaps the finest are those relating to the sea and maritime adventure. and its winds; its wildest frowns and most From the ocean and its changes, its waves deceitful smiles; he seemed ever to derive inspiration. Throughout the entire range. of his works, whether they be verse or prose, let him catch sight of the waste of waters, whether it be the Northmen's sea ploughed by the Danish " Vikings," or his own

"Solway, white with foam, and sunshine, and seamews,"

(a line in itself transcendently descriptive),
flight, upon stronger wing. That first-rate
his genius at once rises, and soars a higher
sea-song, a Wet Sheet and a Flowing
Sea," has been so often quoted and praised
that we shall pass it by, and turn to Song
XLIII., an effusion which ought to be fitted
to some old air,-

Wild as the waves
And winds, to which 'tis kin;

such as that known by the style and title of
"the Lowlands of Holland," or that which
goes, on the banks of Tyne, by the name
of "Captain Bover."