distant plain!
Ascend the steps! The high and fretted roof
Is woven by some elfin hand aloof;
Whilst from the painted windows' long array
A mellow light is shed as not of day.
How gorgeous all! Oh, never may the spell
Be broken, that arrayed those radiant forms so well!

* * * * *

EPITAPH ON BENJAMIN TREMLYN,

AN OLD SOLDIER, BURIED IN BREMHILL CHURCHYARD AT THE AGE OF 92.

A poor old soldier shall not lie unknown,
Without a verse, and this recording stone.
'Twas his in youth o'er distant lands to stray,
Danger and death companions of his way.
Here in his native village, drooping, age
Closed the lone evening of his pilgrimage.
Speak of the past, of names of high renown,
Or his brave comrades long to dust gone down,
His eye with instant animation glowed,
Though ninety winters on his head had snowed.
His country, whilst he lived, a boon supplied,
And faith her shield held o'er him when he died;
Hope, Christian, that his spirit lives with God,
And pluck the wild weeds from his lowly sod,
Where, dust to dust, beside the chancel's shade,
Till the last trumpet sounds, a brave man's bones are laid.

* * * * *

EPITAPH ON ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Christian! for none who scorns that holy name
Can gaze with honest eyes on Southey's fame;
Christian! bow down thy head in humble fear,
And think what God-given powers lie silenced here:
Wit, judgment, memory, patience unsubdued,
Conception vast, and pious fortitude.
Learning possessed no steeps, and truth no shore,
Beyond his step to tread, his wing to soar;
His was the historian's pen, the poet's lyre,
The churchman's ardour, and the patriot's fire;
While fireside charities, Heaven's gentlest dower,
Lent genius all their warmth and all their power.
O Church and State of England! thine was he
In living fame, thine be his memory!
Thou saw'st him live, in faith expire,
Go, bid thy sons to follow, and admire!

* * * * *

SONNET.

WRITTEN IN A COPY OF FALCONER'S "SHIPWRECK."

What pale and bleeding youth, whilst the fell blast
Howls o'er the wreck, and fainter sinks the cry
Of struggling wretches ere, o'erwhelmed, they die,
Yet floats upborne upon the driving mast!
O poor Arion! has thy sweetest strain,
That charmed old ocean's wildest solitu