THE TRAVELLER AND THE YEW.

(WRITTEN IN WESTLEIGH CHURCH-YARD, NEAR BIDEFORD, DEVON.)

O! TELL me, tell me, venerable tree,

Thou with the rifted rind and gnarled trunk, How cam'st thou in that solemn place to be, Hooded and grave as a religious monk?

What were the emotions of the tender soul

Who took thee, when a sapling, from thy bed,

And made thee by that little grassy knoll
A constant resident among the dead?

Stand'st thou a monument of silent grief,
A sad memento of some mother's love,

Who mourned an "innocent," and found relief
By planting thee in this sepulchral grove?

Art thou a token of some rustic maid,

Who bade thee all th' unuttered secret tell, How that she lived to be by man betrayed,

And died, alas! because she loved too well?

I ask again, O patriarchal yew,

Why wert thou stationed in those holy ways? Was it to symbol forth affection true,

Or mourn the falsehood of departed days?

Methinks strange accents rustling from thy boughs, In hollow murmurs float upon the breeze :"I'm here to chronicle death's holiest vows,

And reign, the monarch of all graveyard trees.

"If thou art curious to unveil the past,

And scan the actors on a former stage,

To sound that deep, sublimely grand and vast,
And learn the secrets of a bygone age:

"Ask not the maid that chanteth in the choir, Ask not the lad that whistles o'er the lea:

But ask the sage and centenarian sire,

What is the history of the old yew tree.

"In ancient garb, they'll tell you, whilst they brush. My side, when passing to yon sacred fane,

From boys they've heard the linnet and the thrush

Pipe from my boughs, and wake the silent lane.

"They'll point to where whole generations lie, Who revelled once beneath my friendly shade; And tell thee when those lofty elm trees by

Were set there by the rude old sexton's spade.

"They'll tell, perhaps, when bloody fields were won,
They carved the date upon my shrivelled face;
And how, when Grenville first beheld his son,
They scooped the record in the self-same place.

"Perhaps the tale of legendary lore,

How owls and ravens shrieked upon the wing;
Stories as strange as e'er were heard of yore,
Told when the winter fires were flickering.

"Or they may whisper how, when passing-bell

Was tolled in silence, with the saddest tones, Beneath my shade the earth would heave and swell, And sounds were heard as if from hollow bones.

"But when they come to touch upon my date,

They'll shake their heads and say, 'That old yew-tree

Hath long been famous for its solemn state;

As for its age, 'tis wrapped in mystery.'

"Come, stranger, come a little nearer now,

And look intently on my twisted veins; This was the marble on a peasant's brow, That was the tissue of a noble's brains.

"Those buds of beauty breaking every spring,
Atoms sublimed are of mortal dust,

And those strange sounds you now hear echoing,
Are they not spirit-voices of the just?

"Come nearer still, and learn this lovely truth: I'm here, upon this consecrated sod,

To preach my homilies to age and youth,

And bid them bend like me before their God.

"Mine office 'tis to watch o'er those that sleep,

To mourn in truth and shame the mocking knave; To weep o'er those who have no friends to weep, And chant a requiem o'er each silent grave."

The voice now ceased, the traveller went his way,
For evening shadows deepened in the sky;
And now, when mingling with the grave and gay,

The tree and tomb are present to his eye.

ON SEEING AN INFANT SMILE.

WOULD thine eyes were ever smiling, All thy mother's cares beguiling; Then no grief her breast would know, And thy little heart no woe.

To her bosom she would press thee, And in fondness would caress thee, Blessed in seeing every pleasure Centred in her smiling treasure; Sweet would be the thought, my boy,

If thy mother drank such joy.

But, alas! the cup she's quaffing
May give sighs as well as laughing.
Trees that boast the sweetest blossom,
Bear their thorns to pierce the bosom ;
Yonder cloud, with all its lightness,
Is a weeping mass of brightness.
With each day enriched with gladness,
Comes an evening shade of sadness.
Sad, oh sad! the thought, my boy,
Such will be her cup of joy.