CAN THIS BE THE LAND?

"How are the mighty fallen!"

Can this be the land where of old heroes flourished? Can this be the land of the sons of the blast? Gloom-wrapt as a monarch whose greatness hath perished, Its beauty of loneliness speaks of the past:— Tell me ye green valleys, dark glens, and blue mountains, Where now are the mighty that round ye did dwell? Ye wild-sweeping torrents, and woe-sounding fountains, Say, is it their spirits that wail in your swell?

Oft, oft have ye leaped when your children of battle, With war-bearing footsteps rushed down your dark crests; Oft, oft have ye thundered with far-rolling rattle, The echoes of slogans that burst from their breasts:— Wild music of cataracts peals in their gladness,— Hoarse tempests still shriek to the clouds lightning-fired,— Dark shadows of glory departed, in sadness Still linger o'er ruins where dwelt the inspired.

The voice of the silence for ever is breaking Around the lone heaths of the glory-sung braves; Dim ghosts haunt in sorrow, a land all forsaken, And pour their mist tears o'er the heather-swept graves:— Can this be the land of the thunder-toned numbers That snowy bards sung in the fire of their bloom? Deserted and blasted, in death's silent slumbers, It glooms o'er my soul like the wreck of a tomb.

WM. ALLAN.

Sunderland.