20 AUGUST 1881, Page 14

POETRY.

ABBOTSFORD.

AND this is Abbotsford ? For this alone The mighty Wizard blindly tempted fate, Risking his all to reign in feudal state ?

0 vanity, that one should sweat and groan To call this pitiful domain his own, When all the world was his !—that one so great, Who at his whim could living men create, Should seek a monument in senseless stone !

Turn to the hills, turn to that silver ray Where, swift and strong as his own buoyant prose, Tweed bears his greetings down to fair Melrose ; There will you find his spirit reign supreme, There will endure, when, sapped by slow decay, You vulgar toy has vanished like a dream. A. T.