_Alnwick Castle_ is an irregular poem of one hundred and twenty-eight lines--was written, as we are informed, in October 1822--and is descriptive of a seat of the Duke of Northumberland, in Northumberlandshire, England. The effect of the first stanza is materially impaired by a defect in its grammatical arrangement. The fine lines, Home of the Percy's high-born race, Home of their beautiful and brave, Alike their birth and burial place, Their cradle and their grave! are of the nature of an invocation, and thus require a continuation of the address to the "Home, &c." We are consequently disappointed when the stanza proceeds with-- Still sternly o'er the castle gate _Their_ house's Lion stands in state As in _his_ proud departed hours; And warriors frown in stone on high, And feudal banners "flout the sky" Above _his_ princely towers. The objects of allusion here vary, in an awkward manner, from the castle to the Lion, and from the Lion to the towers. By writing the verses thus the difficulty would be remedied. Still sternly o'er the castle gate _Thy_ house's Lion stands in state, As in his proud departed hours; And warriors frown in stone on high, And feudal banners "flout the sky" Above _thy_ princely towers. The second stanza, without evincing in any measure the loftier powers of a poet, has that quiet air of grace, both in thought and expression, which seems to be the prevailing feature of the Muse of Halleck. A gentle hill its side inclines, Lovely in England's fadeless green, To meet the quiet stream which winds Through this romantic scene As silently and sweetly still, As when, at evening, on that hill, While summer's wind blew soft and low, Seated by gallant Hotspur's side His Katherine was a happy bride A thousand years ago. There are one or two brief passages in the poem evincing a degree of rich imagination not elsewhere perceptible throughout the book. For example-- Gaze on the Abbey's ruined pile: Does not the succoring Ivy keeping, Her watch around it seem to smile As o'er a lov'd one sleeping? and, One solitary turret gray Still tells in melancholy glory The legend of the Cheviot day. The commencement of the fourth stanza is of the highest order of Poetry, and partakes, in a happy manner, of that quaintness of expression so effective an adjunct to Ideality, when employed by the Shelleys, the Coleridges and the Tennysons, but so frequently debased, and rendered ridiculous, by the herd of brainless imitators. Wild roses by the Abbey towers Are gay in their young bud and bloom: _They were born of a race of funeral flowers_, That garlanded in long-gone hours, A Templar's knightly tomb.