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48.-The Lyre.

WHERE the roving rill meander'd
Down the green, retiring vale,
Poor, forlorn Alcæus wander'd,
Pale with thought, serenely pale:
Timeless sorrow o'er his face
Breath'd a melancholy grace,
And fix'd on every feature there
The mournful resignation of despair.
O'er his arm, his Lyre neglected,
Once his dear companion, hung,
And, in spirit deep dejected,

Thus the pensive poet sung;
While, at midnight's solemn noon,
Sweetly shone the cloudless moon,
And all the stars, around his head,
Benignly bright, their mildest influence shed.
"Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure,
Solace of my bleeding heart!
Lyre! O Lyre! my only pleasure,
We must ever, ever part:
For in vain thy poet sings,

Woos in vain thy heavenly strings;
The muse's wretched sons are born
To cold neglect, and penury, and scorn.
"That which ALEXANDER sigh'd for,
That which CESAR's soul possess'd,
That which heroes, kings have died for,
Glory! animates my breast.

Hark! the charging trumpet's throats
Pour their death-defying notes:

To arms!' they call: to arms I fly,
Like WOLFE to conquer, and like WOLFE to die!

"Soft! the blood of murder'd legions

Summons vengeance from the skies; Flaming towns, and ravaged regions, All in awful judgment rise!

O then, innocently brave,

I will wrestle with the wave;

Lo! Commerce spreads the daring sail,
And yokes her naval chariots to the gale.
"Blow, ye breezes !-gently blowing,
Waft me to that happy shore,
Where, from fountains ever flowing,
Indian realms their treasures pour;
Thence returning, poor in health,
Rich in honesty and wealth,
O'er thee, my dear paternal soil,
I'll strew the golden harvest of my toil.
"Then shall Misery's sons and daughters
In their lonely dwellings sing:
Bounteous as the Nile's dark waters,
Undiscover'd as their spring,

I will scatter o'er the land,
Blessings with a sacred hand:
For such angelic tasks design'd,

I give the Lyre and sorrow to the wind."
On an oak, whose branches hoary,
Sigh'd to ev'ry passing breeze,
Sigh'd and told the simple story
Of the patriarch of trees;
High in air his harp he hung,

Now no more to rapture strung;
Then warm in hope, no longer pale,
He blush'd adieu, and rambled down the dale.
Lightly touch'd by fairy fingers,

Hark! the Lyre enchants the wind; Fond Alcæus listens, lingers,

Lingering, list'ning, looks behind. Now the music mounts on high, Sweetly swelling through the sky; To every tune, with tender heat,

His heart-strings vibrate, and his pulses beat. Now the strains to silence stealing,

Soft in extacies expire;

Oh! with what romantic feeling
Poor Alcæus grasps the Lyre!
Dd

Lo! his furious hand he flings

In a tempest o'er the strings;
He strikes the chords so quick, so loud,
'Tis Jove that scatters lightning from a cloud!
"Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure,
Solace of my bleeding heart;
Lyre! O Lyre! my only pleasure,
We will never, never part!-
Glory, Commerce, now in vain
Tempt me to the field, the main;
The Muses' sons are blest, though born
To cold neglect, and penury, and scorn.
"What, though all the world neglect me,
Shall my haughty soul repine?
And shall poverty deject me,

While this hallow'd Lyre is mine?
Heaven-that o'er my helpless head
Many a wrathful vial shed,-

Heaven gave this Lyre!-and thus decreed,

Be thou a bruised, but not a broken reed !”

Montgomery.

49.-A Sketch of the Field of Battle after the Victory at Vittoria.

BUT who shall paint the various grief,
Where none was near to yield relief;
The cutting thoughts that crowd the mind,
(For wives and children left behind,)
Of those whom Hope had left a prey
To dark Suspense, and pale Dismay?
Who, fighting for their country's weal,
Had fallen beneath a Despot's steel?
Who, conscious of their fate, discern'd
Their worldly prospects all o'erturn'd-
Their children crush'd beneath the storm
That clouds their azure sky;

And, weltering in the carnage warm,
Unheard, unpitied, die!

Say, who shall paint that various scene-
The horrors of Vittoria's green?

Who tell the woes where many fought,
And glory with their life-blood bought;
The wreath, adorn'd with every charm,
That nerves the Warrior's potent arm?
Who shall describe the falling gloom,
Suspended o'er the Warrior's tomb,
When, sword to sword, the Champions met,
And sabre clash'd with bayonet?

When, round the field, the cymbal clang,
In wild and wilder echoes rang-

The moans, the cries, the fires that swept
The shatter'd forms of those who slept-
The sleep that never ends ;-
Where courage long and loudly wept,
And still her awful vigil kept,

Amidst her slaughter'd friends?

Gwilliam.

50.-The beautiful, but still and melancholy Aspect, of the once busy and glorious Shores of Greece.

He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled;
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress;
(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And mark'd the mild angelic air-
The rapture of repose that's there-
The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not-wins not-weeps not-now-
And but for that chill changeless brow,

Whose touch thrills with mortality,
And curdles to the gazer's heart,

As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon-
Yes-but for these and these alone,
Some moments-aye-one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power,

So fair-so calm-so softly seal'd
The first-last look-by death reveal'd!
Such is the aspect of this shore-
'Tis Greece-but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start-for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb-
Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling past away !

Spark of that flame-perchance of heavenly birth-
Which gleams-but warms no more its cherish'd earth!

Byron.

51.-The Turkish Lady.

'Twas the hour when rites unholy

Call'd each Paynim voice to prayer,
And the star that faded slowly

Left to dews the freshen'd air.

Day her sultry fires had wasted,
Čalm and sweet the moonlight rose;

Even a captive's spirit tasted

Half oblivion of his woes.

Then 'twas from an Emir's palace
Came an eastern lady bright:
She, in spite of tyrants jealous,
Saw and lov'd an English knight.

Tell me, captive, why in anguish

Foes have dragg'd thee here to dwell, • Where poor Christians as they languish 'Hear no sound of sabbath bell?'.

'Twas on Transylvania's Bannat "When the crescent shone afar, 'Like a pale disastrous planet

O'er the purple tide of war

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