NEBUCHADNEZZAR TRANSFORMED.

So from his gorgeous throne, which awed the world,

The mighty monarch of Assyria hürl❜d,

Sojourn'd with brutes beneath the midnight storm,
Changed by avenging heaven in mind and form.
-Prone to the earth he bends his brow superb,
Crops the young floret and the bladed herb;
Lolls his red tongue, and from the reedy side
Of slow Euphrates laps the muddy tide.

Long eagle plumes his arching neck invest,

Steal round his arms, and clasp his sharpen'd breast;
Dark brinded hairs, in bristling ranks, behind,
Rise o'er his back, and rustle.in the wind;

Clothe his lank sides, his shrivell'd limbs surround,
And human hands with talons print the ground.
Silent, in shining troops, the courtier-throng
Pursue their monarch as he crawls along ;
E'en beauty pleads in vain with smiles and tears,

Nor flattery's self can pierce his pendant cars.

THE TIME PIECE.

THE gentle LAPSANA, NYMPHÆ fair,
And bright CALENDULA with golden hair,
Watch with nice eye the earth's diurnal way,
Marking her solar and sidereal day,

Her slow nutation, and her varying clime,
And trace with mimic art the march of time;
Round his light foot a magic chain they fling,
And count the quick vibrations of his wing.—
First in its brazen cell reluctant roll'd,
Bends the dark spring in many a steely fold.
On spiral brass is stretcht the wiry thong,
Tooth urges tooth, and wheel drives wheel along;
In diamond-eyes the polisht axles flow,
Smooth slides the hand, the balance pants below.
Round the white circlet, in relievo bold,

A serpent twines his scaly length in gold;
And brightly pencil'd on the enamel'd sphere,
Live the fair trophies of the passing year.

-Here TIME's huge fingers grasp his giant mace,
And dash proud superstition from her base;
Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, and shed
The crumbling fragments round her guilty head.
There the gay hours, whom wreaths of roses deck,
Lead their young trains amid the cumberous wreck,
And, slowly purpling o'er the mighty waste,
Plant the fair growths of science and of taste.
While each light moment, as it dances by,
With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,
Feeds from its baby-hand, with many a kiss,
The callow nestlings of domestic bliss.

THE SORCERESS.

SOPHA'D on silk, amid her charm-built towers, Her meads of asphodel, and amaranth bowers, Where sleep and silence guard the soft abodes, In sullen apathy PAPAVER nods.

Faint o'er her couch in scintillating streams
Pass the thin forms of fancy and of dreams;
Froze by inchantment on the velvet ground,
Fair youths and beauteous ladies glitter round;
On crystal pedestals they seem to sigh,

Bend the meek knee and lift the imploring eye.
-And now the sorceress bares her shrivell'd hand,
And circles thrice in air her ebon wand;
Flusht with new life descending statues talk,
The pliant marble softening as they walk;
With deeper sobs reviving lovers breathe,
Fair bosoms rise and soft hearts pant beneath;
With warmer lips relenting damsels speak,
And kindling blushes tinge the parian cheek;
To viewless lutes aërial voices sing,

And hovering loves are heard on rustling wing.

-She waves her wand again !-fresh horrors seize
Their stiffening limbs, their vital currents freeze;
By each cold nymph her marble lover lies,
And iron slumbers seal her glassy eyes.
So with his dread caduceus, HERMES led
From the dark regions of the imprison'd dead,
Or drove in silent shoals the lingering train
To night's dull shore, and PLUTO's dreary reign.