ADVANCE.

He bade the guiding spirits of the Stars,
With lightning speed, in silver shining cars,
Along the bright floor of his azure hall,

Advance!

Sun, Stars, and Time, obey the voice, and all
Advance !

The River at its bubbling fountain cries

Advance!

The Clouds proclaim, like heralds, through the skies,

Advance!

Throughout the world the mighty Master's laws
Allow not one brief moment's idle pause.

The Earth is full of life, the swelling seeds

Advance!

And Summer hours, like flowery-harnessed steeds,

Advance!

To Man's most wondrous hand the same voice cried

Advance!

Go clear the woods, and o'er the bounding tide

Advance!

Go draw the marble from its secret bed,

And make the cedar bend its giant head:

Let domes and columns through the wondering air

Advance!

The world, O Man! is thine. But wouldst thou share?

Advance !

Unto the soul of man the same voice spoke,

Advance!

From out the chaos, thunder-like, it broke, -
Advance !

Go track the comet in its wheeling race,
And drag the lightning from its hiding-place :
From out the night of ignorance and fears,

Advance !

For Love and Hope, borne by the coming years,
Advance !

871

Must seasons change, and countless years roll on,
And thou remain a darksome Ajalon ? *

And never see the crescent moon of Hope

Advance?

"T is time thine heart and eye had wider scope

Advance!

Dear brothers, wake! look up! be firm! be strong!
Advance !

From out the starless night of fraud and wrong,

Advance!

The chains have fallen from off thy wasted hands,
And every man a seeming freedman stands;
But, ah! 't is in the soul that freedom dwells,

Advance!

Proclaim that then thou wear'st no manacles,

Advance!

Advance! thou must advance or perish now;

Advance!

-

--

Advance! Why live with wasted heart and brow; –

Advance!

Advance! or shrink at once into the grave;

Be bravely free, or artfully a slave:

Why fret thy master, if thou must have one?

Advance !

"Advance three steps, the glorious work is done!"—
Advance!

The first is COURAGE 't is a giant stride!

Advance !

With bounding steps up Freedom's rugged side

Advance!

KNOWLEDGE Will lead you to the dazzling heights,
TOLERANCE will teach and guard your brothers' rights:
Faint not! for thee a pitying Future waits,

Advance!

Be wise, be just; with will as fixed as Fate's,

Advance!

LXVIII. - GREECE.

D. F. M'CARTHY.

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,

Ajalon derives its renown from the command of Joshua: "Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon."

GREECE.

Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,
And marked 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,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appalls the gazing mourner'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, say, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first last look by death revealed!
Such is the aspect of this shore-

"T is 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,

878

Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth.

Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave

Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven, crouching slave!
Say, is not this Thermopyla?
These waters blue that round you lave,
O servile offspring of the free-
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock, of Salamis!
These scenes, their story not unknown,

Arise, and make again your own :
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame;
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.

BYRON.

LXIX. THE BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE'.

No cymbal clashed, no clarion rung,
Still were the pipe and drum;
Save heavy tread, and armor's clang,
The sullen march was dumb.
The vaward scouts no tidings bring,
Can rouse no lurking foe,
Nor spy a trace of living thing

Save when they stirred the roe.
The host moves like a deep sea-wave
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave;
While, to explore the dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass the archer-men.

At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,
As all the fiends from heaven that fell
Had pealed the banner cry of hell!

Forth from the pass in tumult driven,
Like chaff before the wind of heaven,
The archery appear:

For life! for life! their flight they ply –
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broadswords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive in dreadful race,
Pursuers and pursued;

Before that tide of flight and chase,
How shall it keep its rooted place,

THE BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE'.

The spearmen's twilight wood?

875

"Down! down!" cried Mar, " your lances down!
Bear back both friend and foc!"
Like reeds before the tempest's frown,

That serried grove of lances brown
At once lay leveled low;

And closely shouldering side to side,
The bristling ranks the onset bide.
"We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
As their tinchel cows the game!
They come as fleet as forest deer,

We'll drive them back as tame."

Bearing before them, in their course,
The relics of the archer force,
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam,
Right onward did Clan-Alpine come.
Above the tide, each broadsword bright
Was brandishing like beam of light,
Each targe was dark below;
And, with the ocean's mighty swing,
When heaving to the tempest's wing,
They hurled them on the foe.

I heard the lance's shivering crash,
As when the whirlwind rends the ash!
I heard the broadsword's deadly clang,
As if a hundred anvils rang!
But Moray wheeled his rearward rank
Of horsemen on Clan-Alpine's flank

My banner-men, advance!

I see," he cried, "their column shake.

Now, gallants! for your ladies' sake,
Upon them with the lance!"

The horsemen dashed among the rout,
As deer break through the broom;
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out,
They soon make lightsome room.
Clan-Alpine's best are backward bōrne -

Where, where was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle-horn

Were worth a thousand men.

And refluent through the

pass of fear

* A Tinchell is a circle of sportsmen, who, by surrounding a great space,

and gradually narrowing, bring immense quantities of deer together.