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النشر الإلكتروني

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 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 crâven-crouching slave
Say, is not this Thermopyla?

These waters blue that round you lave,
Oh 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.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,

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Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die!
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendour to disgrace;
Enough-no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell,
Yes! self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot-sway.

THE CORSE.

THEY gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle,
To them the very rocks appear to smile;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,

And sportive dolphins bend them through the spray,
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak!
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam ?

The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain-'tis strange-and all remark,
Amid so many, hers alone is dark.

'Tis strange-of yore its welcome never failed,
Nor now, perchance, extinguished, only veiled.
With the first boat descends he for the shore,
And looks impatient on the lingering oar,
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not looks not-leaps into the wave,

Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and high
Ascends the path familiar to his eye.

He reached his turret door-he paused-no sound
Broke from within; and all was night around.
He knocked, and loudly-footstep nor reply
Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh;
He knocked-but faintly-for his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy hearts demand.'
The portal opens-'tis a well-known face-
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent-twice his own essayed,
And failed to frame the question they delayed;
He snatched the lamp-its light will answer all-
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall.
He would not wait for that reviving ray-
As soon could be have lingered there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridor,
Another chequers o'er the shadowed floor;
His steps the chamber gain-his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not-yet foretold!

He turned not-spoke not-sunk not-fixed his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook :
He gazed-how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain!
In life itself she was so still and fair,

That death with gentler aspect withered there;
And the cold flowers her colder hand contained,
In that last grasp as tenderly were strained
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep,
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,

And veiled-thought shrinks from all that lurked below-
Oh! o'er the eye death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light!
Sinks those blue orbs in' that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips-
Yet, yet they seem as they forebore to smile,
And wished repose-but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long-fair-but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind ;
These and the pale pure cheek, became the bier-
But she is nothing-wherefore is he here?

He asked no question-all were answered now
By the first glance on that still-marble brow.
It was enough-she died-what recked it how?
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once-and he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less ;-the good explore,

For peace, those realms where guilt can never soar;
The proud-the wayward-who have fixed below
Their joy-and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all-perchance a mite-
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.

By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe,

On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lulled it into rest;

So feeble now-his mother's softness crept.
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confessed without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears-perchance, if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flowed-he dried them to depart,
In helpless-hopeless-brokenness of heart;
The sun goes forth-but Conrad's day is dim;
And the night cometh-ne'er to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye-the blindest of the blind!
Which may not-dare not see-but turns aside
To blackest shade-nor will endure a guide!

His heart was formed for softness-warped to wrong;
Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure-as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot; like that had hardened too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials passed,
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at last.
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade-it sheltered-sav'd till now.
The thunder came-that bolt hath blasted both,
The granite's firmness, and the lily's growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell,
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shivered fragments on the barren ground!

'Tis morn-to venture on his lonely hour

Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower,
He was not there-nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarmed, their isle is traversed o'er :
Another morn-another bids them seek,
And shout his name till echo waxeth weak;
Mount-grotto-cavern-valley searched in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain :
Their hopes revive-they follow o'er the main.
"Tis idle all-moons roll on moons away,

And Conrad comes not-came not since that day:

Nor trace, nor tidings of his doom declare

Where lives his grief, or perished his despair!

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Long mourn'd his band whom none could mourn beside; And fair the monument they gave his bride:

For him they raise not the recording stone-
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,

Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.

PARADISE AND THE PERI.

ONE morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood, disconsolate;
And as she listen'd to the Springs
Of life within, like music flowing,
Had caught the light upon her wings
Through the half-open portal glowing,
She wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place!

"How happy," exclaim'd this child of air, "Are the holy spirits who wander there,

"'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall "Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, "And the stars themselves have flowers for me, "One blossom of heaven out-blooms them all!

Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, "With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,

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"And sweetly the founts of that valley fall; Though bright are the waters of SING-SU-HAY, "And the golden floods, that thitherward stray, "Yet-oh 'tis only the blest can say

66 How the waters of Heaven outshine them all! "Go wing thy flight from star to star,

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From world to luminous world as far

"As the universe spreads its flaming wall; "Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, "And multiply each through endless years, "One minute of Heaven is worth them all!"

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