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An age shall fleet like earthly year;

Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.

And the falchion by thy side

To thy heart thy hand shall guide: Crownless, breathless, headless fall, Son and sire, the house of Saul!»

ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER. »

FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,

And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.

There rose no day, there roll'd no hour

Of pleasure unembitter'd ;

And not a trapping deck'd my power
That gall'd not while it glitter'd.

The serpent of the field, by art

And spells, is won from harming; But that which coils around the heart, Oh! who hath power of charming?

It will not list to wisdom's lore,

Nor music's voice can lure it; But there it stings for evermore The soul that must endure it.

WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING

CLAY.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind.

Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey!

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,

Shall it survey, shall it recal:
Each fainter trace that memory holds,

So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

Before creation peopled earth,

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VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. THE king was on his throne, The satraps throng'd the hall; A thousand bright lamps shone O'er that high festival. of gold,

A thousand cups

In Judah deem'd divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless heathen's wine!
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man,

A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,
Aud tremulous his voice.

« Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear
Which mar our royal mirth.>>
Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood,
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore; But now they were not sage, They saw-but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,-

The morrow proved it true.
« Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away;
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud, his robe of state,

His canopy, the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!»

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS! SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star! Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,

That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remember'd well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;
A night-beam sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU
DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,
I need not have wander'd from far Galilee;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou sayest, is the crime of my race.

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the exile on earth is an outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow.
As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;
In his hand is my heart and my hope-aud in thine
The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.

On, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:
Ah, couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now,
Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

And is she dead?—and did they dare
Obey my frenzy's jealous raving?

My wrath but doom'd my own despair :

The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.But thou art cold, my murder'd love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone, who shared my diadem!

She sunk, with her my joys entombing:
I swept that flower from Judah's stem
Whose leaves for me alone were blooming.
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,
This bosom's desolation dooming:
And I have earn'd those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming'

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF
JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
beheld thee, oh Sion! when render'd to Rome:
'T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.

And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away:
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!
But the gods of the Pagan shall never profane
The shrine where Jehovali disdain'd not to reign;
And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be,
Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN
AND WEPT.

WE sat down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.

While sadly we gazed on the river

Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oli never

That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!
On the willow that harp is suspended,—
Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were ended,
But left me that token of thee:
Aud ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold:
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.
For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew ou his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord'

FROM JOB. A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld The face of immortality unveil'd;

Deep sleep came down on every eye save mineAnd there it stood,-all formless-but divine. Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake; And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake :

<< Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than he who deems even seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay! vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just'
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to wisdom's wasted light!»

Miscellaneous Poems.

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ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.

'Tis done-but yesterday a king!

And arm'd with kings to strive-
And now thou art a nameless thing
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones?
And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind,
Who bow'd so low the knee?

By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestion'd,-power to save-
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipp'd thee;
Nor, till thy fall, could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore
Those pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

The triumph, and the vanity,

The rapture of the strife-
The earthquake shout of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-

All quell'd!-Dark spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The desolator desolate!

The victor overthrown! The arbiter of others' fate

A suppliant for his own! Is it some yet imperial hope

That with such change can calmly cope?

Or dread of death alone?

To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke,-
Alone how look'd he round?-
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest-prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
The Roman,3 when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home.
He dared depart, in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,

An empire for a cell;

A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:

Certaminis gaudia, the expression of Attila, in his barangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus.

2 Milo.

3 Sylla.

4 Charles V.

Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung;

Too late thou leavest the high command
To which thy weakness clung:

All evil spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart,

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean;

And earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!
Fair freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foos their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,

Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain.

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,

To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, mortality! are just

To all that pass away;
But yet, methought, the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay;

Nor deem'd contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?

Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
T is worth thy vanish'd diadem!¡

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Unless, like he of Babylon,

All sense is with thy sceptre gone,

Life will not long confine That spirit pour'd so

widely forthSo long obey d-so little worth!

Or like the thief of fire from heaven,'
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock?
Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very fiend's arch mock; 2

He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

MONODY

ON THE

DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN,

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

WHEN the last sun-shine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself
away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes,
While Nature makes that melancholy pause
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,
A holy concord and a bright regret,

A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
"T is not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness, but full and clear,
A sweet dejection-a transparent tear,
famix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame, and secret without pain.
Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes
When all of genius which can perish dies.
A mighty spirit is eclipsed-a power
Hath pass'd from day to darkness-to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd--no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of fame!
The flash of wit-the bright intelligence,
The beam of song-the blaze of eloquence,
Set with their sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon,
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul.
Which all embraced-and lighten'd over all,
To cheer-to pierce-to please—or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,
The praised--the proud--who made his praise their price

Prometheus.

2. The fiend's arch mockTo lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste. SHAKSPEARE.

When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man,
His was the thunder-his the avenging rod,
The wrath-the delegated voice of God!

Which shook the nations through his lips—and blazed
Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised.
And here, oh! here, where, yet all young and warm,
The gay creations of his spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;

The glowing portraits, fresh from life that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring;
These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat;
A halo of the light of other days,

Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.
But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause-Ah! little do they know
That what to them seem'd vice might be but woe.
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name,
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy,
The foe the fool-the jealous-and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the pyramid of calumny!
These are his portion-but if join'd to these
Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease,
If the high spirit must forget to soar,
And stoop to strive with misery at the door,
To soothe indignity-and face to face
Meet sordid rage-and wrestle with disgrace,
To find in hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpent-fold of further faithlessness,--
If such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given
Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from heaven,
Black with the rude collision, inly torn,

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne,
Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst
Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder-scorch-and

burst.

But far from us and from our mimic scene
Such things should be--if such have ever been;
Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task,
To give the tribute Glory need not ask,
To mourn the vanish'd beam- and add our mite
Of praise in payment of a long delight.

See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Mr Sheridan's speech on the charges exhibited against Mr Hastings in the House of Commons. Mr Pitt entreated the House to adjourn, to give time for a calmer consideration of the question than could then occur after the immediate effect of that oration.

Ye orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran hero of your field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three!1
Whose words were sparks of immortality!
Ye bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear,
He was your master-emulate him here!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence!
He was your brother-bear his ashes hence!
While powers of mind almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind-as various in their change,
While eloquence-wit-poesy-and mirth,
That humbler barmonist of care on earth,
Survive within our souls-while lives our sense
Of pride in merit's proud pre-eminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!

THE IRISH AVATAR.

ERE the Daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! GEORGE the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherish'd Isle which he loved like his-
bride.

True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone, The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause For the few little years, out of centuries won,

Which betray d not, or crush'd not, or wept not her

cause.

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The castle still stands, and the senate's no more,
And the famine, which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.

To her desolate shore-where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.

But he comes! the Messiah of royalty comes!

Like a goodly Leviathan roll'd from the waves!
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,
With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves!
He comes in the promise and bloom of three-score,
To perform in the pageant the sovereign's part-
But long live the Shamrock which shadows him o'er!
Could the Green in his hat be transferr'd to his heart!

Could that long-wither'd spot but be verdant again,
And a new spring of noble affections arise-
Then might Freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain,
And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies.
Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now?
Were he God-as he is but the commonest clay,
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow-
Such servile devotion might shame him away.
Ay, roar in his train! let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride-
Not thus did thy GRATTAN indignantly flash
flis soul o'er the freedom implored and denied.

Fox, Pitt, Burke.

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