Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees,
To labour as to play."
While gleaming over Eden's trees
The angel passed away.
The pilgrims of the world went forth
Obedient to the word,
And found where'er they tilled the earth A garden of the Lord!
Once more, oh! white-winged angel stand,
Where man still pines and grieves,
And lead through toil to Eden land,
New Adams and new Eves!
WHEN the British warrior Queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods;
Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief ;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.
"Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
"Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.
Rome shall perish!-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.
Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!
Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.
Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they."
Such the bard's prophetic words
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending, as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rushed to battle, fought, and died:
Dying, hurled them at the foe:
"Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heaven awards the vengeance due
Empire is on us bestowed,
Shame and ruin wait for you."
ONCE in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man: and who was he?
Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.
Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown; His name hath perished from the earth, This truth survives alone.
That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear,
Alternate triumphed in his breast;
His bliss and woe-a smile, a tear!—
Oblivion hides the rest.
The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.
He suffered, but his pangs are o'er ;
Enjoyed, but his delights are fled;
Had friends, his friends are now no more;
And foes, his foes are dead.
He loved-but whom he loved the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
Oh, she was fair! but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.
The rolling seasons day and night,
Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main ; Erewhile his portion, life and light,
He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encountered all that troubles thee:
He was,-whatever thou hast been;
He is, what thou shalt be.
The clouds and sunbeams o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.
The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of HIM afford no other trace
Joy holds her court in great Belshazzar's hall,
Where his proud lords attend their monarch's call.
The rarest dainties which the teeming East
Pours from her bounteous lap, adorn the feast.
O'er silver fountains perfumed waters play,
And gems add lustre to the blaze of day :
The brightest tears of rich Assyria's vine
In the broad gold with deeper crimson shine:
Mirth dips his pinions in the rosy bowl,
And Music pours his raptures o'er the soul;
While the high domes and fretted roofs prolong
Each dying echo of the choral song.
But, lo! the Monarch rises.-"Pour," he cries,
"To the great gods, the Assyrian deities;
Pour forth libations of the rosy wine
To Nebo, Bel, and all the powers divine.
Those golden vessels crown, which erewhile stood
Fast by the oracle of Judah's God;
Till that accursed race provoked the ire
And vengeful arm of my immortal sire.
Hail to the Gods, whose omens in the night
Beamed on my soul through visions of delight."
Ah! wretched mortal, worthless worm of clay !
Thou, grovelling reptile, born but to decay!
The Almighty's wrath shall soon in tempest rise,
And scatter wide thine impious sacrifice,
Roll back the torrent of thy guilty pride,
And whelm thee, boaster, in its refluent tide.
Such is thine own impending fate, O king!
Else, why that start, that livid cheek? why fling
The untasted goblet from thy palsied hand?
Why shake thy joints, thy feet forget to stand?
Where roams thine eye? which seems in wild amaze
To shun some object, yet returns to gaze;
Then shrinks again appalled, as if the tomb
Had sent a spirit from its inmost gloom,
Dread as the phantom which in night's dark hour
Revealed the terrors of the Almighty's power;
When o'er the couch of Eliphaz it stood,
And froze the life-streams of his curdling blood.
Awful the horror, when Belshazzar raised
His arm, and pointed where the vision blazed!
For see! enrobed in flame, a mystic shade,
As of a hand, a red right-hand, displayed!
And slowly moving o'er the wall, appear
Letters of fate, and characters of fear!
'Tis that Almighty hand, that shakes the pole,
Wings the swift bolt, and bids the thunder roll.
Breathless they stand in deathlike silence; all
Fix their glazed eyeballs on the dreaded wall :
It seems as if a magic spell had bound
Each form in icy fetters; not a sound
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