The cold wind of the stranger blew Chill on my withered heart; the grave Dark and untimely met my view— And all for thee, vile yellow slave!

Ha! com'st thou now so late to mock
A wanderer's banished heart forlorn,
Now that his frame, the lightning shock
Of sun-rays tipt with death has borne?
From love, from friendship, country, torn,

To memory's fond regrets the prey:
Vile slave, thy yellow dross I scorn!
Go mix thee with thy kindred clay!

WILLIAM KNOX.

1789-1825.

WILLIAM KNOX, a young poet of considerable talent, who died in Edinburgh in 1825, at the age of thirty-six, was author of "The Lonely Hearth," "Songs of Israel," "The Harp of Zion," &c. Extravagance and dissipation marked his earlier years, and for a time clouded his genius, but he could never fully overcome the force of early religious impressions; and it is said, that even in the midst of the most deplorable dissipation, he was able to command his mind, at intervals, to the composition of verses alive with sacred fire, and breathing of Scriptural simplicity and tenderness. The feelings of the poet's heart at a particular crisis of his family history, are truly expressed in the first of the following pieces:

OPENING OF THE SONGS OF ISRAEL.

HARP of Zion, pure and holy,

Pride of Judah's eastern land,

May a child of guilt and folly,

Strike thee with a feeble hand?
May I to my bosom take thee,

Trembling from the prophet's touch,
And with throbbing heart awake thee
To the strains I love so much?

I have loved thy thrilling numbers,
Since the dawn of childhood's day;
Since a mother soothed my slumbers
With the cadence of thy lay;
Since a little blooming sister

Clung with transport round my knee,

And my glowing spirit blessed her

With a blessing caught from thee!

Mother-sister-both are sleeping

Where no heaving hearts respire,
Whilst the eve of age is creeping
Round the widowed spouse and sire.

He and his, amid their sorrow,
Find enjoyment in thy strain:
Harp of Zion, let me borrow,
Comfort from thy chords again!

DIRGE OF RACHEL.

(GENESIS XXXV. 19.)

AND Rachel lies in Ephrath's land,
Beneath her lonely oak of weeping;
With mouldering heart and withering hand,
The sleep of death forever sleeping.

The spring comes smiling down the vale,
The lilies and the roses bringing;

But Rachel never more shall hail

The flowers that in the world are springing.

The summer gives his radiant day,

And Jewish dames the dance are treading;

But Rachel on her couch of clay,

Sleeps all unheeded and unheeding.

The Autumn's ripening sunbeam shines,
And reapers to the field is calling;