And such shall be thy music, when the cells, Where Guilt, the child of hopeless Misery, dwells, (And, to wild strength by desperation wrought, In silence broods o'er many a fearful thought,) Resound to pity's voice; and childhood thence, Ere the cold blight hath reach'd its innocence, Ere that soft rose-bloom of the soul be fled, Which vice but breathes on and its hues are dead, Shall at the call press forward, to be made

A glorious offering, meet for him who said,

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'Mercy, not sacrifice!" and when, of old,

Clouds of rich incense from his altars roll'd,

Dispersed the smoke of perfumes, and laid bare The heart's deep folds, to read its homage there!

When some crown'd conqueror, o'er a trampled world

His banner, shadowing nations, hath unfurl'd,
And, like those visitations which deform
Nature for centuries, hath made the storm
His pathway to dominion's lonely sphere,
Silence behind-before him, flight and fear;
When kingdoms rock beneath his rushing wheels,
Till each fair isle the mighty impulse feels,
And earth is moulded but by one proud will,
And sceptred realms wear fetters, and are still;
Shall the free soul of song bow down to pay
The earthquake homage on its baleful way
Shall the glad harp send up exulting strains,
O'er burning cities and forsaken plains?
And shall no harmony of softer close
Attend the stream of mercy as it flows,

?

And, mingling with the murmur of its wave,
Bless the green shores its gentle currents lave?

Oh! there are loftier themes, for him whose eyes Have search'd the depths of life's realities,

Than the red battle, or the trophied car,

Wheeling the monarch-victor fast and far;

There are more noble strains than those which swell The triumphs, ruin may suffice to tell!

Ye prophet-bards, who sat in elder days Beneath the palms of Judah! Ye whose lays With torrent rapture, from their source on high, Burst in the strength of immortality!

Oh! not alone, those haunted groves among,
Of conquering hosts, of empires crush'd, ye sung,
But of that spirit, destined to explore

With the bright day-spring every distant shore,
To dry the tear, to bind the broken reed,

To make the home of peace in hearts that bleed;
With beams of hope to pierce the dungeon's gloom,
And pour eternal star-light o'er the tomb.

And bless'd and hallow'd be its haunts! for there Hath man's high soul been rescued from despair! There hath the immortal spark for Heaven been nursed;

There from the rock the springs of life have burst,
Quenchless and pure! and holy thoughts, that rise,
Warm from the source of human sympathies-
Where'er its path of radiance may be traced,
Shall find their temple in the silent waste.

NOTES.

NOTE 1.

Still rise the cairns of yore, all rudely piled.

In some parts of Dartmoor, the surface is thickly strewed with stones, which, in many instances, appear to have been collected into piles, on the tops of prominent hillocks, as if in imitation of the natural Tors. The Stone-barrows of Dartmoor resemble the cairns of the Cheviot and Grampian hills, and those in Cornwall. See COOKE's Topographical Survey of Devonshire,

NOTE 2.

And the rude arrow's barb remains to tell.

Flint arrow-heads have occasionally been found upon Dart

moor.

NOTE 3.

The chieftain's power—they had no bard, and died.

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona

Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles

Urgentur, ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.- Horace.

"They had no Poet, and they died."-POPE's Translation.

NOTE 4.

There stands an altar of unsculptured stone.

On the east of Dartmoor are some Druidical remains, one of which is a Cromlech, whose three rough pillars of granite support a ponderous table-stone, and form a kind of large irregular tripod.

VOL. IV. 20

NOTE 5.

Bade the red cairn-fires blaze from every height.

In some of the Druid festivals, fires were lighted on all the cairns and eminences around, by priests, carrying sacred torches. All the household fires were previously extinguished, and those who were thought worthy of such a privilege, were allowed to relight them with a flaming brand, kindled at the consecrated cairn-fire.

NOTE 6.

'Twas then the captives of Britannia's war.

The French prisoners, taken in the wars with Napoleon, were confined in a depôt on Dartmoor.

NOTE 7.

It lives in those soft accents, to the sky.

In allusion to a plan for the erection of a great national schoolhouse on Dartmoor, where it was proposed to educate the children of convicts.

WELSH MELODIES.

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