But bid the strain be wild and deep,

Nor let thy notes of joy be first : I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,

Or else this heavy heart will burst; For it hath been by sorrow nurst,

And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 't is doom'd to know the worst,

And break at once-or yield to song.

I SAW THEE WEEP. I saw thee weep-the big bright tear

Came o'er that eye of blue; And then methought it did appear

A violet dropping dew;
I saw thee smile-the sapphire's blaze

Beside thee ceased to shine,
It could not match the living rays

That fill'd that glance of thine.
As clouds from yonder su receive

A deep and mellow die,
Which scarce the shade of coming eve

Can banish from the sky,
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind

Their own pure joy impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind

That lightens o'er the heart.

SAUL.
Thou whose spell can raise the dead,

Bid the prophet's form appear.
“ Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer !" Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud: Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud: Death stood all glassy in his fired eye; His hand was wither'd and his veins were dry;

His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare:
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

“Why is my sleep disquieted ?
Who is be that calls the dead ?
Is it thou, oh king? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
Such are mine ; and such shall be
Thine, to-morrow, when with me :
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day;
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou, thy race, lie pule and low,
I jerced by shafts of many a bow:

THY DAYS ARE DONE. Tay days are done, thy fame begun;

Thy country's s'rains record

And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart, thy hand shall guide :
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul!"

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 Ay; A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

"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.

FISION OF BELSHAZZAR. The king was on his throne,

The satraps throng'd the hall; A thousand bright lamps shone

O'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deem'd divine Jchovah's vessels hoid

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 serpent of the field, by art

And spells, is won from harming; But that which coils around the heart,

Oh! who hatła power of charning? 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.

The monarch saw, and shook,

And bade no more rejoice ; All bloodless wax'd his look,

And 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."

FROM JOB. A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld The face of immortality unveildDeep 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 slitfen'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 !!

ODE

TO

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.

* Expende Annibalem :---quot libras in duce summo Lnvenies?"

JUVENAL, Sat. X.

"The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the provincials of Gaul; his moral virlues and military talents were loudly celebrated ; and those who derived any private benefit from his government anRounced in prophetic brains the restoration of public felicily.

a

By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous stato, between an emperor and La exile, lill

GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220.

ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. T is 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 carth with hostile bones?

And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscallid the inorning star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
Nl-minded man! why scourge thy kind,

Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyse's grown blind,

Thou taught'st the rest to see. With might unquestion’d,--power to saveThine only gift hath been the grave

To those that worshipp'd thce; 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 rise-
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 vainiy 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," 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:

Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy scepire gone,

Life will not long contine
That spirit pour'd so widely forth-
So 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 worsi,

The very fiend's arch mock ;3 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. SCRIDAX

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATEE.

Yet better had he never 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 inean;
And earth hath spilt ber 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 foes 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 worlu vain-
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 scalcs, mortality! are just

To all that pass away;
But yet, methought, the living great
Some higher sparks should animale

To dazzle and dismay;
Nor deem'd contempi 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 lou bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless homicide ?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!
Then haste thee to thy sullen isle,

And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,

It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood, upon the sand,

That earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.
Thou Timor! in his captivo's cage!

What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison'd rage ?

Bu onie--" The world was mine:"

When the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away.
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as Jew 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 or light and darkness forns an arch sublime,

Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep, The voiceless thought which would not speak bul weep A holy concord-and a bright regret,

A glorious sympathy witlı suns that set ?
'Tis 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,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shanie—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-he blaze of eloquence,

Set with their su—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-lo pierce--to please-or to appal.
From the charin'd council to the festive board,
of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices viet,
The praised, the proud, who made his praise their pride

1 Prometheus.

2 " The fend's arch mockTo lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste."

Shakspeare

( The cage of Bajuzet, by order of Tamerlane.