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Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost;
He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day;
The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands,
Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound?
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;

He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral or adorn a tale.

DR JOHNSON.

18. THE DEATH OF MARMION.

WITH fruitless labour, Clara bound,
And strove to staunch the gushing wound:
The Monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church's prayers.
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,

And that the priest he could not hear,

For that she ever sung,

"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, "Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!"

So the notes rung;— "Avoid thee, Fiend!-with cruel hand, “Shake not the dying sinner's sand!— “O look, my son, upon yon sign "Of the Redeemer's grace divine;

"O think on faith and bliss!— "By many a death-bed I have been, "And many a sinner's parting seen, "But never aught like this."

The war,

that for a space did fail,

Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,

And-STANLEY! was the cry;—
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:

With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!—

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion.

19.-HYMN OF THE HEBREW MAID.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow,
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.

Then rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answered keen; And Zion's daughters poured their lays, With priest's and warrior's voice between. No portents now our foes amaze,

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know thy ways,
And thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful

ray.

And, oh! when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps were left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn;

SCOTT.

But thou hast said the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.

SCOTT.

20.-ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN PORTUGAL

TO ASSIST THE NATIVES IN EXPELLING THE FRENCH,

1

It was a dread, yet spirit-stirring sight!
The billows foamed beneath a thousand oars,
Fast as they land the red-cross ranks unite,
Legions on legions brightening all the shores,
Then banners rise, and cannon-signal roars,
Then peals the warlike thunder of the drum,
Thrills the loud fife, the trumpet-flourish pours,
And patriot hopes awake, and doubts are dumb,
For, bold in Freedom's cause, the bands of Ocean come!
A various host they came-whose ranks display
Each mode in which the warrior meets the fight,
The deep battalion locks its firm array,
And meditates his aim the marksman light;
Far glance the lines of sabres flashing bright,
Where mounted squadrons shake the echoing mead,
Lacks not artillery breathing flame and night,
Nor the fleet ordnance whirled by rapid steed,
That rivals lightning's flash in ruin and in speed.
A various host-from kindred realms they came,
Brethren in arms, but rivals in renown-
For yon fair bands shall merry England claim,
And with their deeds of valour deck her crown.
Hers their bold port, and hers their martial frown,
And hers their scorn of death in Freedom's cause,
Their eyes of azure and their locks of brown,

And the blunt speech that bursts without a pause,

And free-born thoughts, which league the soldier with the laws.
And O! loved warriors of the Minstrel's land!
Yonder your bonnets nod, your tartans wave!
The rugged form may mark the mountain-band,
And harsher features, and a mien more grave;
But ne'er in battle-field throbbed heart more brave

M

Than that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid,
And when the pibroch bids the battle rave,

And level for the charge your arms are laid,

Where lives the desperate foe that for such onset staid!

Hark! from yon stately ranks what laughter rings,
Mingling wild mirth with war's stern minstrelsy,
His jest while each blithe comrade round him flings,
And moves to death with military glee:
Boast, Erin, boast them! tameless, frank, and free,
In kindness warm, and fierce in danger known,
Rough Nature's children, humorous as she:
And HE, yon Chieftain-strike the proudest tone
Of thy bold harp, green Isle !-the Hero is thine own.

SCOTT.

21. FROM THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.

KNOW ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul* in her bloom;
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,
In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,

And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye;

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?

'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?†

Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell

Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

BYRON.

*The Rose.

"Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, "With whom Revenge is virtue."

YOUNG's Revenge.

22.

-ON ANCIENT GREECE.

CLIME of the unforgotten brave!—
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave-
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave-
Say, is not this Thermopyla?

These waters blue that round you lave,
Oh servile offspring of the free-
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis !

These scenes their story not unknown-
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires,
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame;
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,—
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die!
'T were long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendour to disgrace;
Enough-no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yes! Self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot sway.

BYRON.

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