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From Keissi's meads, from Chumi's hoary woods,
Bleak Tarka's dens, and Stormberg's rugged fells,
To where Gariep pours down his sounding floods
Through regions where the hunted Bushman dwells,
That bitter cry wide o'er the desert swells,

And, like a spirit's voice, demands the song
That of these savage haunts the story tells -
A tale of foul oppression, fraud, and wrong,
By Afric's sons endured from Christian Europe long.

Adieu, soft lays to love and fancy dear:
Let darker themes a sterner verse inspire,
While I attune to strains that tyrants fear
The louder murmurs of the British lyre,—
And from a loftier altar ask the fire

To point the indignant line with heavenly light,
(Though soon again in darkness to expire!)
That I may blast Oppression's cruel might,
By flashing TRUTH's full blaze on deeds deep hid
in night!

[In explanation of some expressions in the preceding poem, it may be proper, perhaps, to mention, that it was composed in the interior of South Africa, in 1824, while the author was detained at one of the Moravian Missionary settlements, by the effects of a dangerous accident; and that the portion here given is only the first part of a projected poem (not now likely to be resumed), of which the concluding scenes were intended to be laid near the frontier of Cafferland.

Six stanzas beginning ""Tis Autumn's pensive noon," and the lyrical verses near the close, have appeared in print elsewhere; but, as their exclusion would have injured the poem, they have, notwithstanding, been retained.

It is almost unnecessary to add, that the incidents introduced are entirely fictitious. T. P.]

LOVE AND SORROW.

BY THE LATE HENRY NEELE, ESQ.

MOURN not, sweet maid, nor fondly try
To rob me of my sorrow;
It is the only friend that I
Have left in my captivity,

To bid my heart good morrow.

I would not chase him from my heart,
For he is Love's own brother;
And each has learned his fellow's part
So aptly, that 'tis no mean art,

To know one from the other.

Thus, Love will fold his arms, and moan,
And sigh, and weep, like Sorrow;
And Sorrow has caught Love's soft tone,
And mixed his arrows with his own,
And learned his smile to borrow.

Only one mark of difference they
Preserve, which leaves them never;
Young Love has wings and flies away,
While Sorrow, once received, will stay

The soul's sad guest for ever!

THE BROTHERS.

66

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SUBALTERN."

Ir was on a fine morning in September, Anno 1813, that a friend and myself, after standing the customary time with the troops under arms, made ready to pay a visit to a common acquaintance, whose duties still detained him in the immediate vicinity of St. Sebastian. At the period to which I now allude, the tents of the regiment of light infantry were pitched, beneath the shelter of a grove of dwarf oaks, on the top of a gentle eminence not far from the Bidassoa, and at the base of the Quatracone mountain. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the Bidassoa is fully five leagues distant from the point which we proposed to reach; and as it would have been a hazardous measure to sleep abroad, at a moment when a general action was every day expected, we felt that the sooner we set out the better it would be, both for our horses and ourselves. The early parade, therefore, was barely dismissed when we mounted our steeds; and as we pushed on at a brisk

E

trot, we speedily cleared the encampment, and found ourselves jogging along over a path as lonely and secluded, as if two huge armies, instead of being close at hand, were not within a hundred miles of it.

The road by which we travelled was not the great causeway, which, passing through Irun, leads by a glen or deep defile towards Vittoria, but a wild mountain track, which skirting the sides of the range, at the height of perhaps five hundred feet from their base, comes down, over the amphitheatre of low hills that encircle the town of St. Sebastian on every side. We had hardly struck into it, when the sun, which had risen about an hour, but which had hitherto been obscured by thick mists, burst, as it were, the veil that shrouded him; and the clouds, rolling down in unspeakable majesty, displayed to our view the gigantic peaks of the Pyrennees, towering over-head like so many rocky islands out of the bosom of the ocean. These, bold and rocky, but not on that account the less magnificent, contrasted finely with the waters of the Bay of Biscay, which lay at this moment in all the stillness of a dead calm; and as we were enabled for awhile, as often at least as breaks in the wood occurred, to command a distinct view of both, it were difficult to conceive scenery more striking than their combination produced. Nor was it the sense of sight alone which, during this delightful excursion, received ample gratification. The region of the eastern Pyrennees, like other mountain districts, abounds in rivulets

and small streams, which, falling here and there over ledges of rock, or rushing with headlong violence over stony channels, produce a ceaseless murmur, seldom loud enough to drown the voice of an ordinary speaker, but almost always sufficiently audible to check the progress of conversation. In addition to this, the trees of the forest seemed to be each of them peopled with singing birds; the bees were abroad in thousands, making the morning air ring with their music; and the roar of the sea, as it broke upon the beach beyond Fontarabia, came up, upon a soft west-wind, with peculiar harmony. I perfectly recollect, to this hour, the effect which this accumulation of exquisite sights and sounds produced both upon my companion and myself. Though usually not deficient in colloquial powers, we this morning maintained a profound silence, as if we had been afraid to interrupt the dominion of universal solitude by obtruding upon it the sound of human voices.

A three hours' ride brought us to the domicile of our host, where a substantial breakfast for ourselves, as well as an ample supply of provender for our horses, was in readiness. It was a snug cottage, or rather a small farm house, composed, like most buildings in this part of the country, chiefly of wood, and beautifully situated in the heart of an extensive orchard, about two miles from St. Sebastian. Not more than a bow shot from it stood another mansion, of dimensions somewhat more ample, though in structure and general character in perfect keeping

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