The following pieces may so far be considered a series,

as each is intended to be commemorative of some national recollection, popular custom, or tradition. The idea was suggested by Herder's "Stimmen der Volker in Liedern;" the execution is however different, as the poems in his collection are chiefly translations. Most of those forming the present one have appeared, as well as the miscellaneous pieces attached to them, in the New Monthly Magazine.

MOORISH BRIDAL SONG.

It is a custom among the Moors, that a female who dies unmarried is clothed for interment in wedding apparel, and the bridal song is sung over her remains before they are borne from her home. See the Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence in Tripoli, by the sister-in-law of Mr. Tully.

THE citron groves their fruit and flowers were strewing Around a Moorish palace, while the sigh Of low sweet summer mer-winds, the branches wooing, With music through their shadowy bowers went by ; Music and voices, from the marble halls, Through the leaves gleaming, and the fountain-falls.

A song of joy, a bridal song came swelling,
To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,
And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,
Bright lamps, and dancing steps, and gem-crown'd
maids;

And thus it flow'd;-yet something in the lay
Belong'd to sadness, as it died away.

"The bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling To leave the chamber of her infant years; Kind voices from a distant home are calling; She comes like day-spring-she hath done with tears; Now must her dark eye shine on other flowers, Her soft smile gladden other hearts than ours!

Pour the rich odors round! "We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing; Love still goes with her from her place of birth; Deep silent joy within her soul is springing, Though in her glance the light no more is mirth! Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years; Her sisters weep-but she hath done with tears! -Now may the timbrel sound!"' Know'st thou for whom they sang the bridal numbers? -One whose rich tresses were to wave no more! One whose pale cheek soft winds, nor gentle slumbers, Nor Love's own sigh, to rose-tints might restore! Her graceful ringlets o'er a bier were spread,-Weep for the young, the beautiful,the dead!

THE BIRD'S RELEASE.

The Indians of Bengal and of the Coast of Malabar bring cages filled with birds to the graves of their friends, over which they set the birds at liberty. This custom is alluded to in the descrip tion of Virginia's funeral. See Paul and Virginia.

Go forth, for she is gone!
With the golden light of her wavy hair,
She is gone to the fields of the viewless air;
She hath left her dwelling lone!

Her voice hath pass'd away!

It hath pass'd away like a summer breeze,
When it leaves the hills for the far blue seas,
Where we may not trace its way.

Go forth, and like her be free!

With thy radiant wing, and thy glancing eye,
Thou hast all the range of the sunny sky,
And what is our grief to thee?

Is it aught ev'n.to her we mourn?

Doth she look on the tears by her kindred shed?
Doth she rest with the flowers o'er her gentle head,
Or float on the light wind borne ?

We know not-but she is gone!

Her step from the dance, her voice from the song,
And the smile of her eye from the festal throng;-
She hath left her dwelling lone!

When the waves at sunset shine,

We may hear thy voice, amidst thousands more,
In the scented woods of our glowing shore,

But we shall not know 'tis thine!

Ev'n so with the lov'd one flown!

Her smile in the starlight may wander by,
Her breath may be near in the wind's low sigh,
Around us but all unknown.

Go forth, we have loos'd thy chain !
We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers,
Which the bright day rears in our eastern bowers,
But thou wilt not be lured again.

Ev'n thus may the summer pour

All fragrant things on the land's green breast,
And the glorious earth like a bride be dress'd,
But it wins her back no more!

THE SWORD OF THE TOMB.

A NORTHERN LEGNND.

The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in "Starkother," a tragedy by the Danish poet Ochlenschlager. The sepulchral fire here alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes is frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to the departed were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre.

See Ochlenschlager's Plays.

"VOICE of the gifted elder time!
Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme!
Speak! from the shades and the depths disclose,
How Sigurd may vanquish his mortal foes;
Voice of the buried past!

"Voice of the grave! 'tis the mighty hour,
When night with her stars and dreams hath power,
And my step hath been soundless on the snows,
And the spell I have sung hath laid repose

On the billow and the blast."

Then the torrents of the North,
And the forest pines were still,
While a hollow chant came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.

"There shines no sun 'midst the hidden dead,
But where the day looks not the brave may tread;
There is heard no song, and no mead is pour'd,
But the warrior may come to the silent board

In the shadow of the night.

"There is laid a sword in thy father's tomb,
And its edge is fraught with thy foeman's doom;
But soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!"

Then died the solemn lay,
As a trumpet's music dies,
By the night-wind borne away
Through the wild and stormy skies.

The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast,
As on through the forest the warrior pass'd,-
Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old,
The dark place of visions and legends, told
By the fires of Northern pine.

The fir-trees rock'd, and the frozen ground
Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound;
And it seem'd that the depths of those awful shades,
From the dreary gloom of their long arcades,
Gave warning, with voice and sign.

But the wind strange magic knows,
To call wild shape and tone
From the gray wood's tossing boughs,
When night is on her throne.

The pines clos'd o'er him with deeper gloom,
As he took the path to the monarch's tomb;
The pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright
With the arrowy streams of the northern light,
But his road through dimness lay!

He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood, The dark shrine stain'd with the victim's blood; Nor paused, till the rock where a vaulted bed Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead, Arose on his midnight way.

Then first a moment's chill

Went shuddering through his breast,
And the steel-clad man stood still
Before that place of rest.

But he cross'd at length, with a deep-drawn breath, The threshold floor of the hall of Death,

And look'd on the pale mysterious fire

Which gleam'd from the urn of his warrior-sire,
With a strange and solemn light.