I feel no shock, I hear no groan

While fate perchance o'erwhelms
Empires on this subverted stone—
A hundred ruin'd realms !
Lo! in that dot, some mite, like me,
Impell'd by woe or whim,

May crawl, some atom cliffs to see-
A tiny world to him!

Lo! while he pauses, and admires

The work of nature's might, Spurn'd by my foot, his world expires, And all to him is night!

Oh, God of terrors! what are we?—

Poor insects, spark'd with thought! Thy whisper, Lord, a word from thee, Could smite us into nought!

But shouldst thou wreck our father-land,
And mix it with the deep,

Safe in the hollow of thy hand
Thy little ones would sleep.

THE HAPPY LOT.

BLESS'D is the hearth where daughters gird the fire,

And sons that shall be happier than their sire,

Who sees them crowd around his evening chair,

While love and hope inspire his wordless

prayer.

O from their home paternal may they go, With little to unlearn, though much to know!

Them, may no poison'd tongue, no evil eye,

Curse for the virtues that refuse to die; The generous heart, the independent mind,

Till truth, like falsehood, leaves a sting behind!

May temperance crown their feast, and friendship share!

May Pity come, Love's sister-spirit, there! May they shun baseness as they shun the grave!

May they be frugal, pious, humble, brave !

Sweet peace be theirs-the moonlight of the breast

And occupation, and alternate rest;

LOVE STRONG IN DEATH.

WE watch'd him, while the moonlight,
Beneath the shadow'd hill,
Seem'd dreaming of good angels,
And all the woods were still.
The brother of two sisters

Drew painfully his breath:
A strange fear had come o'er him,
For love was strong in death.
The fire of fatal fever

Burn'd darkly on his cheek,
And often to his mother

He spoke, or tried to speak: "I felt, as if from slumber

I never could awake:
Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!
A cold, dead weight is on me—
A heavy weight, like lead:
My hands and feet seem sinking
Quite through my little bed:
I am so tired, so weary-

With weariness I ache:
Oh, Mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!
Some little token give me,

Which I may kiss in sleep-
To make me feel I'm near you,
And bless you though I weep.
My sisters say I'm better-

But, then, their heads they shake : Oh, Mother, give me something To cherish for your sake!

Why can't I see the poplar,

The moonlit stream and hill,
Where, Fanny says, good angels
Dream, when the woods are still?
Why can't I see you, Mother?
I surely am awake:

Oh, haste! and give me something
To cherish for your sake!"
His little bosom heaves not;

The fire hath left his cheek:
The fine chord-is it broken?

The strong chord-could it break? Ah, yes! the loving spirit

Hath wing'd his flight away:

A mother and two sisters
Look down on lifeless clay.

Long had I watch'd the glory moving on O'er the still radiance of the lake below. Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow!

Even in its very motion there was rest: While every breath of eve that chanced to blow

Wafted the traveller to the beauteous West.

Emblem, methought, of the departed soul !

To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given ;

And by the breath of mercy made to roll Right onwards to the golden gates of Heaven,

Where, to the eye of faith, it peaceful lies,

And tells to man his glorious destinies.

THE MIDNIGHT OCEAN. The Isle of Palm.. It is the midnight hour:-the beauteous sea,

Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses,

While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee,
Far down within the watery sky reposes.
As if the Ocean's heart were stirr'd
With inward life, a sound is heard,
Like that of dreamer murmuring in his
sleep;

'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air, That lies like a garment floating fair Above the happy deep.

The sea, I ween, cannot be fann'd
By evening freshness from the land,
For the land it is far away;

But God hath will'd that the sky-born

breeze

In the centre of the loneliest seas
Should ever sport and play.
The mighty Moon she sits above,
Encircled with a zone of love,
A zone of dim and tender light
That makes her wakeful eye more bright:
She seems to shine with a sunny ray,
And the night looks like a mellow'd day!
The gracious Mistress of the Main
Hath now an undisturbed reign,
And from her silent throne looks down,
As upon children of her own,
On the waves that lend their gentle breast
In gladness for her couch of rest!

MAGDALENE'S HYMN.
The City of the Plague.
THE air of death breathes through our
souls,

The dead all round us lie;
By day and night the death-bell tolls,
And says, "Prepare to die."

The face that in the morning sun

We thought so wond'rous fair, Hath faded, ere his course was run, Beneath its golden hair.

I see the old man in his grave,
With thin locks silvery-grey;
I see the child's bright tresses wave
In the cold breath of clay.

The loving ones we loved the best,
Like music all are gone!
And the wan moonlight bathes in rest
Their monumental stone.

By the soft hand of Piety, and hung Upon Religion's shrine, there vibrating With solemn music in the ear of God. And must the Bard from sacred themes refrain?

Sweet were the hymns in patriarchal days,

That, kneeling in the silence of his tent, Or on some moonlit hill, the shepherd pour'd

Unto his heavenly Father. Strains survive

Erst chanted to the lyre of Israel,
More touching far than ever poet breathed
Amid the Grecian isles, or later times
Have heard in Albion, land of every lay.

THE THREE SEASONS OF LOVE.
WITH laughter swimming in thine eye,
That told youth's heartfelt revelry;
And motion changeful as the wing
Of swallow waken'd by the spring;
With accents blithe as voice of May,
Chanting glad Nature's roundelay;
Circled by joy, like planet bright,
That smiles 'mid wreaths of dewy light,
Thy image such, in former time,
When thou, just entering on thy prime,
And woman's sense in thee combined
Gently with childhood's simplest mind,
First taught'st my sighing soul to move
With hope towards the heaven of love!

Now years have given my Mary's face
A thoughtful and a quiet grace ;
Though happy still, yet chance distress
Hath left a pensive loveliness;
Fancy hath tamed her fairy gleams,
And thy heart broods o'er home-born
dreams!

Thy smiles, slow-kindling now and mild,
Shower blessings on a darling child;
Thy motion slow, and soft thy tread,
As if round thy hush'd infant's bed!

And when thou speak'st, thy melting tone,
That tells thy heart is all my own,
Sounds sweeter from the lapse of years,
With the wife's love, the mother's fears!

By tay glad youth and tranquil prime
Assured, I smile at hoary time;
For thou art doom'd in age to know,
The calm that wisdom steals from woe;
The holy pride of high intent,
The glory of a life well spent.
When, earth's affections nearly o'er,
With Peace behind and Faith before,
Thou render'st up again to God,
Untarnish'd by its frail abode,

Thy lustrous soul; then harp and hymn,
From bands of sister seraphim,

Asleep will lay thee, till thine eye
Open in Immortality.

[HORACE SMITH. 1779-1849.]

Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer? Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the secrets of thy tradeThen say, what secret melody was hidden In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played?

Perhaps thou wert a Priest-if so, my struggles

Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned
flat,
[to glass;
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,
Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido
pass,

Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

BELZONI'S EXHIBITION.

AND thou hast walked about (how strange a story !)

In Thebes's street three thousand years ago, [glory, When the Memnonium was in all its And time had not begun to overthrow Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,

Of which the very ruins are tremendous!

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dumby;

Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;

Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy!

Revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.