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SHAKSPEARE ODE.

And all his guilty glories fade.

Like a crushed reptile in the dust he lies,

And Hate's last lightning quivers from his eyes!

Behold yon crownless king

Yon white-locked, weeping sire :

Where heaven's unpillared chambers ring, And burst their streams of flood and fire! He gave them all—the daughters of his love;— That recreant pair!-they drive him forth to rove; In such a night of wo,

The cubless regent of the wood

Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood,

And caverns with her foe!

Yet one was ever kind,

Why lingers she behind?

O pity! —view him by her dead form kneeling,
Even in wild phrensy holy nature feeling.
His aching eyeballs strain

To see those curtained orbs unfold,

That beauteous bosom heave again,—

Each withered heart-string tugs and breaks!

Round her pale neck his dying arms he wreathes,

And on her marble lips his last, his death-kiss breathes.

SHAKSPEARE ODE.

Down! trembling wing—shall insect weakness keep

The sun-defying eagle's sweep?

A mortal strike celestial strings,

And feebly echo what a seraph sings?

Who now shall grace the glowing throne,
Where, all unrivalled, all alone,

Bold Shakspeare sat, and looked creation through,
The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew?

That throne is cold-that lyre in death unstrung,

On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung.

Yet Old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,

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One spot shall spare-the grave where Shakspeare sleeps. Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,

But Nature's laureate bards shall never die.

Art's chiselled boast, and Glory's trophied shore,

Must live in numbers, or can live no more.

While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim,
Still rolls the Olympic car in Pindar's fame :
Troy's doubtful walls, in ashes passed away,
Yet frown on Greece in Homer's deathless lay:
Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,
Stands all immortal in her Maro's strains :-
So, too, yon giant empress of the isles,
On whose broad sway the sun for ever smiles,
To Time's unsparing rage one day must bend,
And all her triumphs in her Shakspeare end!

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SHAKSPEARE ODE.

O thou! to whose creative power

We dedicate the festal hour,

While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand,

Learning's anointed train, and Beauty's rose-lipped

band

Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown,
Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own.
Deep in the West, as Independence roves,
His banners planting round the land he loves,
Where nature sleeps in Eden's infant grace,
In time's full hour shall spring a glorious race:-
Thy name, thy verse, thy language shall they bear,
And deck for thee the vaulted temple there.

Our Roman-hearted fathers broke

Thy parent empire's galling yoke,

But thou, harmonious monarch of the mind,
Around their sons a gentler chain shall bind ;-
Still o'er our land shall Albion's sceptre wave,

And what her mighty Lion lost her mightier Swan shall

save.

ALNWICK CASTLE.

BY F. G. HALLECK.

HOME of the Percy's highborn race,
Home of their beautiful and brave,
Alike their birth and burial place,
Their cradle, and their grave!

Still sternly o'er the castle gate
Their house's Lion stands in state,
As in his proud departed hours;
And warriors frown in stone on high,
And feudal banners "flout the sky”
Above his princely towers.

A gentle hill its side inclines,

Lovely in England's fadeless green, To meet the quiet stream which winds

Through this romantic scene

As silently and sweetly still,

As when, at evening, on that hill,

While summer's wind blew soft and low,

Seated by gallant Hotspur's side,

His Katherine was a happy bride,

A thousand years ago.

Gaze on the Abbey's ruined pile :

Does not the succouring Ivy, keeping

Her watch around it seem to smile,

As o'er a loved one sleeping?