Round the hall the accents roll'd,
Striking terror in the bold;

But within thy veins, Haman,
Icy cold the blood-drops ran.
Smote by Heaven the tyrant's pride,
All the tiger in him, died.

In his heart one agony,

On his lip one fearful cry;
Prone before her footstool flung,
Still to abject life he clung,
But he gnaws the dust in vain ;
Earth abjures the living stain.

At the monarch's fatal glance
Round him gather bow and lance;
Fearful answer to his prayer,

O'er him sweeps the scimitar.

From the monarch's presence torn,
To the giant scaffold borne:

Thousands who had kiss'd the ground
At his courser's haughty bound,
Thousands rush to see him stand
Shrinking in the headsman's hand,
Thousands heap'd on roof and wall
Shout to see the tyrant's fall.
Be the slave the raven's food-
Blood be thus avenged by blood!

But within that palace gate,

Who in Persia's royal state

Rides, with shout and trumpet tone,
Mid the guards of Persia's throne;
Hail'd by Israel's ransom'd throng
With the freeman's holiest song?
Mordecai, that triumph's thine-
On thy brow the jewels shine:
Mordecai, thine ancient hand
Bears the signet of command.
Israel shall no longer lie
Dreading or to live or die;

Free from sorrow and from stain,

Israel shall be throned again.

Εως.

TO SOLITUDE.

O SOLITUDE! in thy lone bowers

We spend some sad yet soothing hours;
For when the heart 's oppressed with grief,
'Tis in thy shades we find relief.

When joys are fled and spirits gone,
We love to feel we are alone;
And as the tears abundant flow,
We lessen, not increase, our wo.
So, like the tempest, when 't is o'er,
The clouds are brighter than before;
The rain, like our refreshing tears,
The past relieves, the future cheers;
The sun illumes the darken'd sky,
And smiles succeed the tear and sigh.

L. B. H.

A SEA STORY.

BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

So lately as forty years ago, and upward time out of mind, the woollen manufactures of Scotland were principally supplied from the cottages and from the kitchens of the farmers. Over the whole of the lowland districts the muckle wheel was plied early and late. The old women carded, and the young ones span; and a more graceful employment for a handsome young woman never existed, as she flew backward and forward over the floor. Many cottagers depended solely on the sale of this yarn for their bread. The goodman's earnings were laid out in the purchase of wool, which his wife and daughters spun into yarn; and for this commodity there was always a certain demand and ready money; for the country swarmed with yarn-merchants, and among them there was a good deal of rivalry; so that there was little danger of the holder not making the most of it.

Among other itinerants was one John Robson, a very old man, but a great favourite with the wives. He had plenty of money, plenty of long prayers and graces, and plenty of long romantic stories of battles and perils by land and water; and with those advantages, John contrived to get the best bargains all over the country, and was sure of a snug lodging when night overtook him. Among his stories there was one which I heard him tell twice or thrice over, and which I re

member very well, save that I do not recollect the place from whence the vessel sailed on her voyage homeward to the Clyde; but I think it was from some port in Spain. I shall tell it in John's own words, or, at least, in his own peculiar way.

"We were sailing and sailing as sweetly afore a gentle breeze as ever rippled the sea, when, ae morning after break o' day, we saw something floating lightly o'er and o'er the waves, like a buoy; and when it was pointed out to the captain, he had some curiosity to see what it was, and made us luff to come up with it. And what was it but a boy, sitting crying in a wicker basket! We were a' terribly astonished how the creature was preserved; for the basket was just like another basket; the water gaed through and through it as fast as it likit; but the lightness o't keepit it afloat. We hauled in the poor object without a moment's delay, or the least hesitation, and then he cried for his creel, until we were obliged to bring it on board likewise.

"As soon as we got time to look at him, we didna like him unco weel. He was a creature about four feet lang, wi' an auld withered face, like a fairy, or some o' thae half-earthly half-hellish beings. We gae him different kinds o' meat, and he eatit like mad, and seemed hardly ever to be satisfied. He spoke very readily, and very prettily too, but it was in a language that no ane o' us could understand a word of; sae we could neither learn what he was nor wha he was.

"But I think he hadna been ten minutes aboard, when

we heard a kind o' crash in the rigging o' the top-gallant, and at the same time the ship gae a rock like a cradle. What the devil's that?' cried the captain. Every man declared his ignorance of the matter, for at that time we felt no difference of the breeze on deck, and saw not the slightest symptoms of an approaching gale; and while we were all standing gazing to see if we could discern from whence the shock proceeded, we heard a kind of moaning in the shrouds, like a wind wi' a voice in it; and in a few minutes crash went the upper shrouds a second time, and reel went the ship with double violence.

"The captain was now terribly alarmed at a thing sae contrair to a' that he had ever seen before; however, he commanded us to reef with all expedition, as there seemed a kind o' whirlwind descending on us. Never will I forget that morning; for, without the least prelude or appearance of a storm, the wind came on us thud after thud, and aye the last the loudest, till we were soon in the middle of sic a turmoil as e'e o' man never saw. The wind daddit us, and cuffed us, whiles on the ae side and whiles on the other, till at one time I really believed the ship was whirled up in the air. The beam wappit about backward and forward, knocking a' down that came before it; the rigging crashed, and the jib-sail went to tatters. All was utter confusion; and we were sometimes running in one direction, and instantly again in another. The waves o' the sea werena rowing away before the gale