How changed the features of that virgin land,
Adorn'd by windings of innum'rous streams,
And wrought by Nature, with most lavish hand,
And warm'd by influence of her softest beams!—
Still smiles that land, and still with wealth it teems,
But where her palaces of sumptuous ease?

Where now her lofty nobles and their dreams?
Her gardens-parks-her shady walks and ways?
Where all the stately doings of her royal days?

Gone, with the foolish hopes which gave them birth;
Nipp'd in the very bud of their display ;
Crush'd by the hand of Freedom, in her mirth,
And spared the anguish of a slow decay ;-
Such Edens were not made to waste away
Beneath the griping hand of pamper'd pride;
No-they were fashioned for a gentler sway,
That there, untrammell'd man might safely bide,
And waft her golden treasures down their glassy tide.

But what of Dan ?-no misanthrope was he

He felt all kindness towards his fellow men; But yet in paths alone he loved to be,

'Mid waving woods, or on sequester'd plain, His joys and griefs all hid from mortal ken; Both wealth and friends had he, and pleasant home; Yet more he coveted the lonely glen,

Or down some winding rivulet to roam,

Where gentle cascades left white wreaths of transient foam.

There would he sit, while eagerly he scann'd
Some wild romance, with worn and dusky lid,

Of haunted priory with bloody hand,

Or old chateau, in deepest myst'ry hid,
Where glided ghosts, and secret pannels slid-
Then fell the curtain on this mortal vale;

Of earth and all its shackles he was rid;
So rapt his soul by Fancy's high wrought tale:
Compared with bliss like his, all other blisses fail.

For him, these fictions had a charm divine;
Her gallant youths were his companions dear-
He trod with them, o'er Alps and Appenines,
Where bandit lurk'd amid the forests drear,
And lights were seen to glance and disappear-
Soft maidens, too, whose superhuman charms
Won every heart, were his peculiar care,
Till nobly rescued from ten thousand harms,
He saw them safely lock'd in love's triumphant arms.

Dreams of the day! oft would ye Dan invite
On grass to lie, in summer shade, supine,
While Fancy plum'd her wing for pleasant flight,
And bore him upward to her halls divine;
No hope defeated, there could make him pine;
No cup untasted, from his lips be thrown;
No light receding ever, there could shine;
But whatsoe'er of joy to mortal 's known
Arrived at, was at once, and easy, made his own.

Who does not thus at times gay castles build,
'Yclept in air ?-a name that suits them well;
For though more splendid far than works of Eld,
More passing rare than all which ever fell,
(Balbec's-Palmyra's-none could them excel,)
Yet in a moment, they will topple down,

Nor leave one marble column, spared to tell

The tale of ruin, and in grandeur frown
Amid the crumbling relics of a past renown.

Such oft are standing seen, 'mid that decay
By Goth and Vandal, most inhuman, wrought;
And Goths and Vandals still, in modern day,
Will break irruptive on one's chosen spot,
Though all unwelcome, and invited not;
Misfortunes-Griefs-pale Care-tormenting Debt-
Then, Fancy! all thy revelry's forgot,

Reluctant, up from our sweet couch we get,

And homeward, frowning hied, to toil and writhe and fret.

But such the artist's most surprising skill,
That, like enchantment of the olden rhyme,
'Tis but to ramble forth, where all is still,

And wave a wand-when, in an instant's time,
Her shining palaces will upward climb—
Not so, those works barbarians overthrew :

None know to raise them to such heights sublime-
Lost are those arts by which they tow'ring grew,
And we but gaze to sigh—and curse the hand that slew.

Of late, by whim or fantasy impell'd,

"A change came o'er the spirit of his dream"His love of solitude seem'd now dispell'd;

Some gayer vision in his fancy teem'd;

Perchance bright eyes had through his darkness beam'd:

I know not what-but forth the loiterer went;

"Like standing pool" his sombre visage "cream'd," And I, who mark'd him, deem'd his mind intent On some fixed thought, or deed, with hope and fear, 'yblent.

To sadness prone, he, melancholy wight,

A wand'rer-where, I only cared to know,

Sat gazing out upon wide waters bright,

And from the Sidney watched their ceaseless flow; The waves were roaring round her buried prow; Unnumbered vessels skimmed Potomac blue;

Swift hurrying by the white beach seem'd to go;
Fast, fast behind, the trees and green hills flew,
Till Vernon's mournful walls breke on his thoughtful
view.

Loud rang the bell-on board that flying ship,
Full many a pilgrim hastened to her side;
Mount Vernon! broke from every joyous lip,
And grateful hearts were swelling there with pride:
Men from far countries with the native vied—

Oh heavens! it was a goodly sight to see;
But chiefly Dan, there silently we eyed

Our young Virginian gazing wistfully,

And with a filial love, Mount Vernon! upon thee.

Fix'd there he stood, while strong emotions rose;
That time-worn mansion fills his dreamy soul;
A holy awe around it virtue throws,

And days of by-gone years before him roll;
Trenton and Monmouth-Brandywine-the whole
Of that long war, at once was shadow'd forth,

And rose with him, who won fair Freedom's goal; With him, whose fame all other fame is worthWhose laurels drop not blood, but blessings on the earth.

With straining eye, the scene he dimly caught,
As on he sped upon that sacred wave,
Which breaks on earth's most consecrated spot,
And sighs beside a hero's hallow'd grave;
"Boast of the good, and idol of the brave!"
Cried he, "though now within the voiceless tomb,
Thy warning words have yet the power to save;
Still canst thou snatch us from impending doom-
Alive in grateful hearts, though laid in death's dark
gloom.

"Yet where thy monument? methought its shaft
Shot high, like beacon, for a guide at sea;
Methought those truths would here be telegraph'd,
The words of thine immortal legacy,

And sought, my country, by thy sons set free :-
And must ingratitude be still the bane

Of commonwealths ?-ye rulers! where are ye? Arise, and wash from us so foul a stain,

Lest light, so lovely now, should in the distance wane.

"What have ye done, that great one to exalt,

Who waked this boundless country into life?
Beyond that hill, oh shame! a petty vault
Enshrouds the dust, with spirit once so rife,
And rushing gallantly to battle strife;
A humble spot, untrophied and forlorn--
What cutteth keener than the filial knife?
What taunt so bitter as our children's scorn?

I wrong my countrymen; each heart with grief is torn.

"What matters it our warrior's breast to lade
With cumbrous pile of monumental stone,
When in his country's heart his grave is made-
There fresh'ning still, as time is rolling on?
None need the tomb to canonize them, gone,
But such as, living, were the scourge of man,
Not friend;-such as should meet the public ban,
Though laid in marble state for foolish eyes to scan.

"Or what are pillars ?-pyramids ?—this earth
Ne'er yet gave up an adamant too hard
For tooth of Time ;-it may outlive the worth
It would commemorate; yet, wise award!
It yields at last and crumbles with the sward—
Or did some pyramid still lift its head,

Baffling the conqu'ror, lo! desert-ward
An ally comes, the storm in Lybia bred,
Whelming in whirling sands this fortress of the dead.*

"Who now can tell what mighty king reposed
Midway its height stupendous ?-left aloft
Within his marble chamber deep enclosed,
As if, in death, he impotently scoff'd

Strabo, as quoted by Savary, says: "Towards the middle of the height of one of the greatest pyramids, is a stone that may be raised up. It shuts an oblique passage, which leads to a coffin placed in the centre." This passage, open in our days, and which in the time of Strabo was towards the middle of one face of the pyramid, is at present only one hundred feet from the base; so that the ruins of the covering of the pyramid, and of the stones brought from within, buried by the sand, have formed a hill in this place two hundred feet high. If even the Sphynx, though defended by the pyramids against the northerly winds, which bring torrents of sand from Lybia, be covered as high as thirtyeight feet, what an immense quantity must have been heaped up to the northward of an edifice, whose base is upwards of seven hundred feet long. Herodotus, who saw it in the age nearest to its foundation, when its true base was still uncovered, makes it eight hundred feet square. Pliny says it covered the space of eight acres. It seems an unquestionable fact that this pyramid was a mausoleum of one of the kings of Egypt.-Encyclopædia, article Pyramid.