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So, from the way in which he was train'd up,
His feet departed not; he toil'd and moil'd,"

Poor muckworm! through his three-score years and ten;
And when the earth shall now be shovell'd on him,

If that which served him for a soul were still

Within its husk, 'twould still be dirt to dirt.

FROM "MADOC" IN WALES.-BOOK V.

THE LAND AND OCEAN SCENERY OF AMERICA.

Thy summer woods

Are lovely, O my mother Isle! the birch
Light bending on thy banks, thy elmy vales,
Thy venerable oaks!

But there, what forms

Of beauty clothed the inlands and the shore!

All these in stateliest growth, and mixt with these
Dark spreading cedar, and the cypress tall,
Its pointed summit waving to the wind
Like a long beacon flame; and loveliest
Amid a thousand strange and lovely shapes,

The lofty palm, that with its nuts supplied

Beverage and food; they edg'd the shore, and crown'd

The far off highland summits, their straight stems
Bare without leaf or bough, erect and smooth,

Their tresses nodding like a crested helm,

The plumage of the grove.

Will ye believe

The wonders of the ocean? how its shoals

Sprung from the wave, like flashing light, . . took wing,

And, twinkling with a silver glitterance,

Flew through the air and sunshine? Yet were these

To sight less wond'rous than the tribe who swam,

Following, like fowlers with uplifted eye,

Their falling quarry: . . language cannot paint
Their splendid tints; though in blue ocean seen,
Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,

In all its rich variety of shades,

Suffused with glowing gold.

Its wonders:

What shall I say?

Came down :

Heaven, too, had there

from a deep black heavy cloud,

an arm,

a shoot.. a trunk
yea! like a demon's arm, it seized

The waters, Ocean smoked beneath its touch,
And rose like dust before the whirlwind's force.
But we sail'd onward over tranquil seas,

Wafted by airs so exquisitely mild,
That even to breathe became an act of will,
And sense, and pleasure. Not a cloud by day

With purple islanded the dark-blue deep;

By night the quiet billows heaved and glanced

Under the moon, . . that heavenly moon! so bright, That many a midnight have I paced the deck, Forgetful of the hours of due repose;

Yea, till the sun in his full majesty

Went forth, like God beholding his own works.

FROM "THALABA THE DESTROYER."

BOOK I. STANZA I.

NIGHT IN THE DESERT.

How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:

In full orb'd glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths:
Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,

Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!

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None hath seen its secret fountain;
But on the top of Meru mountain,
Which rises o'er the hills of earth,
In light and clouds, it hath its mortal birth.
Earth seems that pinnacle to rear
Sublime above this worldly sphere,
Its cradle, and its altar, and its throne e;
And there the new-born river lies
Outspread beneath its native skies,
As if it there would love to dwell
Alone and unapproachable.
Soon flowing forward, and resigned
To the will of the Creating Mind,
It springs at once, with sudden leap,
Down from the immeasurable steep;

From rock to rock, with shivering force rebounding,
The mighty cataract rushes: heaven around,
Like thunder, with the incessant roar resounding,
And Meru's summit shaking with the sound.

Wide spreads the snowy foam, the sparkling spray
Dances aloft; and ever there at morning
The earliest sunbeams haste to wing their way,
With rainbow wreaths the holy stream adorning :
And duly the adoring moon at night
Sheds her white glory there,

And in the watery air

Suspends her halo-crowns of silver light.

LOVE.-BOOK X.

They sin who tell us Love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.

In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;
Earthly, these passions are of earth,
They perish where they have their birth:
But Love is indestructible.

Its holy flame for ever burneth;
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,

Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.

66

FROM RODERIC, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS."

LANDING OF THE MOORISH ARMY IN SPAIN.1

A countless multitude they came;

Syrian, Moor, Saracen,2 Greek renegade,

Persian, and Copt, and Tatar, in one bond

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Of erring faith conjoined, strong in the youth
And heat of zeal, a dreadful brotherhood,

In whom all turbulent vices were let loose;
While conscience, with their impious creed accurst,
Drunk, as with wine, had sanctified to them

All bloody, all abominable things.

1 Count Julian, a Spanish noble, for an injury done him by the Gothic king Roderic, invited the Moors of the Caliphate from Africa to avenge him. The Gothic king was defeated at the fatal battle of Xeres in 713, and a great part of the country subjected for about eight centuries to the Mohammedan dominion. The last Moorish kingdom, Grenada, fell before the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. The incidents in Southey's poem turn on the tradition that the defeated Roderic survived the engagement. 2 The Arab Mohammedans; an epithet of the Arabians understood to imply plunderers. The Copts have been alleged to be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians.

Thou, Calpe, sawest their coming: ancient Rock
Renowned, no longer now shalt thou be called,
From gods and heroes of the years of yore,
Kronos, or hundred-handed Briareus,
Bacchus, or Hercules; but doomed to bear
The name of thy new Conqueror, and thenceforth
To stand his everlasting monument.

Thou sawest the dark-blue waters flash before
Their ominous way, and whiten round their keels ;
Their swarthy myriads darkening o'er thy sands.
There on the beach the misbelievers spread
Their banners, flaunting to the sun and breeze :
Fair shone the sun upon their proud array;

White turbans, glittering armour, shields engrailed
With gold, and scymitars of Syrian steel;
And gently did the breezes, as in sport,
Curl their long flags outrolling, and display
The blazoned scrolls of blasphemy.2

JOHN LEYDEN, M. D.

(1775-1811.)

LITERATURE has seldom to mourn more truly over genius early blighted by death than in the case of John Leyden. He was the son of humble parents, and born at Denholm, on the banks of the Teviot in Roxburghshire. His powerful talents, while he was yet young, amassed a singular amount of classical and oriental literature. He was destined for the church, but suddenly exchanged his profession for that of medicine, on a prospect of obtaining an appointment in the East. He proceeded to India, and acted in different capacities in various quarters of that country for several years, hiving up daily stores of oriental learning. He died of fever during the English expedition against Java in 1811.

"A distant and a deadly shore

Holds Leyden's cold remains."-Scott, "Lord of the Isles." Leyden's principal poem is "Scenes of Infancy;" he left also a number of ballads, sonnets,. & c., and translations from various European and oriental languages. He is an elegant and pleasing writer.

1 Calpe (Gibraltar Rock) is said to be the same word, with a guttural aspiration, as Abyla or Alyba (Cape Serra), the Carthaginian name of the opposite African promontory, which itself is a Punic appellative for any high mountain, and contains the root of Alp.-Anthon's Lempriere. Gibraltar, from Arab. Djibel, a hill, and Tarik, the name of the invading Moorish general, who landed there in 710.-See Gibbon, ch. li. The mythological tale of the rending of the capes by Hercules originated the name Pillars of Hercules. The classics do not seem to contain any associations of Kronos or Briareus with Calpe: Southey refers to the "Historia de Gibraltar, by Don Ignacio Lopez de Ayala." 2 Verses of the Koran were inscribed on the Mohammedan standards.

His knowledge of ancient traditions rendered him a valuable contributor to Scott's Border Minstrelsy.

SCOTTISH MUSIC, AN ODE,

TO IANTHE.1

Again, sweet siren, breathe again
That deep, pathetic, powerful strain,
Whose melting tones of tender woe
Fall soft as evening's summer dew,
That bathes the pinks and harebells blue
Which in the vales of Teviot blow.

Such was the song that soothed to rest,
Far in the Green Isle2 of the west,

The Celtic warrior's parted shade;
Such are the lonely sounds that sweep
O'er the blue bosom of the deep,

When shipwrecked mariners are laid.

Ah! sure as Hindu legends tell,3
When music's tones the bosom swell,
The scenes of former life return;
Ere, sunk beneath the morning star,
We left our parent climes afar,

Immur'd in mortal forms to mourn.

Or if, as ancient sages ween,
Departed spirits, half unseen,

Can mingle with the mortal throng,
'Tis when from heart to heart we roll
The deep-ton'd music of the soul,
That warbles in our Scottish song.

I hear, I hear, with awful dread,
The plaintive music of the dead!
They leave the amber fields of day:
Soft as the cadence of the wave,

That murmurs round the mermaid's grave,
They mingle in the magic lay.

Sweet sounds! that oft have sooth'd to rest
The sorrows of my guileless breast,

And charm'd away mine infant tears:
Fond memory shall your strains repeat,
Like distant echoes, doubly sweet,

That in the wild the traveller hears.

1 Tanthe (Gr. ion-anthos), violet flower.

2 The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise; innis (inch) is island.

3 The effect of music is explained by the Hindús as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of pre-existence." Compare Wordsworth's Ode, &c., see p. 371.

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