The Genius of our clime,
From his pine-embattled steep, Shall hail the great sublime;
While the Tritons of the deep
With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim.
Then let the world combine
O'er the main our naval line,
Like the milky way, shall shine
Bright in fame!
Though ages long have pass'd
Since our fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,
O'er untravell'd seas to roam,——
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins !
And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame,
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?
While the language, free and bold,
Which the bard of Avon sung,
In which our Milton told
How the vault of heaven rung, When Satan blasted fell with his host; While this, with reverence meet, Ten thousand echoes greet,
From rock to rock repeat
Round our coast;
While the manners, while the arts,
That mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts,—
Between let Ocean roll,
Our joint communion breaking with the Sun:
Yet still, from either beach,
The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,
"We are One !"
LADY HERON'S SONG.-SCOTT.
OH! young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Thro' all the wide border his steel was the best,
And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone!
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar!
He stay❜d not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;-
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate
The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of young Lochinvar !
So, boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:—
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word!)
"Oh! come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ?”
"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied:
Love swells like the Solway,-but ebbs like its tide:
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine!
There are maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far,-
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar !"
The bride kiss'd the goblet,-the knight took it up,-
He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She look'd down to blush,-and she look'd up to sigh-
With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye!
He took her soft hand; ere her mother could bar,
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lovely his face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume:
And the bride-maidens whisper'd, ""Twere better by far,
To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear
When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
"She is won! we are gone,-over bank, bush and scaur,— They'll have swift steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.
There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan,
Forsters, Fenwicks and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.—
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar!
ST. PETER'S AT ROME-THE VATICAN.-BYRON.
BUT lo! the dome-the vast and wondrous dome,
To which Diana's marvel was a cell-
Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb!
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle-
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
The hyæna and the jackal in their shade;
I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell
Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd;
But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook his former city, what could be
Of earthly structures, in his honor piled,
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.
Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? It is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find
A fit abode, wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.
Thou movest--but increasing with the advance,
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,-
Deceived by its gigantic elegance ;
Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize-
All musical in its immensities;
Rich marbles-richer paintings-shrines where flame
The lamps of Gold-and haughty dome which vies
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame
Sits on the firm-set ground—and this the clouds must claim.
Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break,
To separate contemplation, the great whole;
And as the Ocean many bays will make,
That ask the eye-so here condense thy soul
To more immediate objects, and control
Thy thoughts, until thy mind hath got by heart
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll
In mighty graduations, part by part,
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart,—
Not by its fault, but thine: Our outward sense
Is but of gradual grasp; and, as it is
That what we have of feeling most intense
Outstrips our faint expression, even so this
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great
Defies at first our nature's littleness,
Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate
Our spirits to the size of what they contemplate.
Then pause and be enlighten'd; there is more
In such a survey than the sating gaze
Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore
The worship of the place, or the mere praise
Of art and its great masters, who could raise
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan;
The fountain of sublimity displays
Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can.
Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain-
A father's love, and mortal's agony,
With an immortal's patience blending :-Vain
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
The old man's clench: the long; envènòm'd chain
Rivets the living links; the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.
Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life, and poesy, and light—
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow
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