While sheeny leaflets here and there
Flutter, with momentary glow.
"Tis wayward life revealed below,
With chequered gleams of joy and wo!
And those, pure realms above that shine,
So chaste, so vivid, so divine,

Are the sole type that heaven has shown
Of those more lovely realms, its own!'

Yamoyden's enumeration to Nora of the wrongs of Philip is forcible. p. 72.

"Fear not; his wasted power forbids

The secret hope of hostile deeds.
Yet if Revenge the spirit be

That holds the Sachem company,
How shall his foes the outlaw blame,
Or marvel whence the dæmon came?
Can he forget, while heaves his breath,
An outraged brother's captive death?
Can he forget the lurid light

Of Narraganset's bloody night?
The forests broad his fathers swayed,
O'errun beneath the oppressors' tread ;-
The bones that bleach in every fen,
The perished race of warrior men ;—
The limbs once cast in freedom's mould,
Fettered in slavery's iron hold ;-
The wanderer of the lonely place
Waylaid, and tortured to confess;-
His kindred slain, or captive led ;-
A price upon his homeless head ;-
O! his are wrongs that but with death
From burning memory can depart;

All the pure waters of thy faith

Could wash them ne'er from human heart!'

These lines may be added, from a preceding part of the same dialogue :

"And I must go," the chieftain cried,

"To join the children of despair ;

The eagle may fly to his mountain side,

And the panther from toils and death may hide,

In his wood-circled lair;

But they, the lords of earth and sea,

May to no home of refuge flee!"

The song of Nora conveys a fanciful tradition, in as vivid co

louring, and as melodious versification, as belong to the best of Moore's there is nothing in the three first stanzas, which we quote, to impede the delightful flow of sentiment or expression.

1.

"They say that afar in the land of the west,

Where the bright golden sun sinks in glory to rest,
Mid fens where the hunter ne'er ventured to tread,
A fair lake unruffled and sparkling is spread;
Where, lost in his course, the rapt Indian discovers,
In distance seen dimly, the green isle of lovers.

2.

"There verdure fades never; immortal in bloom,
Soft waves the magnolia its groves of perfume;
And low bends the branch with rich fruitage deprest,
All glowing like gems in the crowns of the east ;
There the bright eye of Nature, in mild glory hovers:
"Tis the land of the sunbeam,-the green isle of lovers!

3.

"Sweet strains wildly float on the breezes that kiss
The calm-flowing lake round that region of bliss ;
Where, wreathing their garlands of amaranth, fair choirs
Glad measures still weave to the sound that inspires
The dance and the revel, mid forests that cover

On high with their shade the green isle of the lover.'

The following spirited sketch of the motives that drove our forefathers from the comforts of civilized life, into the privations and dangers of a desert, is ingeniously wrought into the narration. pp. 99-101.

'Amid the Christian corps there stood

A gray old man;

the book of God

Was in his hand, with holy verse

That spoke the ancient heathen's curse,
He blest the murders they had done,
And called on heaven the work to crown.
As o'er the past their converse turned,
His eye with inspiration burned,
While thus his speech began to flow
O'er earlier scenes of toils and wo.
"Nor lure of conquest's meteor beam,
Nor dazzling mines of fancy's dream,
Nor wild adventure's love to roam,
Brought from their father's ancient home,
Mid labours, deaths, and dangers tost,
O'er the wide sea, the pilgrim host.
They braved the battle and the flood,
To worship here their fathers' Gon.

With shreds of papal vesture tied
To flaunting robes of princely pride,
In formal state, on sumptuous throne,
Daughter of her of Babylon,

Sat bigotry. Her chilling breath
To fires of heavenly warmth was death;
Her iron sceptre England swayed,
Religion withering in its shade.

The shepherd might not kneel to call
On Him, the common sire of all,
Unless his lips, with harsh constraint,
Were tuned to accents cold and faint:
For man's devices had o'erwrought
The volume by a Saviour bought;
And clogged devotion's soaring wing
That up to heaven should instant spring,
With phrases set, that bore no part
In the warm service of the heart.
But why recount their sorrows past,
From the first martyr to the last?
Or pope's or bishop's bigot zeal,
Alike their hate of Christian weal;
Or torture's pangs and faggot's flame,
Or fines and exile, 'twas the same,
Same Autichrist, whom prophets old
With sad announcing voice foretold!

"Such were the wrongs that cried to heaven-
What time shall see those wrongs forgiven!
O ENGLAND! from thine earliest age,

Land of the warrior and the sage!

Parent of bards whose harps rehearse
Immortal deeds in deathless verse!
O ENGLAND! can thy pride forget
Thy soil with martyr's blood is wet?
Bethink thee,-like the plagues which sleep
In earth's dark bosom buried deep,
As the poor savage deems,-that o'er
Thine head, the vials yet in store,
Vials of righteous wrath must pour!
"Strong was the love to heaven which bare
From their dear homes and altars far,
The old, the young, the wise, the brave,
The rich, the noble and the fair,
And led them, o'er the mighty wave,

Uncertain peril's front to dare.

Strong was their love; and strong the Power
Whose red right arm, in danger's hour,
Was bared on high their path to show,
Through changeful scenes of weal and wo;
By signs and wonders, as of old,

When Israel journeyed through the waste,
Was its mysterious guidance told;

Though lightnings flashed, and thunders rolled,
The sunbeam glorious smiled at last.'

The passage is too long for us to venture upon extracting the whole of it; but the succeeding part of it is scarcely inferior in force to the part selected.

The intenseness of interest, with which Ahauton watches the countenance of Nora, as she is recovering her lost senses, after her child had been torn from her by a party of Philip's, is finely illustrated. p. 82.

'He bore the waking lady up

And lingered last of all the group;
Nor e'er at superstition's shrine,
Did votary mark the fire divine,
When wavering in its golden vase,
With feeling more intense,

Than o'er her wan and death-like face,-
Like morning blushing o'er the snow,---
The warrior watched the beaming glow
Of lost intelligence.'

The Fourth Canto is chiefly occupied with a vivid picture of Indian superstition. We believe it to be substantially faithful; and the management of this part of the poem furnishes one of its strongest claims to general admiration. Although it is not to be denied, that the invocation is extended to a length rather incompatible with the continuance of interest, which it is generally possible to sustain in passages of the same sublimity of character, yet the variations of measure, in which great skill is displayed, tend considerably to relieve it. We cannot allow ourselves more than a very short extract from this part; quite insufficient to display the general strength of the passage. pp. 143-147.

1.

"SPIRIT! THOU SPIRIT of subtlest air,
Whose power is upon the brain,

When wonderous shapes, and dread and fair,
As the film from the eyes at thy bidding flies,
To sight and sense are plain!

2.

Thy whisper creeps where leaves are stirred;
Thou sighest in woodland gale;

Where waters are gushing thy voice is heard;
And when stars are bright, at still midnight,
Thy symphonies prevail !

3.

"Where the forest ocean, in quick commotion,
Is waving to and fro,

Thy form is seen, in the masses green,
Dimly to come and go.

From thy covert peeping, where thou layest sleeping,
Beside the brawling brook,

Thou art seen to wake, and thy flight to take
Fleet from thy lonely nook.

4.

Where the moonbeam has kist the sparkling tide,
In thy mantle of mist thou art seen to glide.
Far o'er the blue waters melting away,

On the distant billow, as on a pillow,

Thy form to lay.

5.

"Where the small clouds of even are wreathing in heaven

Their garland of roses

O'er the purple and gold, whose hangings enfold

The hall that encloses

The couch of the sun, whose empire is done,→
There thou art smiling,

For thy sway is begun,-thy shadowy sway,
The senses beguiling,

When the light fades away;

And thy vapour of mystery o'er nature ascending,
The heaven and the earth,

The things that have birth,

And the embryos that float in the future, is blending.

II.-1.

"From the land on whose shores the billows break,

The sounding waves of the mighty lake;

From the land where boundless meadows be,
Where the buffalo ranges wild and free;
With silvery coat in his little isle,
Where the beaver plies his ceaseless toil;
The land where pigmy forms abide,
Thou leadest thy train at the even tide;
And the wings of the wind are left behind,
So swift through the pathless air they glide.

2.

Then to the chief who has fasted long,

When the chains of his slumber are heavy and strong, VOL. II.

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