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Dispell'd the Elysian dreams that Fancy wove,
Yet only added tenderness to love;

For War still waved his sulphury torch, and sung
His dirgeful anthem with demoniac tongue :

A Spirit was abroad, a grasping mind,

That with ambitious sweep survey'd mankind

Whose bands were forged, whose ensigns were unfurl'd,

To bind and in obeisance hold the world.

The Romans' ancient realm had trembling reel'd,
Reel'd to its fall, as on his chariot wheel'd:
No young Egeria, from the starry night'
Descending, succour'd in their woful plight;
The yellow Tiber wept through conquer'd plains,
And Rome exchanged for sacred, civil chains.

The Egyptian from his Pyramid had seen,

O'erwhelm'd with dread, the Vulture's threat'ning mien ;
And Copt, and Mameluke, and Janizar,

Threw down their arms and hurried from the war,

As blew the trump, and, glittering to the sun,

On level plains afar his battle shone!

Nor fearful less did blue-eyed German hear
Report of warfare stun his daily ear;
Amid paternal fields he guided now,

With more unsteady hand, the vernal plough—
Dared not abroad his wandering flocks to feed,
Nor scatter'd in the soil the hopeful seed,

Without the dread that foes should pluck his vine,
And Gallic sickles reap the banks of Rhine.

Helvetia too had bow'd, and sternly broke
Her haughty neck submissive to the yoke:
No more with Doric pride she stretch'd her eye
O'er mountain homes, the abode of liberty;
No more she listen'd, when the plains were mute,
To sheep-bell's tinkle or to shepherd's lute,
Yet lean'd she anxious on the hopes which flew
Illusive ever like the morning's dew;
For rose no second Tell, with patriot might
Bursting from envious clouds in holy light,
To bid her glens rejoice o'er peace restored,
And prove at once her buckler and her sword.

And did the Ocean-Queen supinely see
A tyrant forging fetters for the free-
Behold the awful anarchy that spread,
Yet backward hang abash'd when justice led?
No! to the breeze she bade her sheets unfurl,
And in the breath of heaven her pennons curl;
She called her sons-array'd for war they came,
Brave volunteers, aroused at Thraldom's name-

"Lucus erat, quem medium ex opaco specu fons perenni rigabat aqua, quo quia se persæpe Numa sine arbitris, velut ad congressum Deæ, inferebat, Camenis eum lucum sacravit; quod earum ibi concilia cum conjuge sua Egeria essent."Tit. Liv. Hist. lib. 1. sect. 21.

Countless they came, until from shore to shore
With gleaming arms her plains were bristled o'er:
Then every citizen forsook the shield

Of peaceful home, and, arming, sought the field ;
The reaper left his task undone, and took
The warlike blade instead of peaceful hook ;
The weaver left his loom, the hind his flock,
Farmer the vale, and mountaineer the rock;
The rich, the poor, the mighty, and the mean,
Uniting, acted in one common scene,
And, by one impulse sway'd, all feuds forgot,
Unsheath'd the steel and hastened to one spot-
A host for life and liberty that stood,

That might be foil'd but could not be subdued.'

The summons came-nor was young Albert slow
From home and all he valued there to go;

For earlier years had flown, through which he cast
His gaze on ocean from the dizzy mast,

A mariner with him on victory's day

Who strew'd with Gallic wrecks Aboukir's Bay.
And came the parting eve; the morrow's sun
Was doom'd to see his pilgrimage begun,
And mournful Alice met him; forth they stray'd
Through paths that oft in sunshine and in shade
Their steps had traversed: plaintively the breeze
Swept o'er the lake and sang amid the trees,
From clouded skies the fitful sunshine broke
Upon the bending woods of druid oak,
And far, from reedy marsh, the homeless snipe
Wail'd to the desert with its dreary pipe.

At length they gain'd a spot, whence often they
Had seen the mantle of retiring day

Float in the western sky; beneath, the tongue
Of the down-leaping river foam'd and sung,
By shadowy woods embower'd, and banks of green
With wild flowers strewn, and osier-tufts between :
There as on turfy bank they sat, the past,
From love's first heavenly meeting to this last,
In memory's mirror shone-and, shining, drew
Reflections sweet, but melancholy too.

"Albert, to-night we part! The hour draws on
When I these summer lawns must tread alone-
Must pass, with heavy heart, each well-known spot
Where we were wont to meet and see thee not!
While wakeful memory mourns, and all the scene
Brings back to mind the raptures that have been:
Dully shall morn drag on, and I no more
List thy loved step approaching to our door,
A sound that told of bliss and of delight
Found ever, Albert, in thy welcome sight:
Or through the garden shall I rove, to see

Flowers bright with bloom that once were praised by thee;

It is worthy of remembrance that in 1803, when threats of immediate invasion were held out to this country by France, no less than 300,000 men were under arms, independently of the army of reserve and the regular and supplementary militia.

Or pause the bush beside, whence thou didst cull
A rose, and saidst The flower is beautiful,
But, from its parent stem dissever'd, soon
Shall lose the lustre and the pride of June;
Yet never, never, though from thee away,
Shall fond affection in my heart decay;
Absence to weaker ties may fatal prove,
But knits more firmly all the links of love.” ”

"And shall it not be so," he said, " my own,
My only loved one?-yes, for thee alone,
My dear, dear Alice, shall the sigh be heaved,
When of these scenes and thee, their soul, bereaved.
Yet grieve not; soon returning from the main,
These arms shall press thee to this heart again,
And Heaven shall bless our fates, and thou, sweet love,
Shalt to mine ark of promise be the dove;
For where thou art, sure peace will ever come,
Affection smile, and pleasure make her home-
And dark and dreary though this parting be,
The future points to happiness and thee !”

Now Twilight pale her azure mantle spread
From the low meadow to the mountain's head,
And Night from out the deep began to rise,
And Day waned faintly from the western skies,
As home their steps were bent. From speck of blue,
"Tween low grey clouds, shone tremulously through
The Evening Star in beauty. Then she raised
Her pointing hand, and, as they pausing gazed,
Fondly she said “ When that fair star you see,
Think of this parting and remember me !” 1

Months passed in absence; many a lonely prayer
To Heaven, commended Albert to its care:
As Alice, with a heart that swell'd in vain,
Long'd for her mariner's return again;
More dear was now the glen, the grot, the grove,
Each scene that witness'd their sincerest love:
She rear'd the plants that to his sight were dear,
And sang the airs which most he loved to hear 2-

We are told, in one of the Spectators, of two lovers obliged to separate, who agreed at a particular time every day to think of each other. This served the double purpose of a bond to secure their minds against the attraction of foreign objects during their absence from each other, and afforded to each the delightful gratification, that however far sundered they might be, yet their thoughts were at that precise time mutually occupied with the remembrance of each other.

In the text our heroine has selected the Evening Star as the object which was more particularly to recal the thoughts of Albert, in absence, to the ties of home. The magic powers of harmony, as connected with previous associations, scarcely require pointing out. Even in a collective or national sense, the thing holds true; and it is scarcely necessary to advert to the "Ranz de Vaches of the Swiss, or the "Pibroch" of the Scottish clansman-circumstances which have even been made available agents on the foreign field of battle; for, as Lord Byron admirably remarks, as

With the breath that fills

Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring that instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years-

And Evan's, Donald's fame, rings in each clansman's ears.

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto III. Stanza 26.

It is related by Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music, that "the Queen,

Felt that to her the light of life was dim,

And that bliss could but come to her through him.

Delightful to the traveller's weary way,

When clouds have shower'd, steals on the eve of day,—
Soft, soothing, tranquil,—as the glowing trees,
With boughs refresh'd, are whispering to the breeze ;
As through the vale more bright the river flows,
Border'd with golden broom or briary rose;
And from the forest, beautifully clear,
The blackbird's vesper bursts upon the ear:
So when the pall of darkness veils the skies,
And all the breathing world' o'ershadow'd lies-
When now is desolate what once was fair,
And vanquish'd Hope kneels down before Despair-
With glow more warm the star of joy returns,
With beam more bright the orient morning burns-
The shades of Sorrow flee, and o'er the heart
Peace re-assumes her reign as fears depart.

A day of triumph!-Tower and spire sublime
Send forth the pealing bell's sonorous chime;
The city reels with mirth-in every street
Glad tongues are heard and happy faces meet;
Foreboding doubts and fears are all forgot,
Glory at hand, and evil days remote.
Have ye not heard that he whose gallant fleet
Bade seven-mouth'd Nile exult o'er Gaul's defeat,
Her thousands swallow'd by a watery grave,
Her floating cities wrecks upon the wave-
That he who humbled, Hafria's towers before,
With valorous might the pride of Elsinore,
Again had swept the sea, again had won
Immortal wreaths ere sank his glory's sun,
As fire-eyed Victory, leaning from her car,
Beheld her Nelson fall at Trafalgar !

after listening to some learned airs, became tired, and asked Mrs. Hunt for the Scot's song of Cold and Raw;' whereat Purcell, who was present, was much nettled."

The following illustration is also a curious one :"So fell it out of late years," saith Verstigan, "that an English gentleman, travelling in Palestine, not far from Jerusalem, as he passed through a country town, he heard by chance a woman sitting at her door, dandling her child, to sing, Bothwell Bank, thou blumest fair,' &c.

Vide, as quoted by Sir Walter Scott, in Border Minstrelsy. The same illustrious writer has, in Marmion, beautifully characterized the choral chaunts and dirges of the Highland reapers when in the low counties, as

the lament of men Who languish'd for their native glen.

"Breathing world "-an epithet from Dr. Johnson's beautiful Prologue on Shakspeare.

Old Marston, however, in his Antonio and Mellida, (1602,) makes the midnight unbreathing :

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A day of triumph !—Swift the tidings came
To one whose heart was girt with living flame;
Trembling she conn'd the lengthen'd roll of fate,
Now doubt-perplex'd and now with hope elate,
Until-oh sight of horror and despair!
Night to her noon, and death to visions fair,
All that she fear'd so darkly met her there!—

She strove to breathe-her struggling heart stood still,
And waned her deathlike features cold and chill,
Like alabaster statue o'er a tomb;

Wrapt was her soul in instantaneous gloom-
Gloom passing not away; upon the ground
Her vacant gaze convulsively was bound;
One sigh she gave-the first, the best relief
That Nature proffers to o'erwhelmning grief;
One shriek-one piercing shriek !—

Her mother found,

Pale as the snow, her Alice on the ground!

What is our hope?—a rainbow in the skies,
That lures us on, but as we follow, flies!

What is our pleasure?-but the dream that leads
Mid elfin palaces and flowery meads,

Then wakes to dark reality-to woe,

And all the ills that wait man's path below!
What is our trust?-the leaf in autumn's bower
Is not more frail, the phantom of an hour!
Yet let us deem not, though alike for all
The daily sun may shine, the dews may fall—
That though on all the brumal tempests beat,
That though on all young Spring bestows her beat-
Though Summer ripens, and though Autumn yields
For all the aureate treasures of her fields-
Let us not deem that Truth has empty claims,
That Right and Wrong are accidental names,
That conscious strength is not to Virtue given,
Or that this crooked path will lead to Heaven!

Miseries are manifold: there is a grief
That craves and finds from sympathy relief,
To which kind looks and gentle words impart
A balm which soothes and salves the aching heart,
Till sorrow is subdued, contentions cease,
Pain drops his sting, and murmurs sink to peace;
Then novelties again can charm the eye,

Green glows the earth and azure smiles the sky—
The past is blotted from the map of thought,

And things that once have been, like scenes remote,
Fade in the mantling distance, and decay

To dim and shadowy nothingness away!

But there are sorrows which no time can cure

Silent, though ever mortal-slow, but sure;

A woe, that like the canker in the rose,

Which, though awhile in splendid hue it glows,
Eats on its way, until deprived of bloom

The faded flower is but a living tomb.

Her's was the woe that spoke not, nor complain'd, Yet mid despair calm resignation feign'd: September, 1831.-VOL. II. NO. V.

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