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Shed by thy mandate, soon thy country's blood
Shall swell and darken Tiber's yellow flood.
My Children's Manes call-awake! prepare
The feast they claim exult in Rome's despair!
Be thine ear clos'd against her suppliant cries;
Bid thy soul triumph in her agonies!

Let Carnage revel e'en her shrines among !
Spare not the valiant! pity not the young!
Haste! o'er her hills the sword's libation shed,
And wreak the curse of Carthage on her head !”

The vision flies-a mortal step is near,
Whose echoes vibrate on the slumberer's ear;
He starts, he wakes to woe-before him stands.
Th' unwelcome messenger of harsh commands,
Whose falt'ring accents bid the exil'd chief
Seek, far on other shores, a home for grief.

Silent the wanderer sat-but on his cheek

"

The burning glow, far more than words might speak;

And, from the kindling of his eye, there broke
Language, where all th' indignant soul awoke,
Till his deep thought found voice-then, calmly
stern,

And sov'reign in despair, he cried, "Return!
Tell him who sent thee hither, thou hast seen
Marius the Exile rest where Carthage once hath

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been !"

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

And their lost children bend the subject-knee, N 'Midst the proud tombs and trophies of the free!

"Bird of the sun! dread eagle ! born on high,
A creature of the empyreal-Thou, whose eye
Was lightning to the earth-whose pinion wav'd,
In haughty triumph, o'er a world enslav'd;
Sink from thy heav'ns! for glory's noon is o'er,
And rushing storms shall bear thee on no more!
Clos'd is thy regal course-thy crest is torn,
And thy plume banish'd from the realms of morn.
The shaft hath reach'd thee !-rest with chiefs and

kings,

Who conquer'd in the shadow of thy wings!
Sleep! while thy foes exult around their prey,
And share thy glorious heritage of day!

"But darker years shall mingle with the past,
And deeper vengeance shall be mine at last..
O'er the seven hills I see destruction spread,
And empire's widow veils with dust her head!
Her gods forsake each desolated shrine,
Her temples moulder to the earth, like mine;
'Midst fallen palaces she sits alone,
Calling heroic shades from ages gone,

Or bids the nations, 'midst her Desarts wait,

'To learn the fearful Oracles of Fate.

"Still sleep'st thou, Roman? Son of victory! rise! Wake to obey th' avenging destinies !

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Shed by thy mandate, soon thy country's blood
Shall swell and darken Tiber's yellow flood.
My Children's Manes call-awake! prepare
The feast they claim-exult in Rome's despair!
Be thine ear clos'd against her suppliant cries ;
Bid thy soul triumph in her agonies!
Let Carnage revel e'en her shrines among !
Spare not the valiant! pity not the young!
Haste! o'er her hills the sword's libation shed,
And wreak the curse of Carthage on her head !” ›à

The vision flies-a mortal step is near,
Whose echoes vibrate on the slumberer's ear;
He starts, he wakes to woe-before him stands
Th' unwelcome messenger of harsh commands,
Whose falt'ring accents bid the exil'd chief
Seek, far on other shores, a home for grief.

Silent the wanderer sat-but on his cheek

The burning glow, far more than words might speak;

And, from the kindling of his eye, there broke
Language, where all th' indignant soul awoke,
Till his deep thought found voice-then, calmly
stern,

And sov'reign in despair, he cried, "Return!
Tell him who sent thee hither, thou hast seen
Marius the Exile rest where Carthage once hath

been !"

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

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THERE is another reflection, my brethren, of a still more solemn kind, which must naturally have occurred to us all. Of the period of which we have seen the beginning, none of us can see the end. Long ere the century closes, all of us, young or old, rich or poor, will be numbered with the dead. "The silver cord will be loosed," and "the golden bowl broken,” and "every spirit" will have returned" to the God who gave it." It is a reflection, in truth, to which no ignorance nor barbarity hath rendered the human mind insensible. Even amid all the licentious wor ship of antiquity, it was upon these occasions the plaintive call of the herald, "Come to those solemnities, which no living eye hath seen, and which no eye will see again."

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Amid this dark and tremendous prospect, is there no voice which whispers to you, my brethren, how good "for you it is to be here ;" or that prostrates you in these moments before the throne of Nature, in "thankfulness to Him" who hath given" you the victory," through Jesus Christ your Lord? "And I was in the spirit (says the evangelist), upon the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as that of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. And I turned to the voice that spake with me, and I saw one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down

to the foot, and girt about with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his voice as the sound of many waters. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead; and he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the First and the Last, I am He that liveth, and was dead. And behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of Hell and of Death.". 4

These, my brethren, are the sublime anticipations of the true Christian-these the hopes which He "who liveth for ever and ever" hath given to the weakness of mortality. It is to that greater world (which, ere this century shall close, all of us must know) that the eye of piety is permanently directed. It is there that the great system of Almighty Wis dom shall finally be displayed; when all doubts shall cease, and all anxieties be dispelled; when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality; and when all the tears which life hath raised shall be wiped away for

ever.

It is to this great termination that time is advanc→ ing; every thing that we see around us teaches us that life is an imperfect scene, of which the mighty conclusion is yet to come: and every year, as it passes, takes to a better world some of those whom we have loved or honoured. In the last receptacle of mortality, the rich and the poor" make their bed together;" and there we alike deposit the youthful

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