As lightly as a graceful bird would o'er the ocean dip,
He steals on tiptoe forward, with his finger on his lip;
Ah! needless is the caution, for an army rushing in
Would scarcely have its trampling heard above that deafening din.

Oh! the roar of that stupendous forge was louder than the blast
That rendeth down the forest trees, as it sweeps all conquering past :
Oh! the clangour of the hammers at every ponderous stroke,
Was heavier than the thundering fall of some primeval oak.
Only the mighty walls around unshaken ; could sustain
The echo of that mingled sound, and fling it back again ;
Only in Ætna's ancient caves such uproar could ascend,
Nor out into the upper air a sudden pathway rend.

ear

afar ;

And yet in measured time each stroke fell on the heated bar,
And thus, like giant music, broke upon

the
And every glittering shower of sparks the hammers brought to life
Showed how the walls were hung with arms, for safety or for strife,
And lighted up each grimy brow, and the fiery eye that shone
Beneath it; for each sinewy smith was furnished but with one,
But that was like the flashing star, whose fierce incessant glare
Shines all the night supremely bright, when summer fills the air.

And now, amidst those workmen grim, the venturous pilgrim stands,
Unseen, 'till his soft fingers press his father's sturdy hands ;
The uplifted hammers fall not the sounding blows are hushed,
Only the forge-blast rushes on, as ever it hath rushed ;
Each eye on the intruder turns, unknown to all save one,
And he, half proud, half angry, turns in wonder to his son ;
Then in a voice, where father-love subdued the tone severe,
“ How now,” he cries, “pert urchin ?-my child, what brings thee here?"

“ Borne on the breath of whispering winds, and of the murmuring waves, " I heard a tale of treasures kept within my father's caves : “ I heard of shields of matchless proof, like that to Pluto given, “ I heard of javelins, by whose power rocks are asunder riven ; “ I heard of sceptres powerful as that vast trident wrought “ For Neptune on his ocean-throne ; and here I have been taught, “ Oh! my dread father, that ye forge the thunderbolts of Jove : “ I want to prove against them all a weapon framed by Love.”

In mute astonishment all gazed on the intruder bold,
But from his quiver forth he drew a slender dart of gold ;
And while a half-contemptuous laugh around was heard to ring,
He took his bow, and fitted it, still smiling, to the string;
And while they wondered much to see his fearlessness of proof,
He aimed it at a polished shield suspended from the roof;
Far flew the glittering fragments !-aghast the master stands,
And the wily marksman danced for glee, and clapped his dimpled hands.

So shattered he the sceptre-so shattered he the spear, And cleft the very thunderbolts, 'till the gazers thrilled with fear; Then spake again his sire—“ My boy, no farther need we prove “ That never armour may be forged invincible to Love. “ Go tell thy beauteous mother of the conquests of thy dart, “ And pray that she will heal its wounds, once planted in my heart ; “ For well thou know'st I left the world her beauty doth adorn, “ To shun the sting of darts like these, barbed by her ruthless scorn !"

Vol. XXV.-No. 145.

F

CAMILLA.*

No silken slave of luxury-no pampered child of pride-
And yet unto a royal house the maiden is allied;
No pettish airs—no regal frowns disturb her brow serene,
And yet the nursling of the woods is destined for a queen.
In forest haunts with merry nymphs and hardy hunters shared,
On simple food, in simple ways, was fair Camilla reared ;
'Neath canopies of stately trees surpassing kingly halls-
Lulled by the music of the breeze, and birds, and waterfalls.

Tall was her graceful form_her limbs were cast in beauty's mould,
And lustrous were her azure eyes—her hair of sunny gold;
And as in beauty, so in speed to none Camilla yields,
For never foot as light as her’s flew o'er the flowery fields.
The heavy ears of ripening wheat, as o'er she passed elate,
Bent not so much beneath her feet as by their own rich weight;
The waters, as o'er lake and stream she skimmed with graceful bound,
Scarce rose above her sandals to the instep's arching round.
Even as the bee and butterfly perch lightly on the bough,
So lightly fell her little foot upon the flowers below;
As scarcely ruftling ocean's breast, the sea-bird glances by
So o'er the glassy waters did the maiden's footstep fly;
To Dian's service in her youth a dedicated child,
Ah, had she ever thus been left to flourish in the wild,
In harmless warfare had she ranged the forest far and wide,
And victor but in sylvan sports, had happy lived and died.

But she is decked in royal robes, and throned, and honoured now,
Though heavily sometimes she feels the circlet press her brow;
And she must lead to hostile realms an armed and dauntless band,
And woe for those who chance to come near her own conquering brand !
Alas that death so suddenly hath crushed that fearless heart!
That Aruns there should find a mark for his ignoble dart!
But Dian loves her votary still, although so long estranged,
And by the huntress goddess is the fallen queen avenged !

Queen of the Volsci, and celebrated for the speed and lightness of her foot. She was reared in the woods, and dedicated to Diana, but afterwards ascended the throne, and, after engaging in several successful battles, was slain by a soldier named Aruns wbo, in revenge, was killed by Diana.

† Tho ancient goddess of death.

Through every day and hour
Thine acts are manifest—thy work is done ;

Earth thrills beneath thy power,
Alike 'midst winter storm or summer sun.

Still is thy message sent-
Still from thy viewless hand shoots many a dart;

Nor hath thy mother lent
One of her stars to show us what thou art.

The goddess of the dawn
Sheds her bright smile upon the eastern hills,

Whilst on the grassy lawn
The wakeful shepherds watch by peaceful rills.

The goddess of the flowers
Leaves her soft breath upon the balmy wind,

Or, from the rosy bowers,
Looks laughing forth upon the busy hind.

The huntress goddess flies
With buskined feet along the mountain's breast,

Startling the heavy eyes
Of the tired hunter from his midnight rest.

But thou, who dost possess
A power more dread, more universal sway,

All vague and bodiless,
Hauntest all living things by night and day.

We look for thee in vain,
In the dim twilight, where all shadows rise,

Upon the spacious plain,
Or darkly hovering between earth and skies ;

Or 'midst the leafy shades
Of the thick forests when the moon is low;

But whilst thy rule pervades
All things, thy deeds are all of thee we know.

To other deities
We bring our offerings, chosen each with care ;

But thou hast sacrifice
Of every kind, and taken every where.

Well, goddess, might'st thou laugh
At our poor gifts of herds, or corn, or wine,

Who life's best springs dost quaff,
And when thou wilt, canst make all nature thine.

Strange thoughts will sometimes steal Into our bosoms when we think of thee;

Strange doubts we might reveal,
If that such doubts were not impiety.

What if thou only art
An emanation from a power supreme !

But a dependent part
Of some great wholesome universal scheme !

What if from some deep source
Of wisdom and benevolence shall flow

Events in every course,
Of death and life- of happiness and woe!

Pause, oh! presumptuous thought;
Already dost thou take too wild a flight ;-

Bow, as thou hast been taught, Before th' unseen, though mighty, child of Night!

soul, in allaying the splenetic heats of insanity, and suicide-while through. faction, and even in composing the out his verse satires, Swift never misses bitter objurgations of theology. Where an opportunity of avenging his polemialmost an angel from heaven would be cal quarrel on the beggarliness, the disregarded in the obloquy and cia- dirtiness, and the selfishness of the mour of party or sectarian warfare,

Scotch people. if a true poet arise, and speak accord- Johnson, a man of too candid a ing to his mission, he will undoubtedly magnanimity to exaggerate in any be heard-even, as in old times, the thing, did not affect to conceal, speakbard could put an end to the battles ing of their pretensions to learning, of the Gauls, by shaking his chain of an opinion, perhaps more damaging, silence between the hosts. That such in consequence of its measured impara man will some day arise among us, tiality, than the severest sarcasms of as Burns, sixty years since, arose those who denied the obnoxious race among the Scotch—or as Beranger, all credit for either civility or knowin our own generation, has arisen ledge. “ Men bred there," says he, among the Parisians—it is as reason- speaking of their universities, “cannot able, as it is.consolatory and cheering, be expected to be often decorated with to expect ; for, perhaps, no where in the splendours of ornamental erudition; the world have so great a multitude of but they obtain a mediocrity of know. men, at any one time, been set think- ledge, between learning and ignorance, ing and striving to express great not inadequate to the purposes of comthoughts, as among ourselves, during mon life, which is very widely diffused the very year in which we write; and among i hem, and which, countenanced of the various manifestations of poetic in general by a combination so invigenius with which the past exciting dious that their friends cannot defend period has been rife, those to which it, and actuated in particulars by a alone the public admiration has fully spirit of enterprise so vigorous that responded, have been such as expressed their enemies are constrained to praise generous and noble sentiments; while it, enables them to find, or make their any pieces affecting the satirical and

way to employment, riches, and disdenunciatory vein so much in vogue a tinction." century ago, have met with no com, Wilkes's hostility to the administramendation beyond the suspicious ap- tio. of Lord Bute, not only revived plauses of the devotees. In London, in the pages of the anomalously-named on the contrary, a frivolous and ill. North Briton, the old libels of the conditioned sort of badinage has sprung time of Elizabeth, but let loose on the into popularity, hardly energetic devoted countrymen of the Tory preenough to be deemed satire, yet, too mier the whole ferocious energy of petulant to pass for raillery-a sure Churchill, whose mind had so tho. sign of decaying taste, and of an un- roughly contracted the habits of the healthy morality;

bully, that he never assails an enemy The Scotch, for much of the seve- of his own with half the fury that rity which they experienced at the possesses him when espousing the perhands of the wits of Queen Anne's sonal or political quarrels of his friend. and the two succeeding reigns, had Nothing but the exhaustion of a deso. mainly to thank the offensive extrava. lating war could have kept the Scotch gancies of their clergy. The “ Tale quiet, under the sting of Churchill's of a Tub” was written, as much for the Prophecy of Famine: nothing but the ridicule of Jack, as for the censure utmost brutality could have dictated of Peter; and had it not been for the so cruel a libel. Yet, the introducarrogant pretensions of the Presbyte- tory part of it is little worse than rians in the latter parliaments of Anne, some of Swift's satirical pictures of we, probably, would never have heard the coarseness and brutishness of his of the loaf forced down Martin's own poor countrymen. May the conthroat, in lieu of a shoulder of mut. clusion yet be as applicable to us, as ton-or of the supernumerary tags to heaven, changing the words of the mny Lord Peter's small-clothes. In mocker into unexpected reality, has the history of John Bull, the same actually made it to those whose poverty feeling breaks out in the derogatory

and feebleness it was designed to ag. character of Peg, and in Jack's antics, gravate!