IF THAT HIGH WORLD.
If that high world, which lies beyond
Our own, surviving Love endears;
If there the cherish'd heart be fond,

The eye the same, except in tears-
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth, and find all fears
Lost in thy light-Eternity!

It must be so: 'tis not for self

That we so tremble on the brink, And, striving to o'erleap the gulf,

Yet cling to Being's severing link. Oh! in that future let us think

To hold each heart the heart that shares, With them the immortal waters drink,

And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!

tenderness of expression, than in loftiness and purity of religious sentiment. In comparison with them, the sacred poetry of all other nations sinks into mediocrity. They have embodied so exquisitely the universal language of religious emotion, that (a few fierce and vindictive passages excepted, natural in the warrior-poet of a sterner age) they have entered with unquestionable propriety into the Christian ritual. The songs which cheered the solitude of the desert caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the Hebrew people as they wound along the glens or the hill-sides of Judea, have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the habitable world,-in the remotest islands of the ocean, among the forests of America, or the sands of Africa. How many human hearts have they softened, purified, exalted! -of how many wretched beings have they been the secret consolation on how many communities have they drawn down the blessings of Divine Providence, by bringing the affections in unison with their deep devotional fervour!" Millman.-L. E.

"The words of this melody have been greatly and deservedly admired; yet the circumstances that attended the composition of the latter lines may be interesting. When

Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell;
Mourn where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell!
And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet?
And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet?
And Judah's melody once more rejoice
The hearts that leap'd before its heavenly voice?
Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,
How shall ye flee away and be at rest!
The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country-Israel but the grave!

ON JORDAN'S BANKS.

ON Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray,
On Sion's hill the False One's votaries pray,
The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep-
Yet there even there-O God! thy thunders sleep:

There where thy finger scorch'd the tablet stone!
There where thy shadow to thy people shone !
Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire:
Thyself-none living see and not expire!

Oh! in the lightning let thy glance appear;

Sweep from his shiver'd hand the oppressor's spear.
How long by tyrants shall thy land be trod!
How long thy temple worshipless, O God!

JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. (1)

SINCE our country, our God-O my sire!
Demand that thy daughter expire;
Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow,
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!

And the voice of my mourning is o'er,
And the mountains behold me no more:
If the hand that I love lay me low,
There cannot be pain in the blow!

And of this, O my father! be sure—
That the blood of thy child is as pure
As the blessing I beg ere it flow,

And the last thought that soothes me below.

Though the virgins of Salem lament,
Be the judge and the hero unbent!
I have won the great battle for thee,
And my father and country are free!

his Lordship put the copy into my hand, it terminated thus:

Its sound aspired to heaven, and there abode.' This however did not complete the verse, and I wished him to help out the melody. He replied, "Why, I have sent you to heaven-it would be difficult to go further! My attention for a few moments was called to some other person, and his Lordship, whom I had hardly missed, exclaimed'Here, Nathan, I have brought you down again;' and immediately presented me the beautiful and sublime lines which conclude the melody." Nathan.-P. E.

(1) Jephtha, a bastard son of Gilead, having been wrongfully expelled from his father's house, had taken refuge in a wild country, and become a noted captain of freebooters. His kindred, groaning under foreign oppression, began to look to their valiant though lawless compatriot, whose profession, according to their usage, was no more dishonourable than that of a pirate in the elder days of Greece. They sent for him, and made him head of their city. Before he went forth against the Ammonites, he made the memorable vow, that, if he returned victorious, he would sacrifice as a burnt-offering whatever first met him

When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd,
When the voice that thou lovest is hush'd,
Let my memory still be thy pride,
And forget not I smiled as I died!

OH! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S
BLOOM.

OH! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear

Their leaves, the earliest of the year;

And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:
And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,
And feed deep thought with many a dream,
And lingering pause and lightly tread;
Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead.

Away! we know that tears are vain,

That death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain?

Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou-who tell'st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

MY SOUL IS DARK.

My soul is dark-Oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling

Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear:
If in this heart a hope be dear,

That sound shall charm it forth again; If in these eyes there lurk a tear, "Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.

But bid the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel! I must weep,

Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,

And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 'tis doom'd to know the worst, And break at once-or yield to song.(1)

I SAW THEE WEEP.

I SAW thee weep-the big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear

A violet dropping dew:

I saw thee smile-the sapphire's blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;

It could not match the living rays
That fill'd that glance of thine.

on his entrance into his native city. He gained a splendid victory. At the news of it, his only daughter came dancing forth, in the gladness of her heart, and with jocund instruments of music, to salute the deliverer of his people. The 1 miserable father rent his clothes in agony; but the noblespirited maiden would not hear of the disregard of the vow she only demanded a short period to bewail upon the mountains, like the Antigone of Sophocles, her dying without hope of becoming a bride or mother, and then submitted to her fate." Millman.-L. E.

(1) "It was generally conceived that Lord Byron's reported singularities approached on some occasions to derangement, and at one period, indeed, it was very currently asserted that

As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,

Which scarce the shade of coming eve

Can banish from the sky,

Those smiles unto the moodiest mind

Their own pure joy impart:

Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o'er the heart.

THY DAYS ARE DONE.
THY days are done, thy fame begun;
Thy country's strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughters of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!

Though thou art fall'n, while we are free
Thou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flow'd from thee
Disdain'd to sink beneath;
Within our veins its currents be,

Thy spirit on our breath!

Thy name, our charging hosts along,
Shall be the battle-word!
Thy fall, the theme of choral song
From virgin voices pour'd!

To weep would do thy glory wrong;
Thou shalt not be deplored.

SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST
BATTLE.

WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.
Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

SAUL. (2)

THOU whose spell can raise the dead, Bid the prophet's form appear. "Samuel raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer!"

Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud: Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.

his intellects were actually impaired. The report only served to amuse his Lordship. He referred to the circumstance, and declared that he would try how a madman could write: seizing the pen with eagerness, he for a moment fixed his eyes in majestic wildness on vacancy; when like a flash of inspiration, without erasing a single word, the above verses were the result." Nathan.-P. E.

(2) "Haunted with that insatiable desire of searching into the secrets of futurity, inseparable from uncivilised man, Saul knew not to what quarter to turn. The priests, outraged by his cruelty, had forsaken him: the prophets stood aloof: no dreams visited his couch; he had persecuted even the unlawful diviners. He hears at last of a female

Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye;
His hand was wither'd, and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare;
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

"Why is my sleep disquieted?

Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O king? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold;
Such are mine; and such shall be
Thine to-morrow when with me;
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day,
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou, thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul! (1)

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER."
FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,

And lovely forms caress'd me:
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.

There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd;

And not a trapping deck'd my power

That gall'd not while it glitter'd.

The serpent of the field, by art

And spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to wisdom's lore,
Nor music's voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore

The soul that must endure it.

necromancer, a woman with the spirit of Ob; strangely similar in sound to the Obeah women in the West Indies. To the cave-dwelling of this woman, in Endor, the monarch proceeds in disguise. He commands her to raise the spirit of Samuel. At this daring demand, the woman first recog nises, or pretends to recognise, her royal visitor. Whom seest thou?' says the king.- Mighty ones ascending from the earth.'-'Of what form ?'- An old man covered with a mantle.' Saul, in terror, bows down his head to the earth; and, it should seem, not daring to look up, receives from the voice of the spectre the awful intimation of his defeat and death. On the reality of this apparition we pretend not to decide: the figure, if figure there were, was not seen by Saul; and, excepting the event of the approaching battle, the spirit said nothing which the living prophet had not said before, repeatedly and publicly. But the fact is curious, as showing the popular belief of the Jews in de

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,
Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, Fix'd in its own eternity.

Above or love, hope, hate, or fear,

It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

THE king was on his throne,

The satraps throng'd the hall; A thousand bright lamps shone O'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold, In Judah deem'd divineJehovah's vessels hold

The godless heathen's wine! In that same hour and hall, The fingers of a hand Came forth against the wall, And wrote, as if on sand:

parted spirits to have been the same with that of most other nations." Millman.-L. E.

(1) "Since we have spoken of witches," said Lord Byron at Cephalonia, in 1823, “what think you of the witch of Endor? I have always thought this the finest and most finished witch-scene that ever was written or conceived; and you will be of my opinion, if you consider all the cir cumstances and the actors in the case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and dignity of the language. It beats all the ghost-scenes I ever read. The finest conception on a similar subject is that of Goethe's devil, Mephistopheles; and though, of course, you will give the priority to the former, as being inspired, yet the latter, if you know it, will appear to you-at least it does to me-one of the finest and most sublime specimens of human conception." Kennedy's Conversations on Religion, etc., with Lord Byron.-L. E.

The fingers of a manA solitary handAlong the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,

And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,
And tremulous his voice:
"Let the men of lore appear,

The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw-but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,

The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,-

The morrow proved it true.
"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,

Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!

SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remember'd well!

So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU
DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,
I need not have wander'd from far Galilee ;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.

(1) "Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit: unhappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which bordered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern in the murder of her grandfather, father,

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the exile on earth is an outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow,
As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;
In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine
The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. (1) Он, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding.

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:
Ah! couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now,
Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

And is she dead?—and did they dare
Obey my frenzy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair :

The sword that smote her's o'er me waving. But thou art cold, my murder'd love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone, who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing; I swept that flower from Judah's stem Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earn'd those tortures well Which, unconsumed, are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome I beheld thee, O Sion! when render'd to Rome: 'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall

Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home, And forgot for a moment my bondage to come; I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane, And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain. On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed; While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine. And now on that mountain I stood on that day, But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away; Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead, And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head! brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement." Millman.-L. E.

But the gods of the pagan shall never profane The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign; And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be, Our worship, O Father! is only for thee.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT.

We sat down and wept by the waters

Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, O her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.
While sadly we gazed on the river

Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never

That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!

On the willow that harp is suspended,

Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were ended
But left me that token of thee:

And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen : Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

(1) "The Hebrew Melodies, though obviously inferior to Lord Byron's other works, display a skill in versification. and a mastery in diction, which would have raised an inferior artist to the very summit of distinction." Jeffrey. -L. E.

(2) The two last pieces were not printed in the original collection. The first seems to be an inferior version of the Hebrew Melody beginning, “We sat down and wept by the waters;" both poems being paraphrases of part of Psalm cxxxvii.-P. E.

(3) Mr. Nathan, the composer of the music for the Hebrew Melodies, relates the following anecdote relative to these lines:"Having been officiously taken up by a person who

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

A SPIRIT PASS'D BEFORE ME.

FROM JOB.

A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of Immortality unveil'd—
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine--
And there it stood,-all formless-but divine.
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And, as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake:
"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than he who deems even seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay-vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"(1).

IN THE VALLEY OF WATERS.(2)

In the valley of waters we wept o'er the day
When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey,
And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far away.
The song they demanded in vain-it lay still
In our souls, as the wind that hath died on the hill;
They call'd for the harp-but our blood they shall spill
Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of our
skill.

All stringlessly hang on the willow's sad tree,
As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be,
Our hands may be fetter'd-our tears still are free
For our God and our glory-and Sion! oh thee!

THEY SAY THAT HOPE IS HAPPINESS.
THEY say that hope is happiness;

But genuine love must prize the past,
And memory wakes the thoughts that bless;
They rose the first-they set the last.
And all that memory loves the most
Was once our only hope to be,
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into memory.

Alas! it is delusion all;

The future cheats us from afar,
Nor can we be what we recall,

Nor dare we think on what we are. (3)

arrogated to himself some self importance in criticism, and who made an observation upon their demerits, Lord Byron quaintly observed, 'They were written in haste, and they shall perish in the same manner!' and immediately consigned them to the flames. As my music adapted to them, however, did not share the same fate, and having a contrary opinion of any thing that might fall from the pen of his Lordship, I treasured them up, and on a subsequent interview with his Lordship, I accused him of having committed suicide in making so valuable a burnt-offering: to which he smilingly replied, 'The act seems to inflame you; come, Nathan, since you are displeased with the sacrifice, I will give ther to you as a peace offering, use them as you may deem p: per.'"-P. E.