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IVAN THE CZAR.

Ivan le Terrible, etant dejà devenu vieux, assićgoit Novogorod. Les Boyards, le voyant affoibli, lui démandèrent s'il ne voulait pas donner le commandement de l'assaut à son fils. Sa fureur fut si grande à cette proposition, que rien ne put l'appaiser; son fils se prosterna à ses pieds; il le repoussa avec un coup d'une telle violence, que deux jours après le malheureux en mourut. Le père, alors au desespoir, devint indifferent à la guerre comme au pouvoir, et ne survécut que peu de mois à son fils."-Dix Annees d'Exil, par MADAME DE STAEL.

Gieb diesen Todten mir heraus. Ich muss Ihn wieder haben!

Trostlose allmacht,

Die nicht einmal in Gråber ihren arm

Verlängern, eine kleine Ubereilung

Mit Menschenleben nicht verbessern kann!

He sat in silence on the ground, The old and haughty Czar;

Lonely, though princes girt him round,
And leaders of the war:
He had cast his jewelled sabre,

That many a field had won,

To the earth beside his youthful dead, His fair and first-born son.

With a robe of ermine for its bed,

Was laid that form of clay,

Where the light a stormy sunset shed, Through the rich tent made way:

And a sad and solemn beauty

On the pallid face came down,

Schiller.

Which the Lord of nations mutely watched,
In the dust, with his renown.

Low tones at last of wo and fear
From his full bosom broke;-
A mournful thing it was to hear
How then the proud man spoke!
The voice that through the combat
Had shouted far and high,

Came forth in strange, dull, hollow tones,
Burdened with agony.

"There is no crimson on thy cheek,

And on thy lip no breath,

I call thee, and dost thou not speak-
They tell me this is death!
And fearful things are whispering
That I the deed have done-

For the honour of thy father's name,
Look up, look up, my son!

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CAROLAN'S PROPHECY.*

Thy cheek too swiftly flushes; o'er thine eye The lights and shadows coine and go too fast, Thy tears gush forth too soon, and in thy voice Are sounds of tenderness too passionate

For peace on earth; oh! therefore, child of song! "Tis well thou shouldst depart.

A SOUND of music, from amidst the hills,
Came suddenly, and died; a fitful sound
Of mirth, soon lost in wail.-Again it rose,
And sank in mournfulness.-There sat a bara,
By a blue stream of Erin, where it swept
Flashing through rock and wood; the sunset's light
Was on his wavy silver-gleaming hair,

And the wind's whisper in the mountain-ash, Whose clusters drooped above. His head was bowed,

His hand was on his harp, yet thence its touch
Had drawn but broken strains; and many stood,
Waiting around, in silent earnestness,

Th' unchaining of his soul, the gush of song;
Many, and graceful forms! yet one alone,
Seemed present to his dream; and she indeed,
With her pale virgin brow, and changeful cheek,
And the clear starlight of her serious eyes,
Lovely amidst the flowing of dark locks
And pallid braiding flowers, was beautiful,
E'en painfully!-a creature to behold

With trembling midst our joy, lest aught unseen
Should waft the vision from us, leaving earth
Too dim without its brightness!--Did such fear
C'ershadow, in that hour, the gifted one,
By his own rushing stream?-Once more he gazed
Upon the radiant girl, and yet once more

From the deep chords his wandering hand brought

out

A few short festive notes, an opening strain
Of bridal melody, soon dashed with grief,
As if some wailing spirit in the strings
Mct and o'ermastered him: but yielding then
To the strong prophet-impulse, mournfully,
Like moaning waters, o'er the harp he poured
The trouble of his haunted soul, and sang-

Voice of the grave!

I hear thy thrilling call:

It comes in the dash of the foaming wave,

In the sear leaf's trembling fall!

In the shiver of the tree,

I hear thee, O thou voice!

And I would thy warning were but for me, That my spirit might rejoice.

Founded on a circumstance related of the Irish Bard, in the Percy Anecdotes of Imagination."

But thou art sent

For the sad earth's young and fair, For the graceful heads that have not bent To the wintry hand of care! They hear the wind's low sigh, And the river sweeping free, And the green reeds murmuring heavily And the woods-but they hear not thee!

Long have I striven

With my deep foreboding soul, But the full tide now its bounds hath riven, And darkly on must roll. There's a young brow smiling near,

With a bridal white-rose wreath,Unto me it smiles from a flowery bier, Touched solemnly by death!

Fair art thou Morna! The sadness of thine eye Is beautiful as silvery clouds

On the dark-blue summer sky! And thy voice comes like the sound

Of a sweet and hidden rill,

That makes the dim woods tuneful roundBut soon it must be still!

Silence and dust

On thy sunny lips must lie,

Make not the strength of love thy trust,

A stronger yet is nigh!

No strain of festal flow

That my hand for thee hath tried,
But into dirge-notes wild and low,
Its ranging tones have died.

Young art thou, Morna!
Yet on thy gentle head,
Like heavy dew on the lily's leaves,

A spirit hath been shed!

And the glance is thine which sees

Through nature's awful heart

But bright things go with the summer-breeze And thou too, must depart!

Yet shall I weep?

I know that in thy breast
There swells a fount of song too deep,

Too powerful for thy rest!
And the bitterness I know,

And the chill of this world's breathGo, all undimmed, in thy glory go! Young and crowned bride of death!

Take hence to heaven

Thy holy thoughts and bright, And soaring hopes, that were not given For the touch of mortal blight! Might we follow in thy track,

This parting should not be!

But the spring shall give us violets back, And every flower but thee!

The ivy of its ruins; unto which

There was a burst of tears around the bard:
All wept but one, and she serenely stood,
With her clear brow and dark religious eye,
Raised to the first faint star above the hills,
And cloudless; though it might be that her cheek
Was paler than before.-So Morna heard
The minstrel's prophecy.

And spring returned,
Bringing the earth her lovely things again,
All, save the loveliest far! A voice, a smile,
A young sweet spirit gone.

THE MOURNER FOR THE BARMECIDES.

O good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times.
As You Like It.

FALLEN was the House of Giafar; and its name,
The high romantic name of Barmecide,
A sound forbidden on its own bright shores,
By the swift Tygris' wave. Stern Haroun's
wrath,

Sweeping the mighty with their fame away,
Had so passed sentence: but man's chainless heart
Hides that within its depths, which never yet
Th' oppressor's thought could reach.

'Twas desolate

Where Giafar's halls, beneath the burning sun,
Spread out in ruin lay. The songs had ceased;
The lights, the perfumes, and the genii-tales,
Had ceased; the guests were gone. Yet still one
voice

Was there the fountain's; through those eastern courts,

Over the broken marble and the grass,
Its low clear music shedding mournfully.

And still another voice!-an aged man,
Yet with a dark and fervent eye beneath
His silvery hair, came, day by day, and sate
On a white column's fragment; and drew forth,
From the forsaken walls and dim arcades,
A tone that shook them with its answering thrill
To his deep accents. Many a glorious tale
He told that sad yet stately solitude,
Pouring his memory's fullness o'er its gloom,
Like waters in the waste; and calling up,
By song or high recital of their deeds,
Bright solemn shadows of its vanished race
To people their own halls: with these alone,
In all this rich and breathing world, his thoughts
Held still unbroken conversc. He had been
Reared in this lordly dwelling, and was now

His fading life seemed bound. Day rolled on day,
And from that scene the loneliness was fled;
For crowds around the gray-haired chronicler
Met as men meet, within whose anxious hearts
Fear with deep feeling strives; till, as a breeze
Wanders through forest-branches, and is met
By one quick sound and shiver of the leaves,
The spirit of his passionate lament,

As through their stricken souls it passed, awoke
One echoing murmur.-But this might not be
Under a despot's rule, and summoned thence,
The dreamer stood before the Caliph's throne:
Sentenced to death he stood, and deeply pale,
And with his white lips rigidly compressed;
Till, in submissive tones, he asked to speak
Once more, ere thrust from earth's fair sunshine
forth.

Was it to sue for grace?-his burning heart
Sprang, with a sudden lightning, to his eye,
And he was changed!-and thus, in rapid words,
Th' o'ermastering thoughts, more strong than
death found way.

"And shall I not rejoice to go, when the noble and the brave,

With the glory on their brows, are gone before me to the grave?

What is there left to look on now, what brightness in the land?—

I hold in scorn the faded world, that wants their princely band!

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My chiefs! my chiefs! the old man comes, that in your halls was nursed,

That followed you to many a fight, where flashed your sabres first;

That bore your children in his arms, your name upon his heart

Oh! must the music of that name with him from earth depart?

"It shall not be!-a thousand tongues, though human voice were still,

With that high sound the living air triumphantly shall fill;

The wind's free flight shall bear it on, as wandering seeds are sown,

And the starry midnight whisper it, with a deep and thrilling tone.

"For it is not as a flower whose scent with the dropping leaves expires,

And it is not as a household lamp, that a breath should quench its fires;

It is written on our battle-fields with the writing of the sword,

It hath left upon our desert-sands a light in oles

ings poured.

"The founts, the many gushing founts, which to the wild ye gave,

Of you, my chiefs, shall sing aloud, as they pour

a joyous wave;

And the groves, with whose deep lovely gloom ye hung the pilgrim's way,

Shall send from all their sighing leaves your praises on the day.

"The very walls your bounty reared, for the stranger's homeless head,

Shall find a murmur to record your tale, my glorious dead!

Though the grass be where ye feasted once, where lute and cittern rung,

And the serpent in your palaces lie coiled amidst its young.

"It is enough! mine eye no more of joy or splendour sees,

I leave your name in lofty faith, to the skies and to the breeze!

I go, since earth her flower hath lost, to join the bright and fair,

And call the grave a kingly house, for ye, my chiefs, are there!"

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A dim and deeply-bosomed grove
Of many an aged tree,

Such as the shadowy violets love,
The fawn and forest-bce.

The darkness of the chestnut bough
There on the waters lay,
The bright stream reverently below,
Checked its exulting play;

And bore a music all subdued,

And led a silvery sheen,
On through the breathing solitude
Of that rich leafy scene.

For something viewlessly around

Of solemn influence dwelt,
In the soft gloom, and whispery sound,
Not to be told, but felt:

While sending forth a quiet gleam
Across the wood's repose,
And o'er the twilight of the stream,

A lowly chapel rose.

A pathway to that still retreat
Through many a myrtle wound,
And there a sight-how strangely sweet!
My steps in wonder bound.

For on a brilliant bed of flowers,

Even at the threshold made,
As if to sleep through sultry hours,
A young fair child was laid.

To sleep?-oh! ne'er on childhood's eye,
And silken lashes pressed,
Did the warm living slumber lie,
With such a weight of rest!

Yet still a tender crimson glow

Its cheek's pure marble dyed"T was but the light's faint streaming flow Through roses heaped beside.

I stooped-the smooth round arm was chili,
The soft lip's breath was fled,
And the bright ringlets hung so still-
The lovely child was dead!

"Alas!" I cried, "fair faded thing!

Thou hast wrung bitter tears,
And thou hast left a wo, to cling
Round yearning hearts for years!"

But then a voice came sweet and low-
I turned, and near me sate

A woman with a mourner's brow,
Pale, yet not desolate.

And in her still, clear, matron face,
All solemnly serene,

A shadowed image I could trace

Of that young slumberer's mien

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"I knew 'twas a trumpet's note! And I see my brethren's lances gleam, And their pennons wave by the mountain stream, And their pluies to the glad wind float! Jease awhile, clarion! Clarion, wild and shrill, Cease! let them hear the captive's voice-be still!

"I am here, with my heavy chain! And I look on a torrent sweeping by, And an eagle rushing to the sky,

And a host, to its battle-plain!

THE KAISER'S FEAST.

Louis, Emperor of Germany, having put his brother, the Palsgrave Rodolphus, under the ban of the empire, (in the 12th century,) that unfortunate Prince fled to England, where he died in neglect and poverty. "After his decease, his mother, Matilda, privately invited his children to return tc Germany; and by her mediation, during a season of festivity, when Louis kept wassail in the Castle of Heidelberg, the family of his brother presented themselves before him in the garb of suppliants, imploring pity and forgiveness. To this appea the victor softened."-Miss Benger's Memoirs of t Queen of Bohemia.

Cease awhile, clarion! Clarion, wild and shrill, Cease! let them hear the captive's voice-be still!"

"Must I pine in my fetters here?

With the wild wave's foam, and the free bird's flight,

And the tall spears glancing on my sight,
And the trumpet in mine ear?

Cease awhile, clarion! Clarion, wild and shrill,
Cease! let them hear the captive's voice-be!

"They are gone! they have all passed by! They in whose wars I had borne my part, They that I loved with a brother's heart,

They have left me here to die! Sound again, clarion! Clarion pour thy blast! Sound! for the captive's dream of hope is past."

THE Kaiser feasted in his hall,

The red wine mantled high; Banners were trembling on the wall, To the peals of minstrelsy:

And many a gleam and sparkle came

From the armour hung around,

As it caught the glance of the torch's flame,

Or the hearth with pine boughs crowned.

Why fell there silence on the chord

Beneath the harper's hand?
And suddenly, from that rich board,
Why rose the wassail-band?

The strings were hushed-the knights made wey
For the queenly mother's tread,
As up the hall, in dark array,

Two fair-haired boys she led.

She led them e'en to the Kaiser's place,
And still before him stood;
Till, with strange wonder, o'er his face
Flushed the proud warrior-blood:
And "Speak, my mother! speak!" he cried,
"Wherefore this mourning vest?
And the clinging children by thy side,
In weeds of sadness drest?"

Well may a mourning vest be mine,
And theirs, my son, my son!
Look on the features of thy line
In each fair little one!
Though grief awhile within their eyes
Hath tamed the dancing glee,
Yet there thine own quick spirit lies-
Thy brother's children see?

And where is he, thy brother, where?
He, in thy home that grew,

And smiling, with his sunny hair,
Ever to greet thee flew?

How would his arms thy neck entwine,

His fond lips press thy brow!

My son! oh, call these orphans thine-
Thou hast no brother now!

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