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He listen'd-and his heart beat high :
That was the song of victory!

The rapture of a conqueror's mood
Rush'd burning through his frame,—
The depths of that green solitude

Its torrents could not tame;

Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile,
Round those far fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars. Across his soul
There swept a sudden change :
E'en at the pilgrim's glorious goal
A shadow dark and strange

Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O'er triumph's hour-and is this all ?*

No more than this! What seem'd it now

First by that spring to stand?

* A remarkable description of feelings thus fluctuating from triumph to despondency, is given in Bruce's Abyssinian Travels. The buoyant exultation of his spirits on arriving at the source of the Nile, was almost immediately succeeded by a gloom, which he thus portrays:-" I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy."

A thousand streams of lovelier flow

Bathed his own mountain-land! Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track, Their wild, sweet voices, call'd him back.

They call'd him back to many a glade,
His childhood's haunt of play,

Where brightly through the beechen shade
Their waters glanced away;

They call'd him, with their sounding waves, Back to his father's hills and graves.

But, darkly mingling with the thought

Of each familiar scene,

Rose up a fearful vision, fraught

With all that lay between

The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom,
The whirling sands, the red simoom!

Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?

His alter'd heart within him died
With yearnings for his home!
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.

He wept ! The stars of Afric's heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,

E'en on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years!—

O Happiness! how far we flee

Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!

*

CASABIANCA.*

THE boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;

The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm-
A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child-like form.

The flames roll'd on-he would not go
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He call'd aloud :-" Say, father, say
If yet my task is done!"

He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

"Speak, father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"

And but the booming shots replied,

And fast the flames roll'd on.

Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,

And in his waving hair,

And look'd from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair;

And shouted but once more aloud,

66

My father! must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud, The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,

And stream'd above the gallant child
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder-sound—
The boy-oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strew'd the sea !—

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part ;
But the noblest thing which perish'd there
Was that young faithful heart!

THE DIAL OF FLOWERS.*

'Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours
As they floated in light away,

By the opening and the folding flowers,
That laugh to the summer's day.

Thus had each moment its own rich hue,
And its graceful cup and bell,

In whose colour'd vase might sleep the dew,
Like a pearl in an ocean-shell.

To such sweet signs might the time have flow'd
In a golden current on,

Ere from the garden, man's first abode,

The glorious guests were gone.

So might the days have been brightly told—
Those days of song and dreams—
When shepherds gather'd their flocks of old
By the blue Arcadian streams.

So in those isles of delight, that rest
Far off in a breezeless main,
Which many a bark, with a weary quest,
Has sought, but still in vain.

This dial was, I believe, formed by Linnæus, and marked the hours by the opening and closing, at regular intervals, of the flowers arranged in it.

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