"But she was a poor parish girl,
Who came up from the west;
From service hard she ran away,
And at that house in evil day
Was taken into rest.

"A man of a bad name was he;
An evil life he led;

Passion made his dark face turn white;
And his grey eyes were large and light,
And in anger they grew red.

"The man was bad, the mother worse,
Bad fruit of an evil stem!

"Twould make your hair to stand on end, If I should tell to you, my friend,

The things that were told of them!

"This poor girl she had served with them Some half a year or more,

When she was found hung up one day,
Stiff as a corpse, and cold as clay,
Behind the stable door.

"It is a wild and lonesome place;

No hut or house is near;

Should one meet a murderer there alone, "Twere vain to scream, and the dying groan Could never reach mortal ear.

"And there were strange reports about;
But still the coroner found

That she by her own hand had died,
And should buried be by the wayside,
And not in Christian ground.

"They carried her upon a board

In the clothes in which she died;
We saw the cap blown off her head;
Her face was of a dark, dark red,
Her eyes were starting wide.

"They laid her where these four roads meet,

Here in this very place;

The earth upon her corpse was prest;

This post was driv'n into her breast,

And a stone is on her face."

SOUTHEY.

123. HYMN OF THE HEBREW MAID.

WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,

WH

Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonish'd lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands
Return'd the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,

And trump and timbrel answer'd keen;
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze;

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know Thy ways,

And Thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.

And oh! when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn:
But Thou hast said, "The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

124. EVE'S LAMENT ON HER EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

0

[From PARADISE LOST.]

UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of gods? where I had hoped to spend, Quiet though sad, the respite of that day

That must be mortal to us both.

O flowers,

That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation, and my last

At eve, which I bred up with tender hand,
From the first op'ning bud, and gave ye names!

Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet! from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits?

Less

MILTON.

Το

125. NEWSPAPERS.

[From THE NEWSPAPER.]

these all readers turn, and they can look Pleased on a paper, who abhor a book; Those who ne'er deign'd their Bible to peruse, Would think it hard to be denied their news! Sinners and saints, the wisest with the weak, Here mingle tastes, and one amusement seek; This, like the public inn, provides a treat, Where each promiscuous guest sits down to eat; And such this mental food, as we may call, Something to all men, and to some men all.

Oh! in what rare productions shall we trace Such various subjects in so small a space! As the first ship upon the waters bore Incongruous kinds who never met before; Or as some curious virtuoso joins

In one small room, moths, minerals, and coins,

Birds, beasts, and fishes; nor refuses place
To serpents, toads, and all the reptile-race; -
So here, compress'd within a single sheet,
Great things and small, the mean and mighty meet.
'Tis this which makes all Europe's business known,
Yet here a private man may place his own;
And where he reads of Lords and Commons, he
May tell their honours that he sells rappee.

Lo! when it comes before the cheerful fire,
Damps from the press in smoky curls aspire;
Then eager every eye surveys
the part
That brings its favourite subject to the heart.
Grave politicians look for facts alone,
And gravely add conjectures of their own:
The sprightly nymph, who never broke her rest
For tottering crowns, or mighty lands opprest,
Finds broils and battles, but neglects them all
For songs and suits, a birthday or a ball:
The keen warm man o'erlooks each idle tale
For "money wanted," and "estates on sale:"
While some with equal minds to all attend,
Pleased with each part, and grieved to find an end

126.

HOME.

CRABBE.

[From THE TRAVELLER.]

BUT where to find that happiest spot below,

Who can direct, when all pretend to know?

The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,-