He believes in the existence of this mysterious music, although not fortunate enough to have heard it himself; and thinks that it may be produced by currents of air issuing through the crevices.

NOTE 23.

Yet those deep southern shades oppress'd

My soul with stillness, like the calms that rest
On melancholy waves.

The same distinguished traveller frequently alludes to the extreme stillness of the air in the equatorial regions of the new continent, and particularly on the thickly wooded shores of the Oronoco. "In this neighbourhood," he says, 66 no breath of wind ever agitates the foliage."

LAYS OF MANY LANDS:

AND

OTHER POEMS.

THE following pieces may so far be considered a series, as each is intended to be commemorative of some national recollection, popular custom, or tradition. The idea was suggested by Herder's "Stimmen der Völker in Liedern;" the execution is, however, different, as the poems in his collection are chiefly translations.

:

LAYS OF MANY LANDS.

THE SWORD OF THE TOMB.

A NORTHERN LEGEND.

THE idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in "Starkother," a tragedy by the Danish poet Oehlenschläger. The sepulchral fire here alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes, is frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre.-See Oehlenschläger's Plays.

"VOICE of the gifted elder time!

Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme !
Speak! from the shades and the depths disclose,
How Sigurd may vanquish his mortal foes;
Voice of the buried past!

"Voice of the grave! 'tis the mighty hour,
When Night with her stars and dreams hath power,
And my step hath been soundless on the snows,

And the spell I have sung hath laid repose
On the billow and the blast."

Then the torrents of the North,
And the forest pines were still,
While a hollow chant came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.

"There shines no sun 'midst the hidden dead,
But where the day looks not the brave may tread;
There is heard no song, and no mead is pour'd,
But the warrior may come to the silent board,
In the shadow of the night.

"There is laid a sword in thy father's tomb,
And its edge is fraught with thy foeman's doom;
But soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might !"

Then died the solemn lay,
As a trumpet's music dies,
By the night-wind borne away

Through the wild and stormy skies.

The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast,
As on through the forest the warrior pass'd,—
Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old,
The dark place of visions and legends, told
By the fires of Northern pine.

The fir trees rock'd, and the frozen ground
Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound;
And it seem'd that the depths of those awful shades,
From the dreary gloom of their long arcades,
Gave warning, with voice and sign.

But the wind strange magic knows,
To call wild shape and tone

From the grey wood's tossing boughs,
When Night is on her throne.

The pines closed o'er him with deeper gloom,
As he took the path to the monarch's tomb;
The Pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright
With the arrowy streams of the Northern light,
But his road through dimness lay!

He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood,
The dark shrine stain'd with the victim's blood;
Nor paused, till the rock where a vaulted bed
Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead,
Arose on his midnight way.