Note 17, page 502, line 11.

The "Rio verde."

"Rio verde, rio verde," the popular Spanish romance, known to the English reader in Percy's translation.

"Gentle river, gentle river,

Lo, thy streams are stain'd with gore!
Many a brave and noble captain

Floats along thy willow'd shore," &c. &c.

Note 18, page 503, line 9.

Into the sounding waves!

De Humboldt, in describing the burial of a young Asturian at sea, mentions the entreaty of the officiating priest, that the body, which had been brought upon deck during the night, might not be committed to the waves until after sunrise, in order to pay it the last rites according to the usage of the Romish Church.

Note 19, page 503, line 34.

Oh! art thou not where there is no more sea?

And there was no more sea.-Rev. chap. xxi. v. 1.

Note 20, page 505, line 4.

Where our frail bridge hath quiver'd 'midst the storm.

The bridges over many deep chasms amongst the Andes are pendulous, and formed only of the fibres of equinoctial plants.

Their

tremulous motion has afforded a striking image to one of the stanzas in Gertrude of Wyoming.

"Anon some wilder portraiture he draws,

Of nature's savage glories he would speak;
The loneliness of earth, that overawes,
Where, resting by the tomb of old Cacique,
The lama-driver, on Peruvia's peak,

Nor voice nor living motion marks around

But storks that to the boundless forest shriek,

Or wild-cane arch, high flung o'er gulf profound,

That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound."

Note 21, page 505, line 12.

And then his play

Through the wide Llanos cheer'd again our way.
Llanos, or savannahs, the great plains in South America.

Note 22, page 505, line 14.

And by the mighty Oronoco stream.

On whose lone margin we have heard at morn,

From the mysterious rocks the sunrise-music borne

De Humboldt speaks of these rocks on the shores of the Oronoco. Travellers have heard from time to time subterraneous sounds proceed from them at sunrise, resembling those of an organ. 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, page 505, line 21.

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 neighborhood," he says," no breath of wind ever agitates the foliage."

CRITICAL ANNOTATIONS.

ON

"THE FOREST SANCTUARY.'

"Mrs. Hemans may be considered as the representative of a new school of poetry, or to speak more precisely, her poetry discovers characteristics of the highest kind, which belong almost exclusively to that of latter times, and have been the result of the gradual ad vancement, and especially the moral progress of mankind. It is only when man, under the influence of true religion, feels himself connected with whatever is infinite, that his affections and powers are fully developed. The poetry of an immortal being must be of a different character from that of an earthly being. But, in recurring to the classic poets of antiquity, we find that in their conceptions the element of religious faith was wanting. Their mythology was to them no object of sober belief; and, had it been so, was adapted not to produce but to annihilate devotion. They had no thought of regarding the universe as created, animated, and ruled, by God's all-powerful and omniscent goodness."-PROFESSOR NORTON, in Christian Examiner.

"We will now say a few words of The Forest Sanctuary; but it so abounds with beauty, is so highly finished, and animated by so generous a spirit of moral heroism, that we can do no justice to our views of it in the narrow space which our limits allow us. A Spanish Protestant flies from persecution at home to religious liberty in America. He has imbibed the spirit of our own fathers, and his mental struggles are described in verses, with which the descendants of the pilgrims must know how to sympathize. We dare not enter on an analysis. From one scene at sea, in the second part, we will make a few extracts. The exile is attended by his wife and child; but his wife remains true to the faith of her fathers.

"Ora pro nobis, Mater! what a spell
Was in those notes," &c.

"But we must cease making extracts, for we could not transfer all that is beautiful in the poem without transferring the whole."North American Review for April 1827.

"If taste and elegance be titles to enduring fame, we might venture securely to promise that rich boon to the author before us; who adds to those great merits a tenderness and loftiness of feeling, and an ethereal purity of sentiment, which could only emanate from the soul of a woman. She must beware of becoming too voluminous; and must not venture again on any thing so long as The Forest Sanctuary. But if the next generation inherits our taste for short poems, we are persuaded it will not readily allow her to be forgotten. For we do not hesitate to say, that she is, beyond all comparison, the most touching and accomplished writer of occasional verses that our literature has yet to boast of."-LORD JEFFREY, in Edinburgh Review, October 1829.

LAYS OF MANY LANDS.

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

MOORISH BRIDAL SONG.

["It is a custom among the Moors, that a female who dies unmarried is clothed for interment in wedding apparel, and the bridalsong is sung over her remains before they are borne from her home."-See the Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence in Tripoli, by the Sister-in-law of Mr. Tully.]

THE citron-groves their fruit and flowers were strewing
Around a Moorish palace, while the sigh

Of low sweet summer-winds, the branches wooing
With music through their shadowy bowers went by ;
Music and voices, from the marble halls,

Through the leaves gleaming, and the fountain-falls.

A song of joy, a bridal-song came swelling,

To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,
And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,

Bright lamps, and dancing steps, and gem-crown'd maids
And thus it flow'd; yet something in the lay

Belong'd to sadness, as it died away.

The bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling

To leave the chamber of her infant years;

Kind voices from a distant home are calling;

She comes like day-spring-she hath done with tears;
Now must her dark eye shine on other flowers,
Her soft smile gladden other hearts than ours!-

Pour the rich odours round!

"We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing;
Love still goes with her from her place of birth;
Deep, silent joy within her soul is springing,
Though in her glance the light no more is mirth!
Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years;

Her sisters weep-but she hath done with tears!—

Now may the timbrel sound!"

Know'st thou for whom they sang the bridal numbers?—

One, whose rich tresses were to wave no more!

One, whose pale cheek soft winds, nor gentle slumbers,

Nor Love's own sigh, to rose-tints might restore!

Her graceful ringlets o'er a bier were spread.Weep for the young, the beautiful, the dead!

THE BIRD'S RELEASE.

"The Indians of Bengal and of the coast of Malabar bring cages filled with birds to the graves of their friends, over which they set the birds at liberty. This custom is alluded to in the description of Virginia's funeral.-See Paul and Virginia.]

Go forth, for she is gone!

With the golden light of her wavy hair,
She is gone to the fields of the viewless air;
She hath left her dwelling lone!

Her voice hath pass'd away!

It hath pass'd away like a summer breeze,
When it leaves the hills for the far blue seas,
Where we may not trace its way.

Go forth, and like her be free!
With thy radiant wing, and thy glancing eye,
Thou hast all the range of the sunny sky,
And what is our grief to thee?

Is it aught even to her we mourn?

Doth she look on the tears by her kindred shed?
Doth she rest with the flowers o'er her gentle head,
Or float, on the light wind borne ?

We know not-but she is gone!

Her step from the dance, her voice from the song,
And the smile of her eye from the festal throng;
She hath left her dwelling lone!

When the waves at sunset shine,

We may hear thy voice amidst thousands more,
In the scented woods of our glowing shore;
But we shall not know 'tis thine!

Even so with the loved one flown!
Her smile in the starlight may wander by,
Her breath may be near in the wind's low sigh,
Around us--but all unknown.

Go forth, we have loosed thy chain!

We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers
Which the bright day rears in our eastern bowers;
But thou will not be lured again.

Even thus may the summer pour

All fragrant things on the land's green breast,
And the glorious earth like a bride be dress'd,
But it wins her back no more!

THE SWORD OF THE TOMB.

A NORTHERN LEGEND.

[The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in Starkother, a tra gedy by the Danish poet Ochlenschlager. 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 ОCHLENSCHLAGER'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 sepulchrai 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.