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But ages roll'd away; and England stood,
With her proud banner streaming o'er the flood;
And with a lofty calmness in her eye,
And regal in collected majesty,

To breast the storm of battle. Every breeze
Bore sounds of triumph o'er her own blue seas;
And other lands, redeem'd and joyous, drank
The life-blood of her heroes, as they sank

On the red fields they won; whose wild flowers wave
Now in luxuriant beauty, o'er their grave.

'Twas then the captives of Britannia's war,
Here for their lovely southern climes afar
In bondage pined: the spell-deluded throng
Dragg'd at ambition's chariot-wheels so long
To die because a despot could not clasp
A sceptre, fitted to his boundless grasp !

Yes! they whose march had rock'd the ancient thrones And temples of the world; the deepening tones

Of whose advancing trumpet, from repose

Had startled nations, wakening to their woes;

Were prisoners here.-And there were some whose dreams
Were of sweet homes, by chainless mountain-streams,
And of the vine-clad hills, and many a strain,

And festal melody of Loire or Seine,

And of those mothers who had watch'd and wept,
When on the field the unshelter'd conscript slept,
Bathed with the midnight dews. And some were
Of sterner spirits, harden'd by despair ;
Who, in their dark imaginings, again
Fired the rich palace and the stately fane,

Drank in the victim's shriek, as music's breath,

And lived o'er scenes, the festivals of death!

And there was mirth, too!-strange and savage mirth,

More fearful far than all the woes of earth!

The laughter of cold hearts, and scoffs that spring
From minds for which there is no sacred thing,
And transient bursts of fierce, exulting glee-
The lightning's flash upon its blasted tree!

But still, howe'er the soul's disguise was worn,
If, from wild revelry, or haughty scorn,
Or buoyant hope, it won an outward show,
Slight was the mask, and all beneath it-woe.

Yet, was this all?-amidst the dungeon-gloom,

The void, the stillness, of the captive's doom,

Were there no deeper thoughts -and that dark power,
To whom guilt owes one late but dreadful hour,
The mighty debt through years of crime delay'd,
But, as the grave's, inevitably paid;

Came he not thither, in his burning force,

The lord, the tamer of dark souls-remorse ?

Yes! as the night calls forth from sea and sky,
From breeze and wood, a solemn harmony,
Lost, when the swift, triumphant wheels of day,
In light and sound, are hurrying on their way:
Thus, from the deep recesses of the heart,
The voice which sleeps, but never dies, might start,
Call'd up by solitude, each nerve to thrill
"With accents heard not, save when all is still!

The voice, inaudible when havoc's train
Crush'd the red vintage of devoted Spain;
Mute, when sierras to the war-whoop rung,
And the broad light of conflagration sprung
From the south's marble cities;-hush'd 'midst cries
That told the heavens of mortal agonies;

But gathering silent strength, to wake at last
In concentrated thunders of the past!

And there, perchance, some long-bewilder'd mind,
Torn from its lowly sphere, its path confined
Of village duties, in the Alpine glen,

Where nature cast its lot, 'midst peasant-men;
Drawn to that vortex, whose fierce ruler blent
The earthquake power of each wild element,
To lend the tide, which bore his throne on high,
One impulse more of desperate energy;
Might-when the billow's awful rush was o'er,
Which toss'd its wreck upon the storm-beat shore,
Won from its wand'rings past, by suffering tried,
Search'd by remorse, by anguish purified-
Have fix'd, at length, its troubled hopes and fears,
On the far world, seen brightest through our tears,
And, in that hour of triumph or despair,

Whose secrets all must learn but none declare,
When of the things to come, a deeper sense
Fills the dim eye of trembling penitence,
Have turn'd to Him whose bow is in the cloud,
Around life's limits gathering, as a shroud ;-
The fearful mysteries of the heart who knows,
And, by the tempest, calls it to repose!

Who visited that deathbed?-Who can tell
Its brief sad tale, on which the soul might dwell,

And learn immorta! lessons ?-who beheld

The struggling hope, by shame, by doubt repell'd—
The agony of prayer-the bursting tears-
The dark remembrances of guilty years,

Crowding upon the spirit in their might?

He, through the storm who look'd, and there was light.

That scene is closed!-that wild, tumultuous breast,

With all its pangs and passions, is at rest!

He too, is fallen, the master-power of strife,

Who woke those passions to delirious life;

And days, prepared a brighter course to run,
Unfold their buoyant pinions to the sun!

It is a glorious hour when Spring goes forth
O'er the bleak mountains of the shadowy north,
And with one radiant glance, one magic breath,
Wakes all things lovely from the sleep of death;
While the glad voices of a thousand streams,
Bursting their bondage, triumph in her beams!

But Peace hath nobler changes! O'er the mind,
The warm and living spirit of mankind,
Her influence breathes, and bids the blighted heart,
To life and hope from desolation start!

She, with a look, dissolves the captive's chain,
Peopling with beauty widow'd homes again;
Around the mother, in her closing years,

Gathering her sons once more, and from the tears
Of the dim past, but winning purer light,
To make the present more serenely bright.

Nor rests that influence here. From clime to clime, In silence gliding with the stream of time,

Still doth it spread borne onwards, as a breeze
With healing on its wings, o'er isles and seas:

And, as Heaven's breath call'd forth, with genial power,
From the dry wand, the almond's living flower;
So doth its deep-felt charm in secret move
The coldest heart to gentle deeds of love;
While round its pathway nature softly glows,
And the wide desert blossoms as the rose.

Yes! let the waste lift up the exulting voice!
Let the far-echoing solitude rejoice!

And thou, lone moor! where no blithe reaper's song
E'er lightly sped the summer hours along,

Bid thy wild rivers, from each mountain-source,
Rushing in joy, make music on their course!
Thou, whose sole records of existence mark
The scene of barbarous rites, in ages dark,
And of some nameless combat: hope's bright eye
Beams o'er thee in the light of prophecy !
Yet shalt thou smile, by busy culture drest,
And the rich harvest wave upon thy breast!
Yet shall thy cottage smoke, at dewy morn,
Rise, in blue wreaths, above the flowering thorn,
And, 'midst thy hamlet shades, the embosom'd spire
Catch from deep-kindling heavens their earliest fire.

Thee too that hour shall bless, the balmy close
Of labor's day, the herald of repose,

Which gathers hearts in peace; while social mirth
Basks in the blaze of each free village hearth;

While peasant-songs are on the joyous gales,

And merry England's voice floats up from all her vales.

Yet are there sweeter sounds; and thou shalt hear
Such as to Heaven's immortal host are dear.
Oh! if there still be melody on earth,

Worthy the sacred bowers where man drew birth
When angel-steps their paths rejoicing trode,
And the air trembled with the breath of God;
It lives in those soft accents, to the sky7
Borne from the lips of stainless infancy,

When holy strains, from life's pure fount which sprung,
Breathed with deep reverence, falter on its tongue.

And such shall be thy music, when the cells,
Where Guilt, the child of hopeless Misery, dwells,
(And, to wild strength by desperation wrought,
In silence broods o'er many a fearful thought,)
Resound to pity's voice; and childhood thence,
Ere the cold blight hath reached its innocence,
Ere that soft rose-bloom of the soul be fled,
Which vice but breathes on, and its hues are dead,
Shall at the call press forward, to be made
A glorious offering, meet for him who said,
Mercy, not sacrifice!" and when, of old,
Clouds of rich incense from his altars roll'd,
Dispersed the smoke of perfumes, and laid bare
The heart's deep folds, to read its homage there!

When some crown'd conqueror, o'er a trampled world His banner, shadowing nations, hath unfurl'd,

And, like those visitations which deform
Nature for centuries, hath made the storm
His pathway to dominion's lonely sphere,
Silence behind-before him, flight and fear;
When kingdoms rock beneath his rushing wheels,
Till each fair isle the mighty impulse feels,
And earth is moulded but by one proud will,
And sceptred realms wear fetters, and are still;
Shall the free soul of song bow down to pay,
The earthquake homage on its baleful way'
Shall the glad harp send up exulting strains,
O'er burning cities and forsaken plains
And shall no harmony of softer close
Attend the stream of mercy as it flows,
And, mingling with the murmur of its wave,
Bless the green shores its gentle currents lave?

Oh! there are loftier themes, for him whose eyes
Have search'd the depths of life's realities,

Than the red battle, or the trophied car,

Wheeling the monarch-victor fast and far;

There are more noble strains than those which swell
The triumphs, ruin may suffice to tell!

Ye prophet-bards, who sat in elder days
Beneath the palms of Judah! Ye whose lays

With torrent rapture, from their source on high,
Burst in the strength of immortality!

Oh! not alone, those haunted groves among,
Of conquering hosts, of empires crush'd, ye sung,
But of that spirit, destined to explore

With the bright day-spring every distant shore,
To dry the tear, to bind the broken reed,
To make the home of peace in hearts that bleed;
With beams of hope to pierce the dungeon's gloom,
And pour eternal star-light o'er the tomb.

And bless'd and hallow'd be its haunts! for there
Hath man's high soul been rescued from despair!
There hath the immortal spark for Heaven been nursed;
There from the rock the springs of life have burst,
Quenchless and pure! and holy thoughts, that rise,
Warm from the source of human sympathies
Where'er its path of radiance may be traced,
Shall find their temples in the silent waste.

NOTES.

Note 1, page 583, line 27.

Still rise the cairns of yore, all rudely piled.

In some parts of Dartmoor, the surface is thickly strewed with stones, which, in many instances, appear to have been collected into piles, on the tops of prominent hillocks, as if in imitation of the natural Tors. The Stone- barrows of Dartmoor resemble the cairns of the Cheviot and Grampian hills, and those in Cornwall.-See COOKE's Topographical Survey of Devonshire.

Note 2, page 584, line 5.

And the rude arrow's barb remain to tell.

Flint arrow-heads have occasionally been found upon Dartmoor.
Note 3, page 584, line 8.

The chieftain's power-they had no bard, and died.
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona

Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles

Urgentur, ignotique longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. -Horace.

"They had no poet, and they died."-POPE's Translation.

Note 4, page 584, line 11.

There stands an altar of unsculptured stone.

On the east of Dartmoor are some Druidical remains, one of which is a Cromlech, whose three rough pillars of granite support a pon derous table-stone, and form a kind of large irregular tripod.

Note 5, page 584, line 24.

Bade the red cairn-fires blaze from every height.

In some of the Druid festivals, fires were lighted on all the cairns

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