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NATIONAL LYRICS, AND SONGS FOR MUSIC.

ΤΟ

MRS LAWRENCE

OF WAVERTREE HALL, HER FRIEND, AND THE SISTER OF HER FRIEND
COLONEL D'AGUILAR, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED IN REMEMBRANCE OF

MANY BRIGHTLY ASSOCIATED HOURS, BY FELICIA HEMANS.

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CHORUS.

Roll proudly on!-brave blood is with thee sweeping,

Pour'd out by sons of thine,

Where sword and spirit forth in joy were leaping, Like thee, victorious Rhine!

SINGLE VOICE.

Home! Home! Thy glad wave hath a tone of greeting,

Thy path is by my home,

Even now my children count the hours till meeting: O ransom'd ones! I come.

CHORUS.

Go tell the seas, that chain shall bind thee never! Sound on by hearth and shrine !

Sing through the hills that thou art free for ever— Lift up thy voice, O Rhine!

["I wish you could have heard Sir Walter Scott describe a glorious sight, which had been witnessed by a friend of his !the crossing of the Rhine, at Ehrenbreitstein, by the German army of Liberators on their victorious return from France. 'At the first gleam of the river,' he said, they all burst forth into the national chant, Am Rhein! Am Rhein !' They were two days passing over; and the rocks and the castle were ringing to the song the whole time-for each band renewed it while crossing; and even the Cossacks, with the clash and the clang, and the roll of their stormy war-music, catching the enthusiasm of the scene, swelled forth the chorus, Am Rhein! Am Rhein!'"-Manuscript letter.

This anecdote, (on which was founded Mrs Hemans's own "Rhine Song,") and the look and tone with which it was related, made an impression on her memory which nothing could efface. The very name of the "Father Rhine," the "exulting and abounding river," (how often would she quote that magnificent line of Lord Byron's!) had always worked upon her like a spell, conjuring up a thousand visions of romance and beauty; and Haydn's inspiring Rheinweinlied, with its fine, rich tide of flowing harmony, was one of the airs she most delighted in. "You are quite right," she wrote to a friend who had echoed her enthusiasm, "it was the description of that noble Rhine scene which interested me more than any part of Sir Walter's conversation; and I wished more that you could have heard it than all the high legends and solemn scenes of which we spoke that day."]

A SONG OF DELOS.

[The Island of Delos was considered of such peculiar sanctity by the ancients, that they did not allow it to be desecrated by the events of birth or death. In the following poem, a young priestess of Apollo is supposed to be conveyed from its shores during the last hours of a mortal sickness, and to bid the scenes of her youth farewell in a sudden flow of unpremeditated song.]

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A SONG was heard of old-a low, sweet song,
On the blue seas by Delos. From that isle,
The Sun-god's own domain, a gentle girl—
Gentle, yet all inspired of soul, of mien,
Lit with a life too perilously bright-
Was borne away to die. How beautiful
Seems this world to the dying!--but for her,
The child of beauty and of poesy,

And of soft Grecian skies-oh! who may dream
Of all that from her changeful eye flash'd forth,
Or glanced more quiveringly through starry tears,
As on her land's rich vision, fane o'er fane
Colour'd with loving light, she gazed her last,
Her young life's last, that hour! From her pale brow
And burning cheek she threw the ringlets back,
And bending forward, as the spirit sway'd
The reed-like form still to the shore beloved,
Breathed the swan-music of her wild farewell
O'er dancing waves :-"Oh, linger yet!" she cried,

"Oh, linger, linger on the oar!

Oh, pause upon the deep!

That I may gaze yet once, once more, Where floats the golden day o'er fane and steep! Never so brightly smiled mine own sweet shoreOh! linger, linger on the parting oar!

"I see the laurels fling back showers

Of soft light still on many a shrine; I see the path to haunts of flowers Through the dim olives lead its gleaming line; I hear a sound of flutes-a swell of songMine is too low to reach that joyous throng!

"Oh! linger, linger on the oar

Beneath my native sky!

Let my life part from that bright shore With day's last crimson-gazing let me die! Thou bark, glide slowly!-slowly should be borne The voyager that never shall return.

"A fatal gift hath been thy dower,
Lord of the Lyre! to me;

With song and wreath from bower to bower, Sisters went bounding like young Oreads free; While I, through long, lone, voiceless hours apart, Have lain and listen'd to my beating heart.

"Now, wasted by the inborn fire, I sink to early rest;

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