And cold the wanderer's heart must be,
That holds no converse there with thee!
Yet, Scotland! to thy champion's shade,
Still are thy grateful rites delay'd;
From lands of old renown, o'erspread
With proud memorials of the dead,
The trophied urn, the breathing bust,
The pillar guarding noble dust,
The shrine where art and genius high
Have labored for eternity-

The stranger comes-his eye explores
The wilds of thy majestic shores,
Yet vainly seeks one votive stone,
Raised to the hero all thine own.

Land of bright deeds and minstrel-lore }
Withhold that guerdon now no more.
On some bold height of awful form,
Stern eyrie of the cloud and storm,
Sublimely mingling with the skies,
Bid the proud Cenotaph arise;
Not to record the name that thrills
Thy soul, the watch-word of thy hills;
Not to assert, with needless claim,
The bright for ever of its fame;
But in the ages yet untold,

When ours shall be the days of old,

To rouse high hearts and speak thy pride
In him, for thee who lived and died.

These verses were thus critically noticed at the time of publica tion:

"Our readers will remember, that, about a year ago, a truly patrio tic person signified his intention of giving £1000 towards the erection of a monument to Sir William Wallace At the same time he proposed a prize of £50 to the best poem on the following subject: The meeting of Wallace and Bruce on the Banks of the Carron.' The prize was lately adjudged to Mrs. Hemans, whose poetical genius has been for some years well known to the public When we mentioned in the tent, that Mrs. Hemans had authorized the judges who awarded to her the prize, to send her poem to us, it is needless to say with what enthusiasm the proposal of reading it aloud was received on all sides; and at its conclusion thunders of applause crowned the genius of the fair poet. Scotland has her Baillie-Ireland her Tighe-England her Hemans.”—Blackwood's Magazine, vol. v., Sept. 1819.

"Mrs. Hemans so soon again!-and with a palm in her hand' We welcome her cordially, and rejoice to find the high opinion of her genius which we iately expressed so unequivocally confirmed. "On this animating theme (the meeting of Wallace and Bruce,) several of the competitors, we understand, were of the other side of the Tweed-a circumstance, we learn, which was known from the

references before the prizes were determined. Mrs. Hemans's was the first prize, against fifty-seven competitors. That a Scottish prize, for a poem on a subjct purely, proudly Scottish, has been adjudged to an English candidate, is a proof at once of the perfect fairness of the award, and of the merit of the poem. It further demonstrates the disappearance of those jealousies, which, not a hundred years ago, would have denied to such a candidate any thing like a fair chance with a native-if we can suppose any poet in the south then dreaming of making the trial, or viewing Wallace in any other light than that of an enemy, and a rebel against the paramount supremacy of England. We delight in every gleam of high feeling which warms the two nations alike, and ripens yet more that confidence and sympathy which bind them together in one great family."Edinburgh Monthly Review, vol. ii.

* We have learned that two of the prizes were adjudged to English writers.

THE ABENCERRAGE.

[The events with which the following tale is interwoven, are related in the Historia de las Guerras Civiles de Granada. They occurred in the reign of Abo Abdeli, or Abdali, the last Moorish king of that city, called by the Spaniards El Rey Chico. The conquest of Granada, by Ferdinand and Isabella, is said by some historians to have been greatly facilitated by the Abencerrages, whose defection was the result of the repeated injuries they had received from the king, at the instigation of the Zegris. One of the most beautiful Halls of the Alhambra is pointed out as the scene where so many of the former celebrated tribe were massacred; and it still retains their name, being called the "Sala de los Abencerrages." Many of the most interesting old Spanish ballads relate to the events of this chivalrous and romantic period. i

"Le Maure ne se venge pas parce que sa colère dure encore, mais parce que la vengeance seule peut écarter de sa tête le poids d'infamie dont il est accablé. Il se venge, parce qu'à ses yeux il n'y a qu'une âme basse qui puisse pardonner les affronts; et il nourrit sa rancune, parce que s'il la sentoit s'éteindre, il croiroit avec elle, avoir perdu une vertu." Sismondi.

LONELY and still are now thy marble halls,

Thou fair Alhambra! there the feast is o'er; And with the murmur of thy fountain-falls, Blend the wild tones of minstrelsy no more.

Hush'd are the voices, that in years gone by,

Have mourn'd, exulted, menaced, through thy towers,
Within thy pillar'd courts the grass waves high,
And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.

Unheeded there the flowering myrtle blows,

Through tall arcades unmark'd the sunbeam smiles,
And many a tint of soften'd brilliance throws
O'er fretted walls and shining peristyles.

And well might Fancy deem thy fabrics lone,
So vast, so silent, and so wildly fair,
Some charm'd abode of beings all unknown,
Powerful and viewless, children of the air.

For there no footstep treads th' enchanted ground,
There not a sound the deep repose pervades,

32

Save winds and founts, diffusing freshness round,
Through the light domes and graceful colonnades.

Far other tones have swell'd those courts along,
In days romance yet fondly loves to trace;
The clash of arms, the voice of choral song,
The revels, combats, of a vanish'd race.

And yet awhile, at Fancy's potent call,
Shall rise that race, the chivalrous, the bold;
Peopling once more each fair, forsaken hall,
With stately forms, the knights and chiefs of old.

-The sun declines-upon Nevada's height
There dwells a mellow flush of rosy light;
Each soaring pinnacle of mountain snow
Smiles in the richness of that parting glow
And Darro's wave reflects each passing dye
That melts and mingles in th' empurpled sky.
Fragrance, exhaled from rose and citron bower,
Blends with the dewy freshness of the hour;
Hush'd are the winds, and Nature seems to sleep
In light and stillness; wood, and tower, and steep,
Are dyed with tints of glory, only given
To the rich evening of a southern heaven;
Tints of the sun, whose bright farewell is fraught
With all that art hath dreamt, but never caught.
Yes, Nature sleeps; but not with her at rest

The fiery passions of the human breast.

Hark! from th' Alhambra's towers what stormy sound, Each moment deepening, wildly swells around?

Those are no tumults of a festal throng,

Not the light zambra,1 nor the choral song:
The combat rages-'tis the shout of war,
"Tis the loud clash of shield and scymitar.
Within the hall of Lions,2 where the rays
Of eve, yet lingering, on the fountain blaze;
There, girt and guarded by his Zegri bands,
And stern in wrath, the Moorish monarch stands:
There the strife centres-swords around him wave
There bleed the fallen, there contend the brave,
While echoing domes return the battle-cry,
Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!"
And onward rushing, and prevailing still,
Court, hall, and tower, the fierce avengers fill.

'But first and bravest of that gallant train,
Where foes are mightiest, charging ne'er in vain;
In his red hand the sabre glancing bright,
His dark eye flashing with a fiercer light,
Ardent, untired, scarce conscious that he bleeds,
His Aben-Zurrahs there young Hamet leads;

While swells his voice that wild acclaim on high,
Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!”

Yes, trace the footsteps of the warrior's wrath,
By helm and corslet shatter'd in his path;
And by the thickest harvest of the slain,
And by the marble's deepest crimson stain:
Search through the serried fight, where loudest cries
From triumph, anguish, or despair, arise;

And brightest where the shivering falchions glare,
And where the ground is reddest-he is there.
Yes, that young arm, amidst the Zegri host,
Hath well avenged a sire, a brother, lost.

They perish'd-not as heroes should have died,
On the red field, in victory's hour of pride,
In all the glow and sunshine of their fame,
And proudly smiling as the death-pang came:
Oh? had they thus expired, a warrior's tear
Had flowed, almost in triumph, o'er their bier.
For thus alone the brave should weep for those
Who brightly pass in glory to repose.
-Not such their fate-a tyrant's stern command
Doom'd them to fall by some ignoble hand,
As, with the flower of all their high-born race,
Summon'd Abdallah's royal feast to grace,
Fearless in heart, no dream of danger nigh,
They sought the banquet's gilded hall-to die.
Betray'd, unarm'd, they fell-the fountain wave
Flow'd crimson with the life-blood of the brave,
Till far the fearful tidings of their fate

Through the wide city rung from gate to gate,
And of that lineage each surviving son

Rush'd to the scene where vengeance might be won.

For this young Hamet mingles in the strife,
Leader of battle, prodigal of life,
Urging his followers, till their foes, beset,
Stand faint and breathless, but undaunted yet.
Brave Aben-Zurrahs, on! one effort more,
Yours is the triumph, and the conflict o'er.

But, lo! descending o'er the darken'd hall,
The twilight-shadows fast and deeply fall,

Nor yet the strife hath ceased-though scarce they know, Through that thick gloom, the brother from the foe;

Till the moon rises with her cloudless ray,

The peaceful moon, and gives them light to slay.

Where lurks Abdallah ?-'midst his yielding train,

They seek the guilty monarch, but in vain.