Thy praises still followed the steps of thy Lord,
And welcomed the torrent of blood;
Though tyranny sat on his crown,
And withered the nations afar,
Yet bright in thy view was that Despot's renown,
Till Fortune deserted his car;
Then, back from the Chieftain thou slunkest away—
The foremost to insult, the first to betray.
Forgot were the feats he had done,
The toils he had borne in thy cause;
Thou turnedst to worship a new rising sun,
And to waft other songs of applause;
But the storm was beginning to lour,-
Adversity clouded his beam;
Then honour and faith were the boast of an hour,
And loyalty's self but a dream;
To him thou hadst banished thy vows were restored,
And the first that had scoffed, were the first that adored.
What tumult thus burthens the air!
What throng thus encircles his throne?
"Tis the shout of delight;-'tis the millions that swear His sceptre shall rule them alone.
Reverses shall brighten their zeal;
Misfortune shall hallow his name;
And the world that pursues him shall mournfully feel
How quenchless the spirit and flame
That Frenchmen will breathe when their hearts are on For the Hero they love, and the Chief they admire.
Their hero has rushed to the field,
His laurels are covered with shade,
But where is the spirit that never should yield,
The loyalty never to fade!
In a moment desertion and guile
Abandoned him up to the foe;
The dastards that flourished and grew in his smile,
Forsook and renounced him in wo;
And the millions that swore they would perish to save Behold him a fugitive, captive and slave.
The savage, all wild in his glen,
Is nobler and better than thou! Thou standest a wonder, a marvel to men! Such perfidy blackens thy brow. If thou wert the place of my birth, At once from thy arms would I sever; I'd fly to the uttermost ends of the earth, And quiet thee for ever and ever; And thinking of thee in my long after-years, Should but kindle my blushes and waken my tears.
Oh, shame to thee, land of the Gaul!
Oh, shame to thy children and thee!
Unwise in thy glory and base in thy fall,
How wretched thy portion shall be!
Derision shall strike thee forlorn,
A mockery that never shall die:
The curses of Hate and the hisses of Scorn
Shall burthen the winds of thy sky;
And proud o'er thy ruin for ever be hurled
The laughter of Triumph, the jeers of the World.
Examiner.
Do any thing but love; or, if thou lovest,
And art a Woman, hide thy love from him
Whom thou dost worship; never let him know
How dear he is; flit like a bird before him,—
Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower;
But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird
When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
And perish in forgetfulness.
THE wind was wild, the sea was dark,
The lightning flashed above;-the bark
That anchored in the rocky bay,
Bathed its top pennon in the spray :
Hollow and gloomy as the grave,
Rolled to the shore the mighty wave;
Then gathering wild, with thundering sweep,
Flashed its white foam-sheet up the steep:-
The sight was terror-but behind
Shouts of pursuit were on the wind;
Trumpet, and yell, and clash of shield,
Told where the human hunters wheeled
Through the last valley's forest glen :
Where, Bertha, was thy courage then?
She cheered her warrior, though his side
Still with the gushing blood was dyed;
Up the rude mountain-path, her hand
Sustained his arm, and dragged his brand,
Nor shrank, nor sighed; and when his tread
Paused on the promontory's head,
She smiled, although her lip was pale
As the torn silver of his mail.
All there was still.-The shouts had past,
Sunk in the rushings of the blast;
Below, the vapour's dark gray screen,
Shut out from view the long ravine;
Then swept the circle of the hill,
Like billows round an ocean isle.
The rays the parting sunbeam flung,
In white, cold radiance on them hung;
They stood upon that lonely brow,
Like spirits loosed from human wo,
And pausing, ere they spread the plume
Above that waste of storm and gloom.
To linger there was death,-but there
Was that, which master's death,-Despair,
And even Despair's high master,—Love.
Her heart was like her form, above
The storms, the stormier thoughts that Earth
Makes the dread privilege of birth.
Passion's wild flame was past, but he
Who pined before her burning eye,
The numbered beatings of whose heart
Told, on that summit they must part-
He was life, soul, and world to her:
Beside him, what had she to fear?
Life had for her nor calm nor storm
While she stood gazing on that form,
And clasped his hand, though lost and lone,-
His dying hand,—but all her own.
She knelt beside him, on her knee
She raised his wan cheek silently:
She spoke not, sighed not; to his breast,
Her own, scarce living now, was prest,
And felt,-if where the senses reel,
O'er wrought-o'er flooded-we can feel-
The thoughts, that when they cease to be,
Leave life one vacant misery.-
She kissed his chilling lip, and bore
The look, that told her all was o'er.
The echoes of pursuit again
Rolled on ;—she gazed upon the main ;
Then seemed the mountain's haughty steep
Too humble for her desperate leap;
Then seemed the broad and bursting wave
Too calm, too shallow, for her grave.
She turned her to the dead:-his brow
Once more she gave her kiss of wo;
She gave his cheek one bitter tear,—
The last she had for passion here-
Then to the steep!-Away! Away!
To the whirlwind's roar, and the dash of the spray. New Times.
It is a tale that many songs have told,
And old, if tale of love can e'er be old;
Yet dear to me this lingering o'er the fate
Of two so young, so true, so passionate!
And thou, the idol of my harp, the Soul
Of poetry, to me my hope, my whole
Happiness of existence, there will be
Some gentlest tones that I have caught from thee!
Will not each heart-pulse vibrate, as I tell
of faith even unto death unchangeable!
LEANDER and his HERO! They should be,
When youthful lovers talk of constancy,
Invoked. Oh, for one breath of softest song,
Such as on summer evenings floats along,
To murmur low their history! Every word
That whispers of them, should be like those heard
At moonlight casements, when the awakened maid
Sighs her soft answer to the serenade.
She stood beside the altar, like the Queen,
The bright-eyed Queen that she was worshipping.
Her hair was bound with roses, which did fling
A perfume round, for she that morn had been
To gather roses, that were clustering now
Amid the shadowy curls upon her brow.
One of the loveliest daughters of thy land,
Divinest Greece! that taught the painter's hand
To give eternity to loveliness;
One of those dark-eyed maids, to whom belong
The glory and the beauty of each song
Thy poets breathed, for it was theirs to bless
With life the pencil and the lyre's soft dreams,
Giving reality to visioned gleams
Of bright divinities. Amid the crowd
That in the presence of young HERO bowed,
Was one who knelt with fond idolatry,
As if in homage to some deity,
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