The horrible example. Touched by thine,
The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold
Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer,
Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble
Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed
And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame
Blasted before his own foul calumnies,

Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold
His conscience to preserve a worthless life,
Even while he hugs himself on his escape,
Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length,
Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time
For parley-nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.
Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long
Ere his last hour. And when the reveller,
Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on,
And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life
Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal,
And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye,

And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand
Shows to the faint of spirit the right path,
And he is warned, and fears to step aside.
Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime
Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand

Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully
Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafis
Drink up the ebbing spirit—then the hard

Of heart and violent of hand restores

The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.

Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck
The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed,

Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length,
And give it up; the felon's latest breath

Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime

The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears,
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged

To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make
Thy penitent victim utter to the air

The dark conspiracy that strikes at life,

And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour

Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.

Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee,

Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth
Had crushed the weak for ever. Schooled in guile
For ages, while each passing year had brought
Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world.
With their abominations; while its tribes,
Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled,
Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice
Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs
Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn:

But thou, the great reformer of the world,

Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud

In their green pupilage, their lore half learned-
Ere guilt had quite o'errun the simple heart
God gave them at their birth, and blotted out

His image. Thou dost mark them flushed with hope,
As on the threshold of their vast designs

Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down.

Alas! I little thought that the stern power
Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus
Before the strain was ended. It must cease-
For he is in his grave who taught my youth
The art of verse, and in the bud of life
Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off
Untimely! when thy reason in its strength,
Ripened by years of toil and studious search,
And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught
Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days,
And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth
Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes

And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill
Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale
When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou
Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have
To offer at thy grave-this-and the hope

To copy thy example, and to leave

A name of which the wretched shall not think
As of an enemy's, whom they forgive

As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou
Whose early guidance trained my infant steps-
Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep
Of death is over, and a happier life

Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.

Now thou art not-and yet the men whose guilt Has wearied Heaven for vengeance—he who bears False witness he who takes the orphan's bread, And robs the widow-he who spreads abroad Polluted hands of mockery of prayer, Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look On what is written, yet I blot not out The desultory numbers-let them stand, The record of an idle revery.

THE MASSACRE AT SCIO.

WEEP not for Scio's children slain;

Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed, Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain

For vengeance on the murderer's head.

Though high the warm red torrent ran
Between the flames that lit the sky,
Yet, for each drop, an armed man

Shall rise, to free the land, or die.

And for each corpse, that in the sea Was thrown, to feast the scaly herds,

A hundred of the foe shall be

A banquet for the mountain birds.

Stern rites and sad, shall Greece ordain To keep that day, along her shore, Till the last link of slavery's chain

Is shivered, to be worn no more.