*

But darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,
Rose up a fearful vision, fraught

With all that lay between;

The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom,
The whirling sands, the red simoom!

Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?
His weary heart within him died
With yearnings for his home;
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.

He wept-the stars of Afric's heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,

Even on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years.

-Oh happiness! how far we flee
Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!

CASABIANCA.*

THE boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck,
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;

A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child like form.

The flames roll'd on-he would not go,
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He call'd aloud-"Say, father, say
If yet my task is done?”

66

He knew not that the chieftain lay

Unconscious of his son.

Speak, Father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"

Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile,) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

-And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll'd on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair;

And look'd from that lone post of death,
In still, yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,

My father! must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream'd above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound-
The boy-oh! where was he?
-Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strew'd the sea!

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part—
But the noblest thing that perish'd there,
Was that young faithful heart.

LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

THE breaking waves dash'd high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost;

And the heavy night hung dark

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moor'd their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted came,

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear,-

They shook the depths of the desert's gloont With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea !

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean-eagle soar'd

From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair,
Amidst that pilgrim-band-
Why had they come to wither there
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ?
-They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod!

They have left unstain'd what there they found-
Freedom to worship God!

LORD BYRON.

VERY little of Byron's poetry can be read without a most destructive influence upon the moral sensibilities. Humiliating was the waste and degradation of his genius, and melancholy is the power, which his poetry has exerted upon multitudes of minds. Some of his volumes are more pernicious in their moral tendency than any other books that were ever written. His complete works, ought never to be purchased, and we may feel proud not to be acquainted with them except by extracts, and beauties;—of these there will always be sufficient to satisfy the curiosity, exhibit the character of his genius, and give the imagination all the delight which it can innocently receive from the perusal of any portion of his writings.

THE LAKE OF GENEVA.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

It is the hush of night, and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill ;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,- 't is to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are

A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves

a star.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:
All heaven and earth are still from the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,

All is concenter'd in a life intense;

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self; it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,

Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,

Binding all things with beauty;-'t would disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!

The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! far along,

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

And this is in the night:-Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 't is black,-and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

The morn is up again, the dewy morn,

With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contain'd no tomb,-