In the arctic regions total darkness lasts about six weeks, but the sky is enlivened by all sorts of brilliant lights, by meteors or flashes of light, darting through the sky, as we sometimes see in the heavens of our country, and also by the lights called the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Dancers-lights which assume all sorts of shapes, and the most lovely colours; and when these fade they have the stars.

UP! up! let us a voyage take,
Why sit we here at ease?
Find us a vessel tight and snug,
Bound for the Northern Seas.

I long to see the Northern Lights,'
With their rushing splendours fly;
Like living things with flaming wings,
Wide o'er the wond'rous sky.

I long to see those icebergs vast,

With heads all crowned with snow;
Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep,
Two hundred fathoms low!

I long to hear the thund'ring crash
Of their terrific fall,

And the echoes from a thousand cliffs,
Like lonely voices call.

There shall we see the fierce white bear,
The sleepy seals aground,

And the spouting whales that to and fro
Sail with a dreary sound.

There may we tread on depths of ice,
That the hairy mammoth hide,
Perfect as when in times of old,
The mighty creature died.

And while the unsetting sun shines on
Through the still heaven's deep blue,
We'll traverse the azure waves, the herds
Of the dread sea-horse to view.
We'll pass the shores of solemn pine,
Where wolves and black bears prowl;
And away to the rocky isles of mist,
To rouse the northern fowl.

And there in wastes of the silent sky,
With silent earth below,

We shall see far off to his lonely rock,

The lonely eagle go.

Then softly, softly will we tread

By inland streams to see,

Where the cormorant of the silent north,

Sits there all silently.

We've visited the northern clime,

Its cold and ice-bound main ;

So now, let us back to a dearer land

To Britain back again!

ANONYMOUS.

1. Another name for Northern Lights? 3. Another name for the sea-horse? 2. Still, what part of speech?

XXII. THE DOWNFALL OF POLAND.

IN 1772 the three powers, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, dismembered Poland, taking the greater portion of it to themselves, and the courts of London and Paris permitted this act of arbitrary power and spoliation to pass unnoticed." "A small part was reserved to Poland, but a second dismemberment took place in 1793, when the three

THE DOWNFALL OF POLAND.

37

allied powers divided the remaining provinces between them; and what remained of Poland was finally divided between the royal spoliators in 1795, who were, at that very period, protesting against the doctrines of the French Revolutionists. The champion of the Poles, on this last partition, was General Kosciusko, who, heading a small body of patriots, made a stand for the liberties of his ill-fated country, but he was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner by the Russians. Praga, the great suburb of Warsaw, was stormed by the Russian general Suwarrow, and all the inhabitants put to the sword; Warsaw itself capitulated, and nothing was left for the Poles but absolute submission. The king of Poland, deprived of his title, subsisted at Petersburg upon a pension."- Tytler's Gen. History.

OH! sacred Truth,' thy triumph ceased awhile
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued oppression pour'd to northern wars
Her whisker'd pandoors and her fierce hussars,"
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Peal'd her loud drum, and twang'd her trumpet horn:
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van;
Presaging wrath to Poland -and to man!

4

Warsaw's last champion from her height survey'd
Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid,-

Oh! Heav'n-he cried,-my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!

5

By that dread name we wave the sword on high!
And swear for her to live with her to die!

He said, and on the rampart-heights array'd
His trusty warriors, few. but undismay'd;
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;
Low, murm'ring sounds along their banners fly,
Revenge or death,-the watchword and reply;
Then peal'd the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm !

D

HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL POEMS.

In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few!
From rank to rank your volley'd thunder flew :-
Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time,
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime,
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curb'd her high career:
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd-as KOSCIUSKO fell!

The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there,
Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air—
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,"
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below;
His blood-dyed waters murmuring below;
The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay!
Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook-red meteors flash'd along the sky,
And conscious Nature shudder'd at the cry!

Departed spirits of the mighty dead!

Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!
Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,
Fight in his sacred cause and lead the van!
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,
And make her arm puissant as your own!
Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return
The patriot TELL-the BRUCE of BANNOCKBURN.

1. Why sacred Truth?

2. What does the poet mean by representing Hope as the sister of Truth? 3. What are pandoors and hussars? 4. What is the correlative of her? 5. What dread name?

CAMPBELL.

6. In what sense is horrid to be understood?

7. What is gained by the change from the past tense, at the former line, to the present in this?

8. Where are these two battle-fields.

XXIII. THE DYING GLADIATOR.

"THE first Christian emperor may claim the honour of the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood; but this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate abuse which degraded a civilized nation below the condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps several thousand, victims were annually slaughtered in the great cities of the empire, and the month of December, more peculiarly devoted

to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood and cruelty."-Gibbon.

I SEE before me the gladiator lie;

He leans upon his hand,-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,1
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low,
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims 3 around him he is gone,

[won.

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-

All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire,

4

And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire.

BYRON.

1. What is meant by conquers agony? | ings, state them, and say which you 2. What noun is understood to first?

prefer.

3. Swims is susceptible of two mean- 4. Who were the Goths?

XXIV. LOCH-NA-GARR.

LOCH-NA-GARR is one of the most sublime of the "Caledonian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Balmoral, our Queen's "highland home," is not far distant from Loch-na-Garr. The whole district is exceedingly romantic; and it was fortunate for Byron that he spent some time in it when a boy about eight years old. It produced impressions which remained with him through life.