The last word of the traitor knight

It had but entered Julian's ear,—
From two o'erarching oaks between,
With glist'ning helm-like cap is seen,
Borne on in giddy cheer,

A youth, that ill his steed can guide ;
Yet with reverted face doth ride,

As answering to a voice,

That seems at once to laugh and chide-
"Not mine, dear mistress,” still he cried,
"'Tis this mad filly's choice."

With sudden bound, beyond the boy,
See! see that face of hope and joy,

That regal front! those cheeks aglow!
Thou needed'st but the crescent sheen,
A quiver'd Dian to have been,

Thou lovely child of old Du Clos !

Dark as a dream Lord Julian stood,
Swift as a dream, from forth the wood,
Sprang on the plighted Maid!
With fatal aim, and frantic force,
The shaft was hurl'd!-a lifeless corse,
Fair Alice from her vaulting horse,
Lies bleeding on the glade.

THE KNIGHT'S TOMB.

WHERE is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?→
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch-tree!

The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone, and the birch in its stead is grown.—
The Knight's bones are dust,

And his good sword rust;—

His soul is with the saints, I trust.

HYMN TO THE EARTH.

HEXAMETERS.

EARTH! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the

mother,

Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I

hymn thee!

Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float

on your surges

Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows and lake with green island,

Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in bright

ness,

Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain,

Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom ! Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses, Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger,

Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs. Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness

Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness

Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,

Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the sun, the rejoicer! Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets

forget not,...

Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee!

Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamored!

Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess,

Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled,

Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee!

Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morn

ing!

Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention : Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embrace

ment.

Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts,

Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels;

Laughed on their shores the hoarse scas; the yearning ocean swelled upward;

Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains,

Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.

WRITTEN DURING A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN THE YEAR 1799.

O, WHAT a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence!

Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him ; Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother;

Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slum

ber;

Even for him it exists! It moves and stirs in its prison ! Lives with a separate life : and—“ Is it a spirit ?" he murmurs: "Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language!"'

MAHOMET.

UTTER the song, 0 my soul! the flight and return of Mohammed, Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing, Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution, Soul withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan And idolatrous Christians. For veiling the Gospel of Jesus, They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest.

Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca, Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness. Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol ;— Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid-the people with mad shouts

Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation

Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river
Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd,
Rushes dividuous all-all rushing impetuous onward.

CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES.

HEAR, my beloved, an old Milesian story!—
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland ;
In the dim distance amid the skyey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had plac'd it.
From the far shores of the bleak resounding island-
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,

Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.

DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE,

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE.

A SOLILOQUY.

UNCHANGED within to see all changed without
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,

Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight,.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st-shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light

Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :

And though thou notest from thy safe recess

Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.

PHANTOM OR FACT?

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE.

AUTHOR.

A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed,
And such a feeding calm its presence shed,
A tender love so pure from earthly leaven
That I unnethe the fancy might control,
'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,
Wooing its gentle way into my soul !

But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet-
Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
That weary, wandering, disavowing look!
'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,
And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!

FRIEND.

This riddling tale, to what does it belong?
Is't history? vision? or an idle song?
Or rather say at once, within what space
Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR.

Call it a moment's work (and such it seems)
This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;
But say, that years matur'd the silent strife,
And 'tis a record from the dream of life.