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FAUST.

Oh God! this grave is Margaret's; I see The occasion now of this stone's crimson tears: The slayer tramples on his victim's dust. Would that I had not crush'd so fair a flower, Or that its blooming had not been so fair! Her pale reproachful shadow haunts me now, Marring all mirth, and making sorrow deeper. Even as foul rust upon the generous steel, The fit successor of some murder spot, Which, slowly gnawing, eats into the heart, Does the remembrance of this damned act Consume and wither up my spirit's strength. Oh! Margaret! if the dull decaying ear Of thy cold body, once so warm and sweet, Can any sound embrace, let mortal grief Find entrance there, the grief of him who smote Thy gentle being with untimely blight,And, like a fiend, more desolate than death, Destroy'd what life's great enemy had spared! These stubborn eyes, which moisture hath not fill'd Since our first night of rapturous possession, Now leak amain, and send a briny flood To mingle with that murder-crying blood. (VOICE FROM THE TOMB.)

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The thirsty stone, with greedy suction, draws
The crimson river to its core again,—
There, it is gone,—all but yon ruby vein.
FAUST.

Ay, you may tamper with mine eyes, and play
A thousand apish tricks, but all your skill-
All your cold, mystical philosophy,

Cannot remove the heavy weight that 's here
About my heart, nor ever wake again

My feelings to that fresh delicious morn
Which they knew once, ere they knew sin and thee.
METHISTOPHeles.

Oh! cry you mercy, most repentant slave!
How beautiful humility doth show

In one who, after being cloy'd with sin,

Plucking her flowers, and bathing in her streams,— Wildly embracing her voluptuous forms,

Many and beautiful as Iris' hues,—

Boldly conversing with forbidden knowledge,-
Questioning, with lofty front, the starry host,-
Impeaching Heaven's decrees, and writing cipher
To the Almighty's goodness, power, and justice ;—
How beautiful to see this sable fool,

This most left-handed sheep, with humble tears,
Begin at length his ugly coat to scrub!
In vain expectancy to make it white;
And cry, alas! for Ignorance and Love,-
Out upon knowledge, and the fig-leaf shame ;-
To throw himself, with beggarly submission,
Before the judgment-seat he hath arraign'd,
And, by his very servile, mindless puling,
Deserve to lose the slavery he covets!
No, no, my friend! this will not do for thee;
Too deeply thou hast dived, and highly soar'd,
Into the labyrinths of mystic nature,
Arresting in its flight the lightning's wing,-
Searching the cloudy caverns of thunder,-
Sporting upon the verge of far creation,

Numbering the stars, their satellites, and suns,—
With untired wing circumvolating space!
What! doth your memory sleep? is your mind dead?
Bestir yourself, and shake this languor off!
See! where the yellow moon climbs up the sky,
And with her come the many-twinkling stars :
Shall we ascend our steeds, and blithly dash
Through that bright labyrinth of lustrous lamps?
FAUST.

Betwixt me and the moon, methinks I see

A mote, a speck, a small transparent atom;
It grows apace: now large as smallest star,
And now as Venus' self; with speed of thought
It widens, swelling on the sight, till now
It takes a form, with motion visible
Nearing this earth; how beautiful!-it comes
With rushing speed the liquid air dividing,
And throwing from its wing a silver shower
Of moonlight radiance.

MEPHISTOPHEles.
Well I know that form.
'Tis Michael, sent to lure thee back to heaven.
We'll meet the angelic tempter in yon field.

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THE EDITOR. I never was happier in my life, than I am at this moment, Mr Green. I have stood on the tops of the highest mountains, and felt the exhilaration of spirits occasioned by the purer air which I there breathed; but how dense the atmosphere even of the Andes themselves, compared with that which we enjoy here!

Mr Green. I was certainly never so far from the earth before. There is a principle of buoyancy in my balloon to-day, which I can scarcely account for.

THE EDITOR. The reason is obvious; you carry Cæsar and his fortune.

Mr Green. I have been delighted, sir, to see you enjoy yourself so much. This is my eighty-seventh ascent, and the importance you have attached to it, by intrusting your sacred life to my care, shall never be effaced from my memory.

THE EDITOR (bowing gracefully). It required but little courage on my part to do so, for, independent of your well-known proficiency in aeronautics, I carry "a charmed life," like Macbeth; and so far from experiencing any sensations of an unpleasant kind, I could almost think that I had never truly known what it is to enjoy existence, until now that I have reached this region of perpetual sunshine, where not a speck of vapour obstructs my vision through the clear blue transparency of endless space. Nay, more, Mr Green; I ask you if you are not distinctly of opinion, that a noble balloon like this, far away in the crystal empyrean, is the safest spot in all creation? What have we to dread? We are above the region of the storm; the thunder-clouds roll far beneath us; we cannot dash ourselves against rocks; we cannot encounter any enemy; the climate seems admirably adapted for our constitution; and the rapid rate at which we are travelling, prevents us from experiencing the slightest tedium.

Mr Green. You will observe, also, that the common belief that giddiness must necessarily attend a flight through the air, is altogether erroneous. Though the balloon has both a progressive and a rotatory motion, our brains are in no way affected by it. As far as I can judge by experience, giddiness implies a connexion with terra firma, and arises from a sort of vague fear that the solid earth may slip from under our feet; but as soon as a total separation from the ball of the globe takes place, all disposition to giddiness ceases, I never

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knew any one in a balloon, however much of a novice, attacked by that feeling.

THE EDITOR. I have no doubt that your theory is a good one, but we may also add to it, the probability that the stronger emotion will always overcome the weaker. The Cockney who creeps to the brink of Dover Cliff, gets giddy immediately, because the predominant idea simply is, that he stands on the edge of a precipice; but the same Cockney, finding himself going up through the air with a noise like the sudden rising of a hundred eagles, as this cleaves the ambient ether, is so possessed with awe and "brave o'erhanging canopy" extends its silken wings, and astonishment, that he forgets to be giddy, and finds himself in the bosom of the clouds, before he has time to indulge in one distinct thought as to the precise nature of his situation.

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Mr Green. Upon this, sir, as upon all other subjects, you talk with a degree of eloquence and accuracy that I have never heard equalled.

THE EDITOR. How beautiful it was an hour or two ago, when we were still among the vast tiers of clouds which hang their drapery above the earth at the distance of a few miles! At one time we were in the heart of the densest vapours, where all was dark and muddy, somewhat like the heathen poet's description of chaos; and where we went blindly on, seeing nothing, and totally incapable of guessing what the result was to be, till suddenly, as if awaking from a frightful dream, we emerged into sunshine and blue sky, which filled up a broad cleft between two masses of clouds, and looking down which we saw the fair map of the earth, diversified with land and sea, spread out beneath us! Then into what glorious combinations of colour did not the refracted rays of light arrange themselves! Shattered rainbows hovered round us on every side,-magnificent aerial prisms flashed upon the sense in all the wild confusion of beauty.

Mr Green. In several of my ascents I have seen the sun set twice in the course of one hour. I have seen him set to the inhabitants of the earth when very near its surface: then a breeze has arisen which has carried me rapidly upwards, and I have again overtaken the glorious luminary, in which case, it must be evident to you, sir, that instead of an hour having advanced, an hour must have retrograded, in so far as I was concerned. Thus, if it was eight o'clock when I left the earth, it became in an hour, to all intents and purposes, only seven o'clock.

THE EDITOR. A carious but an ingenious remark, Mr Green. If we regulate our notions of time by the sun, it is plain that the moment we introduce a counteracting motion to the motion of the earth, the laws which were previously applied to time are altered. Indeed, the phenomena of time are entirely dependent on motion. Let motion cease, and there would be no such thing as time. How high do you think we may now be?

Mr Green. There is nothing more difficult than to judge of distance in the air. We have no intervening objects on which to form our data; and I remember well, that on my first ascent, or rather first descent, I imagined I was a considerable way from the earth when I came smack against it all at once, and was thrown out of the

car with considerable violence. Experience, however, by which alone the eye is taught to judge of distances under any circumstances, enables me to form pretty accurate conjectures now. From the appearance of the earth, as seen from where we at present are, looking, as it does, infinitely smaller, and more like a globe, than I ever saw it before, I am disposed to believe that we are now between thirty and forty miles from it.

THE EDITOR. Would it not be a death worth dying, to leap, at this height, from the car of our balloon, and to plunge down at once to the world below? We should be dead, and the death would be easy, almost pleasurable, long before we reached its surface; when we did, we should be dashed into a thousand atoms, and not one square inch of our whole body would retain its shape or likelihood. All resemblance to humanity would be annihilated; we should be sprinkled over the earth like dew. Wherever we lighted, it would be the same. If we fell upon hard and rugged rocks, a few blood-stains would be all that would be left of us. Down we might go, crashing among the branches of some old forest, or away with a quick sharp plunge into the ocean, many a fathom deep, or we might pass with the rush of a meteoric stone some of the star-gazers on Mont Blanc, and the next moment be buried among the eternal snows of an avalanche ;—or our fate might be cast in more populous places; we might come down with a squash into the midst of a crowded city, and be mistaken for some refuse that had been thrown over a garret window, or we might fall into the midst of a fete-champetre, and frighten the whole of the pic-nic party out of their senses. According to the ancient my- | thology, Phaeton fell into the river Po out of the chariot of the Sun, and Vulcan, who fell for nine days and nine nights, when he was kicked out of Olympus, landed on the island of Lemnos. Now, do you know, Mr Green, I am strongly disposed to think, that the proper way of explaining these fables is, by supposing that both Phaeton and Vulean were persons who invented balloons, and tumbled out of them.

Mr Green. I beg pardon for not having heard one word that you have just been saying; but my attention has been entirely occupied with those strange animals who are disporting themselves in the air not far from us. I should call them birds, were they not entirely different from any of the varieties of that species which I have ever seen before.

THE EDITOR. I confess they surprise me much, for if they ever alight at all, it is obvious that they do not belong to our earth. I should not be greatly astonished to find that we had now got into the atmosphere of some other world, and that those remarkable specimens of zoology belonged to it.

Mr Green. My dear sir, you alarm me-you surely cannot think that we have got beyond the sphere of the earth's attraction, for, according to all the discoveries of science, that is impossible?

THE EDITOR. Under existing circumstances, Mr Green, I care not to confess that I look upon all the discoveries of science as perfect twaddle. We have reached a height, or rather a distance, from our mother earth, which seems to me already to prove the futility of all the soi-disant principles of gravitation. Notwithstanding my recent remarks, I am by no means sure that if either of us were now to leave the balloon, we should not be carried in a direction quite different from that of our own world. Mr Green. For Heaven's sake, sir, do not say so! I have a wife and family at home, who would go distracted were I never to return to them.

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mankind too well to refuse gratifying them in this. But lo! behold! do you not think that a strange change has taken place in the appearance of the moon, which we have for some time observed in the east, while the sun has been receding far to westward?

Mr Green. The moon! Is that the moon? It looks as large as the county of Lanark, and a soft and lovely light is playing over the whole of it.

THE EDITOR. That flight of animals we saw a short time ago, must have belonged to the moon; or perhaps they were emigrating from the moon to some other planet. Mr Green. How calmly your truly philosophical mind can express itself under circumstances which appear to me so novel and appalling! See! the moon, if yonder world indeed be the moon, is becoming larger, and more apparent every minute. Travelling as we now are, in this exquisitely etherealized medium, at the rate of about four hundred miles an hour, we are visibly nearing it. THE EDITOR. But even yet nothing distinct is to be discovered on its surface. How audacious are those pigmy astronomers upon earth who pretend to descry in it lakes and mountains, and even mighty fortifications! Mr Green. We shall see all these, if any such there be, ere another half hour elapse.

THE EDITOR. One thing is certain, the moon cannot be nearly so far from the earth as some wiseacres would have us believe. They talk of millions of miles with as much coolness as they could do of twenty yards; and though it must be apparent to every one who has looked at the moon on a clear night, that she could not be very far off, they still insisted that their stupid calculations were right. Our present aerial voyage proves their falsehood, and will also, I trust, set the great question at rest, whether it be possible for any communication to exist be tween two distinct planets.

Mr Green. We have now fairly entered the moon's atmosphere, and I begin to see its surface distinctly. It is totally unlike the surface of our earth, and yet exceedingly beautiful and attractive. We must prepare, ere long, for our descent.

THE EDITOR. I see what resemble mountains, yet are not mountains, according to our mundane ideas,—what look like rivers, yet are not rivers,-what have the faint appearance of cities and villages, yet are totally incapable of description in any languages known on the earth.

Mr Green. We seem at this moment to be hovering over something that has a likeness to, yet far transcends, the most magnificent country villa I ever beheld; shall we alight in its vicinity?

THE EDITOR. I should wish it much-the more espe cially, as, by the aid of this telescope, I can discover a person whom I take to be the owner of the mansion, waiting in his lawn, as if to receive us. And now that we approach still nearer, I am certain that I have seen that person before. By the Immortal Gods! it is Lord Byron! Can it be possible that the dead are transported to the moon? What strange and indescribable beings are those with him?-no doubt the aborigines of the country. Mr Green. Now, sir, sit quiet and steady, for I am about to throw out the grappling irons.

[Mr Green throws out the grappling irons, which catch immediately, and the balloon being arrested in its motion, the EDITOR and Mr Green step out; Lord Byron and the Lunar beings approach. Lord Byron (shaking hands with the EDITOR, and then with Mr Green). I am delighted, gentlemen, to see you here. We have been expecting you for the last hour or two; for you will, no doubt, be surprised to learn, as I myself was on my first arrival, that means have been here discovered by which we have an opportunity of observing, pretty distinctly, all that is going on in any part of the solar system. We saw you leave the earth in the presence of an immense assemblage of spectators, and we soon observed that you took a course which would, in all probability, bring you towards us. Only two instances

of this kind have occurred before, when two aeronauts, who were believed by the inhabitants of the earth to have fallen into the sea, because they never heard of them again, found their way to the moon. They did not, however, bring with them any guest so welcome as the EDITOR IN HIS SLIPPERS.

THE EDITOR. I rejoice in the lucky chance which has made me acquainted with the author of "Childe Harold." May I presume to ask how he happens to be in the moon?

Lord Byron. I am sorry to say that your question involves a secret which cannot be disclosed to any living son of earth. When you die, it may be revealed to you. As far as I yet know, there are only three persons from your world in the moon, including myself. Those people whom you see around me, and whom you will, no doubt, think are fashioned after a very extraordinary model, until you get a little accustomed to them, are fair specimens of the regular population of these regions. They are my retainers and servants, and will understand every word you say to them, though you will not be able to comprehend one syllable they speak. This gentleman is my major-domo; allow me to introduce him to you. [The Lunar Major-domo shows his respect for the EDITOR, by taking a leap three miles high, casting one hundred and fifty somersets, and assuming a dozen different shapes in succession. Major-domo. Roohi foohi nahi pahi alam salam pong

wong.

Lord Byron. He says that this is the most exquisite moment of his existence, in being allowed to kiss the toe of your SLIPPERS, which he is rejoiced to see you at this

moment wear.

THE EDITOR (Smiling benevolently). My time being valuable, I intended to have devoted a part of it, during my aerial voyage, to the perusal of a large box of MSS. which I brought along with me, from various literary correspondents; and as I wished to do so with all kindly feelings towards them, I knew that it was expedient to wear my SLIPPERS, which seem to be endowed with the power of investing every thing with new interest and additional attractions. But I long to be informed by your Lordship who the other two persons are who still retain their mortal shapes amidst this alien race of Lunatics.

Lord Byron. They both reside along with me in yonder villa, and I shall be delighted to bring you together. You have often heard of each of them before;-the one is Robert Burns, and the other Percy Bysshe Shelley.

THE EDITOR. Is it possible?

Lord Byron. May I ask one favour, that you will allow my servants to bring from the balloon the box of MSS. of which you spoke; and if they contain no secrets, but are merely literary compositions, you will perhaps gratify us so far as to permit us to look over them with you?

THE EDITOR. With all my heart.

Lord Byron (to his Major-domo). Quish quash rotty fiddle-diddle tock.

Major-domo. Tock, tock.

[The Major-domo goes to the balloon for the box of MSS. Some of the other domestics arrange themselves into a conveyance resembling a palanquin, and carry it in triumph to the villa. Lord Byron conducts the EDITOR and Mr Green into a magnificent apartment, furnished in an indescribable manner, at one end of which Burns and Shelley are discovered conversing with each other. Lord Byron introduces the EDITOR and Mr Green, and the whole party sit down to a splendid repast, consisting of indescribable dishes.

THE EDITOR. I certainly never expected to have sat down to table with Byron, Burns, and Shelley, in this life,—if I can use the phrase, "this life," now that I am in the moon.

Shelley. Life is a mere idea existing in the nature of a sentient being. What should there be more remarkable in your finding yourself in the moon than on the earth? You might as well wonder that the atom which dances in the sunbeam should at one time light in the cup of a flower, rather than on the leaf of a tree. You are an atom necessarily existing in space, and you may be driven hither and thither through the whole of infinity.

THE EDITOR. It may be so; but it seems the much more common case that the same atoms remain attached to the same world.

Shelley. I cannot see that it is so. The inhabitants of the earth, it is true, know nothing of what lies beyond their own limited sphere of observation; but do they not teach that death is only a change? and why may not the sentient atom, which undergoes that change, be transported by it to other worlds?

Burns. The great fault I have with you, Shelley, is, that, right or wrong, you will talk nothing but metaphysics from morning till night.

Shelley. Metaphysics, my dear Burns, lie at the foundation of all genuine poetry. No man can be a poet, who is not also a clear and philosophical thinker; and the more his mind loves to ponder on all the mysteries of creation, the better will be his chance of achieving something great. I am certain that our friend the EDITOR agrees with me in this.

THE EDITOR. To a great extent I do, although I am also of opinion that there is some poetry which no one can read without admiring, but which is, nevertheless, too full of abstract thought-too purely intellectual-and too much elevated above ordinary human sympathies, ever to become popular. The author of "Prometheus Unbound" will forgive me, if I venture to hint that this is the case with some of his own compositions. earth, consequently, you, my Lord Byron, rank higher than Shelley, not because you thought more profoundly, but because you do not scruple to mingle more profusely in your verse, sentiments which rouse the passions, and engage the sympathies or prejudices, of your readers.

On our

Lord Byron. God knows, I always thought my own mind infinitely inferior to Shelley's; and if my poetry be more admired than his, it must be the fault of the existing generation.

Shelley. Do not blame the existing generation? In no period of the world's history has intellect made such gigantic strides, as it is doing at this moment. We have seen— -(the EDITOR has probably to be informed that the lunar inhabitants are able to take the most perfect cognizance of all that goes on in the earth)-we have seen what has been achieved in France. A similar revolution could never before have been accomplished in a similar way. I composed a few lines to-day upon the subject, which I shall be happy to recite to you if you will not think it tedious.

THE EDITOR. Nothing, I am sure, could afford us greater pleasure than to hear them.

(Shelley recites the following poem :)

ON THE LATE NEWS FROM FRANCE.

By Percy Bysshe Shelley.

A sound, as of a mighty angel singing,
Or far off thunder, strikes my listening ear;
Now loud, now faint, by turns alternate ringing,
Whilst the loud echoes, clearer, and more clear,
O'er sky and cloud, and each harmonious hill,
Reverberate, like harmony
Of evening, or melody
Of music heard in an autumnal sky,
Which dies, yet leaves behind its sympathy to thrill;—
Was it a voice? perchance, while deeply musing
What Heaven-oppress'd mortality inherits,
The king-deluded world's ancestral ill,
Conjured before the sad, o'erwearied spirit's
Faint organs, sounds as of the electric loosing

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[THE EDITOR gives a large bunch of MSS. to Burns, Shelley, and Byron, reserving some for himself. A short pause, during which the party is engaged in looking over the papers.

Burns (smiling). Well, this is remarkable. The very first poem I have hit upon has a reference to myself. It is addressed to a portrait of me, lately published, from a painting by my old friend Taylor, whom I remember well-a man of fine genius, but he died before he had time to distinguish himself.

THE EDITOR. That portrait has been splendidly engraved by Horsburgh, of Edinburgh; and your two successors, the Ettrick Shepherd and Allan Cunningham, have both pronounced it an admirable likeness. In one of his letters to me, Cunningham says;-' "I beg you will thank Mr Henry Constable in my name, for the welcome present he made me of Taylor's head or Robert Burns. I could have singled it out for the poet among a thousand por

Call on Cimmerian wolves, what one shall dare come traits: it gives a very good idea of his person, such as forth?

Men hear the signal, and they come array'd
In the resistless might of hate, and thrust

From its grey throne, the Python, by whose aid
Power long hath poison'd all the springs of life ;-
Lamp of the earth! thy light all mists subdued;
Shout! for the world's young morn is, as a snake's, re-
new'd.

All old things now are pass'd away, and Error
Flies, like a cloud, from the regenerate earth;
Immortal Truth again holds up her mirror
To wrongs engender'd at the Hydra's birth;
And startled nations hail the wish'd commotion,-
When loud the voice divine,

"Let equal laws be thine, And Light and Truth," resounds from Freedom's shrine, Driving through the pale world a spirit of deep emotion.

Lord Byron. These are lines worthy of yourself, Shelley; and now that we are becoming poetical, I am happy to inform you that our friend the EDITOR has brought us a treat from the earth, which I am sure you will enjoy -a box of poetical contributions to that ablest of all periodicals, not even excepting the Liberal,-the EDINBURGH LITERARY JOURNAL. They come, he tells me, from a hundred living bards, scattered all over broad Scotland, and will consequently afford us a pretty accurate notion of the present state of poetry in that country. Burns. I thank Heaven for the wind that blew the EDITOR hither! Tears start into my eyes even now at the bare mention of auld Scotland. Well do I remember its thousand sunny places, made sunnier and dearer by the warm hearts that inhabit them! There have been those who have pronounced the Scottish people cold of mood, and little given to enthusiasm. O, if I had them but for one hour on the braes o' Doon, or gathered together over that peck o' maut which Willie brewed, I would make them renounce their heresy on bended knees, and with uplifted voices! I may live on through all time, and under millions of varying circumstances, but Scotland has so twined herself into my nature, that I shall for ever consider myself her child, and hers alone. Let us see what her glorious band of brother bards are doing. Whether they be illustrious or not in the common ears of men, they carry with them their own reward. God bless them all!

THE EDITOR (opening the box of MSS.) I shall divide these papers among us, and we can each look over our own share, and read aloud those which appear to us worthy of that distinction. We must pass over many in silence, but not with contempt; and if what we do here this day be ever known on earth, I would entreat all those whose productions are not mentioned, to believe that I, for one, entertain the most kindly feelings towards them, and will be happy to do them, at any time, all the good in my power.

he was when he arrived in Nithsdale; perhaps he was a shade swarthier, and those lines which thought or care impress on the face a degree deeper. His large, bright eyes, and his manly looks, have made a strong impression on the painter, as they made on all who ever met him. I have had it framed, and hung up among my other worthies. There is no name on the print, but such is the resemblance to Nasmyth's portrait, that all who see it immediately say, Ah, Burns !'"

Burns. I confess it gives me pleasure to be spoken of thus by a man like Allan Cunningham. These verses are far too complimentary for me to presume to read them.

THE EDITOR. They are too good, however, to be lost; and though the author, I daresay, little expected that they should be read in your presence, you must permit me to do him that justice. (The EDITOR reads.)

STANZAS WRITTEN ON A COPY OF THE ENGRAVING OF ROBERT

BURNS FROM TAYLOR'S LATELY RECOVERED PICTURE.

By Thomas Atkinson.

And this was Scotland's noblest son of song!
How calm his mien-how sadly still his look!
Where be the flashes, bright and brief, yet strong,
Of mirth that revels, though the wise rebuke?
Tell me, thou limner, in what secret nook
Of this expanse of chasten'd countenance,
There lurk'd the gibe and jest which often shook
The stolid crowd-in wit's omnipotence?

Why live not these in this-and where their recompense?

Lurks the rich treasure in that placid gaze

In the deep meaning of these full-orb'd eyes—
In the veil'd lustre which, as through a haze
Of mellowing beauty, meekly lifts the guise
Of mere humanity, and shows what lies
In the far chambers of the soul still kept?

It does!-it does!—and, O! more dear I prize
The soft, yet manly sadness that hath crept
O'er this, than would I all the heights by art o'erleapt.

Look! what a brow soars o'er these arched spells, That fix my gaze, they look so sad on me! See! where hid meaning into language swells Upon these lips, that seem as tremblingly To heave, as leaves upon a wind-woo'd tree! Yet prophet power hath touch'd them with its fire; With burning balm love dew'd them thrillingly! Have they not blazed, like lightning on a pyre, As from them flash'd the words that speak a patriot's ire?

O! it is deeply true-no transient glance

Can tell the meaning of the poet's look; For who shall say, who on one mood may chance To wondering gaze, that he hath not mistook The hue the moment's inspiration took,

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