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Thine must be a watchful sleep,
Wearier than another's waking;
Such a charge as thou dost keep,
Brooks no moment of forsaking.
Sleep, as on the battle field,
Girded-grasping sword and shield:
Those thou canst not name nor number,
Steal upon thy broken slumber.

Soldier, rise the war is done;

Lo! the hosts of hell are flying;
"Twas thy Lord the battle won;
Jesus vanquished them by dying.
Pass the stream-before thee lies

All the conquered land of glory;
Hark, what songs of rapture rise!
These proclaim the victor's story.

Soldier, lay thy weapons down,

Quit the sword, and take the crown;
Triumph! all thy foes are banished-
Death is slain-and earth has vanished!

XXXIX.-AN EPICEDIUM.-A. 4. Watts.
He left his home with a bounding heart,
For the world was all before him;
And felt it scarce a pain to part-

Such sun-bright beams came o'er him!
He turned him to visions of future years,
The rainbow's hues were round them;
And a father's bodings-a mother's tears

Might not weigh with the hopes that crowned them.

That mother's cheek is far paler now,

Than when she last caressed him;

There's an added gloom on that father's brow,
Since the hour when last he blessed him.

Oh! that all human hopes should prove
Like the flowers that will fade to-morrow;
And the cankering fears of anxious love
Ever end in truth and sorrow!

He left his home with a swelling sail,
Of fame and fortune dreaming,-
With a spirit as free as the vernal gale,
Or the pennon above him streaming.
He hath reached his goal;-by a distant wave,
'Neath a sultry sun, they've laid him;
And stranger-forms bent o'er his grave,
When the last sad rites were paid him.

He should have died in his own loved land,
With friends and kinsmen near him:
Not have withered thus on a foreign strand,
With no thought, save heaven, to cheer him.

But what recks it now? Is his sleep less sound
In the port where the wild winds swept him,
Than if home's green turf his grave had bound,
Or the hearts he loved had wept him?

Then why repine? Can he feel the rays
That the pestilent sun sheds o'er him?
Or share the grief that may cloud the days
Of the friends who now deplore him?
No-his bark's at anchor-its sails are furled-
It hath 'scaped the storm's deep chiding;
And safe from the buffeting waves of the world,
In a haven of peace is riding.

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XL.--THE DYING GLADIATOR.-Byron.

AY! here the buzz of eager nations ran,
In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man-
And wherefore slaughtered? Wherefore? but because
Such were the bloody circus' genial laws,
And the imperial pleasure:-wherefore not?—
What matters where we fall, to fill the maws
Of worms,-on battle-plain, or listed spot?
Both are but theatres, where the chief actors rot.
I see before me the Gladiator lie;

He leans upon his hand; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony !—
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And, from his side, the last drops, ebbing slow
Through the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower: and now
The arena swims around him-he is gone !—

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away:
He recked not of the life he lost or 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,
Butchered, to make a Roman holiday!—

All this rushed with his blood! Shall he expire,
And unavenged?—Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!

XLI.--THE CONVICT SHIP.--Hervey.

MORN on the waters!-and purple and bright
Bursts on the billows the flashing of light;
O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See the tall vessel goes gallantly on;

Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,

And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale.
The winds come around her, and murmur, and song,

And the surges rejoice as they bear her along.

See! she looks up to the golden-edged clouds.
And the sailor sings gaily aloft in her shrouds ;
Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,
Over the waters, away and away!

Bright, as the visions of youth ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart -
Who, as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her and sunshine on high,
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,
"Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below!"
Night on the waves !-and the moon is on high,
Hung like a gem on the brow of the sky;
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light:
Look to the waters! asleep on their breast,
Seems not the ship like an island of rest?
Bright and alone on the shadowy main,

Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain!
Who, as she smiles in the silvery light,
Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty,--could deem, with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And souls that are smitten lie bursting within!
Who, as he watches her silently gliding,
Remembers, that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever-
Hearts that are parted, and broken for ever?
Or dreams that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave?
"Tis thus with our life: while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song,
Gaily we glide in the gaze of the world,

With streamers afloat, and with canvas unfurled:

All gladness and glory to wandering eyes

But chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs!

Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears;

And the withering thoughts that the world cannot know,

Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;

Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore,

Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er.

XLII.-THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.-Bryant.

WHEN spring to woods and wastes around

Brought bloom and joy again,

The murdered traveller's bones were found
Far down a narrow glen.

The fragrant birch above him hung

Her tassels in the sky;

And many a vernal blossom sprung,

And nodded careless by.

The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o'er head;
And, fearless, near the fatal spot,
Her young the partridge led.
But there was weeping far away;
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Grew sorrowful and dim.

They little knew who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,

When shouting o'er the desert-snow,
Unarmed and hard beset;—

Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain-wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead;-

Nor how, when strangers found his bones,
They dressed the hasty bier,

And marked his grave with nameless stones,
Unmoistened by a tear.

But long they looked, and feared, and wept,
Within his distant home;

And dreamed, and started as they slept,
For joy that he was come!--

So, long they looked;-but never spied
His welcome step again,

Nor knew the fearful death he died,
Far down that narrow glen.

XLIII.-BELSHAZZAR.-Croly.

HOUR of an Empire's overthrow!--
The princes from the feast were gone,
The Idol-flame was burning low;—
'Twas midnight upon Babylon.

That night the feast was wild and high,
That night was Sion's gold profaned;
The seal was set to blasphemy-

The last deep cup of wrath was drained. 'Neath jewelled roof and silken pall, Belshazzar on his couch was flung ;-

A burst of thunder filled the hall!

He heard-but 'twas no mortal tongue :

'King of the East! the trumpet calls,

That calls thee to a tyrant's grave;

A curse is on thy palace walls,

A curse is on thy guardian wave;

"A surge is in Euphrates' bed,

That never filled its bed before;

A surge, that, ere the morn be red,

Shall load with death its haughty shore.

"Behold a tide of Persian steel

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A torrent of the Median car!
Like flame their gory banners wheel;--
Rise, King! and arm thee for the war!"
Belshazzar gazed; the voice was past-
The lofty chamber filled with gloom;
But echoed on the sudden blast,

The rushing of a mighty plume.
He listened :--all again was still:
He heard no chariot's iron clang;--
He heard the fountain's gushing rill,
The breeze that through the roses sang.
He slept :-in sleep wild murmurs came;
A visioned splendour fired the sky;
He heard Belshazzar's taunted name;-
He heard again the Prophet cry--
Sleep, Sultan! 'tis thy final sleep!--

Or wake, or sleep, the guilty dies!
The wrongs of those who watch and weep,
Around thee and thy nation rise!"
He started:-'Mid the battle's yell,

He heard the Persian rushing on-
He saw the flames around him swell-
-Thou'rt ashes! King of Babylon.

XLIV. THE GRASP OF THE DEAD.-Mrs. Maclean. "Twas the battle-field, and the cold pale moon Looked down on the dead and dying;

And the wind passed o'er with a dirge and a wail,
Where the young and brave were lying.

With his father's sword in his red right hand,

And the hostile dead around him,

Lay a youthful Chief; but his bed was the ground,
And the grave's icy sleep had bound him.

Drawn by the shine of the warrior's sword,
A Soldier paused beside it:

He wrenched the hand with a giant's strength,
But the grasp of the dead defied it.

He loosed his hold, and his swelling heart

Took part with the dead before him;

And he honoured the brave who died sword in hand,

As with softened brow he leaned o'er him.

"A soldier's death thou hast boldly died,

A soldier's grave won by it:

Before I would take that sword from thine hand,
My own life's blood should dye it.

"Thou shalt not be left for the carrion crow,
Or the wolf, to batten o'er thee;

Or the coward insult the gallant dead,
Who in life had trembled before thee."

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