And drew my midnight curtains round With fingers bloody red! "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep; "All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime; "One stern tyrannic thought, that made Did that temptation crave, Still urging me to go and see "Heavily I rose up, as soon For I was stooping once again "With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran; There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began, In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, The wonders of all- ruling The at Providence ; " from celestial Merry flus; cintial beauty; perfect excellence The foch feels - and thence his best resource Whn Reats My course is run, my errand done; I go to Him from whom I came ; But never yet shall set the sun Of glory that adorns my name; And Roman hearts shall long be sick, When men shall think of Alaric. My course is run, my errand done; And in the caves of vengeance, wait; And soon mankind shall blench away Before the name of Attila. EDWARD EVERETT. THE TOMB OF CYRUS. A VOICE from stately Babylon, a mourner's rising cry, And Lydia's marble palaces give back their deep reply; And like the sounds of distant winds o'er ocean's billows sent, Ecbatana, thy storied walls send forth the wild lament. For he, the dreaded arbiter, a dawning empire's trust, The eagle child of victory, the great, the wise, the just, Assyria's famed and conquering sword, and Media's regal strength, Hath bowed his head to earth beneath a mightier hand at length. And darkly through a sorrowing land Euphrates winds along, And Cydnus with its silver wave hath heard the funeral song; And through the wide and sultry East, and through the frozen North, The tabret and the harp are hushed, the wail of grief goes forth. There is a solitary tomb, with rankling weeds o'ergrown, A single palm bends mournfully beside the moldering stone, Amidst whose leaves the passing breeze with fitful gust and slow Seems sighing forth a feeble dirge for him who sleeps below. Beside, its sparkling drops of foam a desert fountain showers; And, floating calm, the lotus wreathes its red and scented flowers; |