Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more.
"Tis liberty of heart, derived from Heaven,
Bought with His blood who gave it to mankind,
And sealed with the same token. It is held
By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure
By the unimpeachable and awful oath
And promise of a God. His other gifts
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them His,
And are august, but this transcends them all.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes confederate for his harm
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of nature, and though poor perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, 'My Father made them all!'

The next piece is taken from the portion of The Task entitled 'The Winter Walk at Noon,' and is part of a description of the restoration of all things:

Error has no place:

That creeping pestilence is driven away:
The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart
No passion touches a discordant string,
But all is harmony and love. Disease
Is not; the pure and uncontaminate blood
Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age.
One song employs all nations, and all cry,

'Worthy is the Lamb, for He was slain for us!'
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy,
Till nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round.
Behold the measure of the promise filled;
See Salem built, the labour of a God!
Bright as a sun the sacred city shines;
All kingdoms and all princes of the earth
Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
Flows into her; unbounded is her joy,
And endless her increase. Thy rams are there,
Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there;
The looms of Ormus,' and the mines of Ind,
And Saba's spicy groves, pay tribute there.
Praise is in all her gates: upon her walls,
And in her streets, and in her spacious courts,
Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there
Kneels with the native of the farther west,
And Æthiopia spreads abroad the hand
And worships. Her report has travelled forth
Into all lands. From every clime they come
To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy,
O Sion! an assembly such as earth

Saw never, such as heaven stoops down to see.

1 An island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf; a mere barren rock now, but once the opulent seat of a flourishing Portuguese settlement.

M

LESSON 35.

POETS AND THEIR POETRY.

III. LORD BYRON.

This poet was born, like the first one we noticed, in the very matter-of-fact city of London, in 1788. His early years were singularly unhappy, and no doubt tended in some measure to form that life which was at one time the idol and the reproach of the English nation. When he was very young, his mother separated from her husband; and his own marriage, twenty years afterwards, was so unhappy that, in less than twelve months, he separated from his wife. Although affectionate, he was passionate and revengeful; and this, with a lameness that attended him, rendered him shunned rather than sought for by his school-fellows. After leaving the University of Cambridge, he travelled through Turkey and Greece, and then returned to London, to plunge into all the gaiety and pleasures of the metropolis. When the insurrection of the Greeks broke out in 1821, he resolved to devote himself entirely by fortune, pen, and sword to assist them in obtaining their independence.

Accordingly, he went to Greece in 1823, but from a fever he died at Missolonghi the following year, at the age of thirty-six. His principal works are, Childe Harold, Don Juan, The Bride of Abydos, and the Hebrew Melodies, from the last of which our selections have been taken.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the

sea,

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentiles, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

THE VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

The king was on his throne, the satraps thronged the hall :

A thousand bright lamps shone o'er that high festival.

A thousand cups of gold, in Judah deemed divineJehovah's vessels hold the godless heathen's wine.