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, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

2.

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 wither'd and strown.

3.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

4.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there roll'd 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.

5.

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.

6.

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 Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

FROM JOB.

1.

A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of Immortality unveil'd—
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine-
And there it stood, all formless but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake :

2.

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure "Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure? "Creatures of clay-vain dwellers in the dust! "The moth survives you, and are ye more just ?

66

Things of a day! you wither ere the night, "Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"

"THE Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by "the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, "and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who "derived any private benefit from his government announced in "prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity.

"By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, "in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an Exile, "till

Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220.