BYRON.

FROM "THE COURSE OF TIME."

He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks;
Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,
And with the thunder talked as friend to friend;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance, seemed
Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sung
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed.
Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters
were;

TAKE one example to our purpose quite.
A man of rank, and of capacious soul,
Who riches had, and fame, beyond desire,
An heir of flattery, to titles born,
And reputation, and luxurious life :
Yet, not content with ancestorial name,
Or to be known because his fathers were,
He on this height hereditary stood,
And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart
To take another step. Above him seemed,
Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
Of canonized bards; and thitherward,
By nature taught, and inward melody,
In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye.
No cost was spared. What books he wished, he All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;

read;

What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see,
He saw.
And first, in rambling school-boy days,
Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes,
And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks,
And maids, as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul
With grandeur filled, and melody, and love.
Then travel came, and took him where he wished:
He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp;
And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows;
And mused on battle-fields, where valor fought
In other days; and mused on ruins gray
With years; and drank from old and fabulous
wells,

Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and

storins

His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deemed. All passions of all men,
The wild and tame, the gentle and severe;

--

;

All creeds; all seasons, time, eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man,
He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves ;
Then, smiling, looked upon the wreck he made.
With terror now he froze the cowering blood,
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness;
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
So Ocean, from the plains his waves had late
To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,

And plucked the vine that first-born prophets And seemed to mock the ruin he had wrought.

plucked;

And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave
Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste;
The heavens and earth of every country saw:
Where'er the old inspiring Genii dwelt,
Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul,
Thither he went, and meditated there.

As some fierce comet of tremendous size,
To which the stars did reverence as it passed,
So he, through learning and through fancy, took
His flights sublime, and on the loftiest top
Of Fame's dread mountain sat; not soiled and

worn,

As if he from the earth had labored up,

He touched his harp, and nations heard en- But as some bird of heavenly plumage fair

tranced.

As some vast river of unfailing source,
Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And opened new fountains in the human heart.
Where Fancy halted, weary in her flight,
In other men, his fresh as morning rose,

He looked, which down from higher regions came,
And perched it there, to see what lay beneath.
The nations gazed, and wondered much and
praised.

Critics before him fell in humble plight;
Confounded fell; and made debasing signs

And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at To catch his eye; and stretched and swelled home,

themselves

Where angels bashful looked. Others, though To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words

great,

Beneath their argument seemed struggling; whiles
He, from above descending, stooped to touch
The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as
though

It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self
He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.

Of admiration vast; and many too,
Many that aimed to imitate his flight,
With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made,
And gave abundant sport to after days.

Great man! the nations gazed and wondered
much,

And praised; and many called his evil good.
Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness;

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

EMMET'S EPITAPH.

[Robert Emmet, the celebrated Irish revolutionist, at his trial for high treason, which resulted in his conviction and execution, September 20, 1803, made an eloquent and pathetic defense, concluding with these words: "Let there be no inscription upon my tomb. Let no man write my epitaph. Let my character and my motives repose in security and peace till other times and other men can do them justice. Then shall my character be vindicated; then may my epitaph be written. I have done." It was imme

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, diately upon reading this speech that the following lines were

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,'
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er

his head,

And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that 's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him!

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock tolled the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory! We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone in his glory.

CHARLES Wolfe.

written.]

To which in thy young virtue's erring zeal
Thou wert so perilous an enemy,

Here in free England shall an English hand
Build thy imperishable monument ;
O, to thine own misfortune and to ours,
By thine own deadly error so beguiled,
Here in free England shall an English voice
Raise up thy mourning-song. For thou hast
paid

TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ., OF THE SOUTH-SEA The bitter penalty of that misdeed;

HOUSE.

Justice hath done her unrelenting part,

If she in truth be Justice who drives on,
Bloody and blind, the chariot-wheels of death.

So young, so glowing for the general good,
O, what a lovely manhood had been thine,
great-When all the violent workings of thy youth
Had passed away, hadst thou been wisely spared,
Left to the slow and certain influences
Of silent feeling and maturing thought!
How had that heart, that noble heart of thine,
Which even now had snapped one spell, which

JOHN, you were figuring in the gay career
Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy,
When I was yet a little peevish boy –
Though time has made the difference disappear
Betwixt our ages, which then seemed so
And still by rightful custom you retain
Much of the old authoritative strain,
And keep the elder brother up in state.
O, you do well in this! "T is man's worst deed
To let the "things that have been" run to waste,
And in the unmeaning present sink the past:
In whose dim glass even now I faintly read
Old buried forms, and faces long ago,
Which you, and I, and one more, only know.

CHARLES LAMB.

ON MISS MARIA TREE,

THE ENGLISH SINGER.

On this Tree when a nightingale settles and sings
The Tree will return her as good as she brings.

HENRY LUTTRELL.

Elder brother of the poet.

beat

With such brave indignation at the shame
And guilt of France, and of her miscreant lord,—
How had it clung to England! With what love,
What pure and perfect love, returned to her,
Now worthy of thy love, the champion now
For freedom, yea, the only champion now,
And soon to be the avenger. But the blow
Hath fallen, the undiscriminating blow,
That for its portion to the grave consigned
Youth, Genius, generous Virtue. O, grief, grief!
O, sorrow and reproach! Have ye to learn,
Deaf to the past, and to the future blind,
Ye who thus irremissibly exact