What is magic's mightiest wand
To the sceptre in his hand?
Florence, city of the dead!
Cast the ashes from thy head,

At its touch the palm shall bloom
On thy solitary tomb.

Sea! that hear'st the dreary gale O'er thy lonely billows wail,

When in strength this hand is raised,
Thou shalt wear a crown emblazed;
Gold and glory from the East
Shall on thy green forehead rest,
At thy feet the banners riven
Mark thy foes, the foes of Heaven.
Grave! where ancient genius lies,
What shall bid thy slumberers rise?
Glorious Infant! thou shalt stand,
Sending down thy summons grand
Through its depths, and they shall come
Brighter for the transient tomb.
In thy splendour, timid eye,
Crowns shall lose their majesty;
Dim before the soul enshrined,
The fiery sovereignty of mind.
Child of might, young miracle,
Sweet LORENZO, fare thee well!

SATAN.

FROM A PICTURE BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.

Yet, brighter than thy brightest hour,
Shall rise in glory and in power,
The lowliest of the lowly dead,
His ransom'd, who shall bruise thy head,
The myriads for His blood forgiven;
Kings of the stars, the loved of Heaven!

EPITAPH.

"Thou thy wor!lly task hast done."

SHAKSPEARE.

HIGH peace to the soul of the dead,
From the dream of the world she has gone

On the stars in her glory to tread,

To be bright in the blaze of the throne.

In youth she was lovely; and Time,
When her rose with the cypress he twined,
Left her heart all the warmth of its prime,
Left her eye all the light of her mind.

The summons came forth,-and she died!
Yet her parting was gentle, for those

Whom she loved, mingled tears at her sideHer death was the mourner's repose.

Our weakness may weep o'er her bier,

But her spirit has gone on the wing
To triumph for agony here,

To rejoice in the joy of her King.

"Satan dilated stood."

MILTON.

THE SONG OF ANTAR.

FROM THE ARABIC.

PRINCE of the fall'n! around thee sweep
The billows of the burning deep.
Above thee bonds the vaulted fire,
Beneath thee bursts the flaming spire.
And on thy sleepless vision rise
Hell's living clouds of agonies.

But thou dost like a mountain stand,
The spear unlifted in thy hand;
Thy gorgeous eye,-a comet shorn,
Calm into utter darkness borne ;

A naked giant, stern, sublime,
Arm'd in despair, and scorning Time.

On thy curl'd lip is throned disdain, That may revenge, but not complain: Thy mighty cheek is firm, though pale, There smote the blast of fiery hail.

Yet wan, wild beauty lingers there, The wreck of an archangel's sphere.

No giant pinions round thee cling,
Clouds and the thunders are thy wing.
Thy forehead wears no diadem,
The king is in thine eye-ball's beam.
Thy form is grandeur unsubdued,
Sole chief of Hell's dark multitude.

ANTAR, the great Arabian Epic, has become popular from Mr. Hamilton's admirable transiation. Yet the extravagance of the hero's lyrics is perhaps too unlicensed for English poetry.

IBLA, I love thee. On my heavy eye Thine flashes, like the lightning on the cloud. I cannot paint thy beauty; for it leaves All picturing pale. Were I to say the moon Looks in her midnight glory like thy brow, Where is the wild, sweet sparkling of thine eye? Or that the palm is like thy stately form, Where is thy grace among its waving boughs? Thy forehead's whiteness is my rising sun; Thine ebon tresses wreathing it like night, Like night bewilder me; thy teeth are pearls, In moist lips rosier than the Indian shell. But now my world is darkness, for thou'rt gone? Thy look was to my life what evening dews Are to the tamarisk: thy single glance Went swifter, deeper, to thy lover's heart, Than spear or scimitar; and still I gaze Hopeless on thee, as on the glorious moon, For thou, like her, art bright, like her above me

EBENEZER ELLIOTT, the Corn-Law Rhymer, was born at Masborough, Yorkshire, March 7, 1781. His parents were dissenters, and he was strongly imbued with his father's religious and democratic principles. He was a slow scholar, but after a while began to read diligently, and at the age of seventeen published a poem entitled "The Vernal Walk." He went into business as an

iron-founder in Sheffield in 1821, and in 1841 retired with a competence. He published poems from time to time-the most famous being the "Corn-Law Rhymes," denouncing the laws which regulated the importation of grain. Two other volumes were called "The Ranter" and "The Village Patriarch." A collected edition was issued in 1834. He died on December 1, 1849.

THE DYING BOY TO THE SLOE-BLOSSOM.

BEFORE thy leaves thou com'st once more,
White blossom of the sloe!

Thy leaves will come as heretofore;
But this poor heart, its troubles o'er,
Will then lie low.

A month at least before thy time

Thou com'st, pale flower, to me; For well thou know'st the frosty rime Will blast me ere my vernal prime, No more to be.

Why here in winter? No storm lours
O'er Nature's silent shroud!

But blithe larks meet the sunny showers,
High o'er the doomed untimely flowers
In beauty bowed.

Sweet violets in the budding grove

Peep where the glad waves run; The wren below, the thrush above, Of bright to-morrow's joy and love, Sing to the sun.

And where the rose-leaf, ever bold,

Hears bees chant hymns to God,

For as the rainbow of the dawn
Foretells an eve of tears,

A sunbeam on the saddened lawn
I smile and weep to be withdrawn
In early years.

Thy leaves will come! but songful Spring
Will see no leaf of mine;

Her bells will ring, her bride's-maids sing,
When my young leaves are withering,
Where no suns shine.

Oh, might I breathe morn's dewy breath,
When June's sweet Sabbaths chime!
But, thine before my time, O, Death!
I go where no flower blossometh,
Before my time.

Even as the blushes of the morn Vanish, and long ere noon The dew-drop dieth on the thorn, So fair I bloomed; and was I born To die as soon?

To love my mother, and to die—
To perish in my bloom!

Is this my sad, brief history?—
A tear dropped from a mother's eye
Into the tomb.

Smiles o'er the well in summer cold,

And daisied sod.

But thou, pale blossom, thou art come,
And flowers in winter blow,

To tell me that the worm makes room
For me, her brother, in the tomb,
And thinks me slow.

By early sorrow tried;

He smiled, he sighed, he passed away: His life was but an April day,

He loved, and died!

My mother smiles, then turns away,
But turns away to weep:
They whisper round me-what they say

I need not hear, for in the clay I soon must sleep.

Oh, love is sorrow! sad it is

To be both tried and true;
I ever trembled in my bliss:
Now there are farewells in a kiss,-
They sigh adieu.

But woodbines flaunt when bluebells fade,
Where Don reflects the skies;
And many a youth in Shire-cliffs' shade
Will ramble where my boyhood played,
Though Alfred dies.

Then panting woods the breeze will feel,
And bowers, as heretofore,

Beneath their load of roses reel;
But I through woodbined lanes shall steal
No more, no more.

Well, lay me by my brother's side,

Where late we stood and wept; For I was stricken when he died,I felt the arrow as he sighed His last, and slept.

TO THE BRAMBLE-FLOWER.

THY fruit full well the schoolboy knows,
Wild bramble of the brake!

So, put thou forth thy small white rose;
I love it for his sake.

Though woodbines flaunt, and roses glow

O'er all the fragrant bowers,

Thou need'st not be ashamed to show
Thy satin-threaded flowers:

For dull the eye, the heart is dull

That cannot feel how fair,

Amid all beauty beautiful,

Thy tender blossoms are!

How delicate thy gauzy frill!

How rich thy branchy stem!

How soft thy voice, when woods are still, And thou sing'st hymns to them! While silent showers are falling slow, And 'mid the general hush,

A sweet air lifts the little bough,

Lone whispering through the bush! The primrose to the grave is gone; The hawthorn-flower is dead; The violet by the moss'd gray stone Hath laid her wearied head;

But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring, In all their beauteous power,

The fresh green days of life's fair spring, And boyhood's blossomy hour.

Scorn'd bramble of the brake! once more
Thou bidd'st me be a boy,

To gad with thee the woodlands o'er,
In freedom and in joy.

LET IDLERS DESPAIR.

LET idlers despair! there is hope for the wise, Who rely on their own hearts and hands;

And we read in their souls, by the flash of their

eyes,

That our land is the noblest of lands. Let knaves fear for England, whose thoughts wear a mask,

While a war on our trenchers they wage: Free Trade, and no favor! is all that we ask; Fair play, and the world for a stage!

Secure in their baseness, the lofty and bold
Look down on their victims beneath;
Like snow on a skylight, exalted and cold,
They shine o'er the shadow of death;

In the warm sun of knowledge, that kindles our blood,

And fills our cheer'd spirits with day, Their splendor, contemn'd by the brave and the good,

Like a palace of ice, melts away.

Our compass, which married the East and the West

Our press, which makes many minds oneOur steam-sinew'd giant, that toils without restProclaim that our perils are gone.

We want but the right, which the God of the

night

Denies not to birds and to bees;

The charter of Nature! that bids the wing'd light Fly chainless as winds o'er the seas.

THE DAY WAS DARK.

THE day was dark, save when the beam
Of noon through darkness broke,

In gloomy state as in a dream,
Beneath my orchard oak;

Lo, splendor, like a spirit came!
A shadow like a tree!

While there I sat, and named her name,
Who once sat there with me.

I started from the seat in fear;
I look'd around in awe;
But saw no beauteous spirit near,
Though all that was I saw ;
The seat, the tree, where oft in tears
She mourn'd her hopes o'erthrown,
Her joys cut off in early years,

Like gather'd flowers half-blown.

Again the bud and breeze were met,
But Mary did not come;
And e'en the rose, which she had set,
Was fated ne'er to bloom!

The thrush proclaim'd in accents sweet
That Winter's reign was o'er;
The bluebells throng'd around my feet,
But Mary came no more.

I think, I feel-but when will she
Awake to thought again?

No voice of comfort answers me;
But God does naught in vain :
He wastes no flower, nor bud, nor leaf,
Nor wind, nor cloud, nor wave;
And will he waste the hope which grief
Hath planted in the grave?