Amel. Is this jest?

You act well, sir; or-but if it be true, Then what am I?

Ch. Oh! by these burning tears,

By all my haunted days and wakeful nights,
Oh! by yourself I swear, dearest of all,
I love love you, my own Amelia!
Once I will call you so. Do-do not scorn me
And blight my youth-I do not ask for love;
I dare not. Trample not upon my heart,
My untouched heart-I gave it all to you,
Without a spot of care or sorrow on it.
My spirit became yours-I worshipped you,
And for your sake in silence. Say but once
You hate me not, for this-Speak, speak!
Amel. Alas!

Ch. Weep not for me, my gentle love. You said
Your husband threatened you. Come, then, to me;
I have a shelter and a heart for you,
Where, ever and for ever you shall reign.
Amelia, dear Amelia! speak a word
Of kindness and consenting to me-Speak!
If but a word, or though it be not kindness:
Speak hope, doubt, fear-but not despair; or say
That some day you may love, or that if ever
Your cruel husband dies, you'll think of me;
Or that you wish me happy-or that perhaps
Your heart-nay, speak to me, Amelia.

Amel. Is, then, your love so deep?
Ch. So deep? It is

Twined with my life: it is my life—my food-
The natural element wherein I breathe-
My madness-my heart's madness-it is all
-Oh! what a picture have I raised upon
My sandy wishes. I have thought at times
That you and I in some far distant country
Might live together, blessing and beloved;
And I have shaped such plans of happiness,
For us and all around us (you, indeed,
Ever the sweet superior spirit there),
That were you always-fair Amelia,
You listen with a melancholy smile?

Amel. Let me hear all: 'tis fit I should hear all. Alas, alas!

Ch. Weep not for me, my love.

I-I am nought: not worth a single tear:

I will depart-or may I kiss away

Those drops of rain? Well, well, I will not pain you.
And yet-oh! what a paradise is love;
Secure, requited love. I will not go :
Or we will go together. There are haunts
For young and happy spirits: you and I
Will thither fly, and dwell beside some stream
That runs in music 'neath the Indian suns;
Ay, some sweet island still shall be our home,
Where fruits and flowers are born through all the

year, And Summer, Autumn, Spring, are ever young, Where Winter comes not, and where nought abides But Nature in her beauty revelling. You shall be happy, sweet Amelia, At last; and I-it is too much to think of. Forgive me while I look upon thee now, And swear to thee by Love, and Night, and all The gliding hours of soft and starry night, How much-how absolutely I am thine. My pale and gentle beauty-what a heart Had he to wrong thee or upbraid thee! He Was guilty-nay, nay: look not so.

Amel. I have

Been guilty of a cruel act toward you. Charles, I indeed am guilty. When to-day My husband menaced me, and told me of Public and broad disgrace, it met my scorn: But have I, my poor youth, been so unkind To you as not to see this-love before!

Charles, I have driven you from your early home; I see it now: I only-hate me for it.

Ch. I'll love you, like bright heaven. The fixed

stars

Shall never be so constant. I am all
Your own. Not sin, nor sorrow, nor the grave,
Not the cold hollow grave shall chill my love.
It will survive beyond the bounds of death,
The spirit of the shadow which may there
Perhaps do penance for my deeds of ill.
Amel. Stay this wild talk.

Ch. Men have been known to love
Through years of absence, ay, in pain and peril;
And one did cast life and a world away
For a loose woman's smile: nay, love has dwelt,
A sweet inhabitant in a demon's breast,
Lonely, amidst bad passions; burning there,
Like a most holy and sepulchral light,
And almost hallowing its dark tenement.
Why may not 1-

Amel. I thought I heard a step.

How strangely you speak now-again, again.
Leave me; quick, leave me.

Ch. 'Tis your tyrant coming:
Fly rather you.

Amel. If you have pity, go.

Ch. Farewell, then: yet, should he repulse you— Amel. Then

I will-but go: you torture me.
Ch. I am gone.

[Erit

Amel. Farewell, farewell, poor youth; so desolate That even I can spare a tear for you.

My husband comes not: I will meet him, then,
Armed in my innocence and wrongs. Alas!
"Tis hard to suffer where we ought to judge,
And pray to those who should petition us.
'Tis a brave world, I see. Power and wrong
Go hand in hand resistless and abhorred,
And patient virtue and pale modesty,
Like the sad flowers of the too early spring,
Are cropped before they blossom-or trod down,
Or by the fierce winds withered. Is it so!-
But I have flaunted in the sun, and cast
My smiles in prodigality away:

And now, and now-no matter. I have done.
Whether I live scorned or beloved-Beloved!
Better be hated, could my pride abate
And I consent to fly. It may be thus.

SCENE II. A Chamber.-Night.

A considerable period of time is supposed to have elapsed between this and the preceding scene. AMELIA-MARIAN.

Mar. Are you awake, dear lady! Amel. Wide awake.

There are the stars abroad, I see. I feel
As though I had been sleeping many a day.
What time o' the night is it?

Mar. About the stroke

Of midnight.

Amel. Let it come. The skies are calm And bright; and so, at last, my spirit is. Whether the heavens have influence on the mind Through life, or only in our days of death, I know not; yet, before, ne'er did my soul Look upwards with such hope of joy, or pine For that hope's deep completion. Marian! Let me see more of heaven. There enough. Are you not well, sweet girl?

Mar. Oh! yes: but you

Speak now so strangely: you were wont to talk Of plain familiar things, and cheer me: now You set my spirit drooping.

Amel. I have spoke

Nothing but cheerful words, thou idle girl.

Look, look! above: the canopy of the sky,
Spotted with stars, shines like a bridal dress:
A queen might envy that so regal blue
Which wraps the world o' nights. Alas, alas!
I do remember in my follying days

What wild and wanton wishes once were mine,
Slaves-radiant gems-and beauty with no peer,
And friends (a ready host)—but I forget.
I shall be dreaming soon, as once I dreamt,
When I had hope to light me. Have you no song,
My gentle girl, for a sick woman's ear?

There's one I've heard you sing: They said his eye' "No, that's not it: the words are hard to hit.

His eye like the mid-day sun was bright'—
Mar. 'Tis so.

Well, listen to me.

You've a good memory.
I must not trip, I see.
Amel. I hearken. Now.

Song.

His eye like the mid-day sun was bright, Hers had a proud but a milder light, Clear and sweet like the cloudless moon: Alas! and must it fade as soon?

His voice was like the breath of war,
But hers was fainter-softer far;
And yet, when he of his long love sighed,
She laughed in scorn:-he fled and died.

Mar. There is another verse, of a different air, But indistinct-like the low moaning

Of summer winds in the evening: thus it runs-

They said he died upon the wave,

And his bed was the wild and bounding billow:
Her bed shall be a dry earth grave:

Prepare it quick, for she wants her pillow.
Amel. How slowly and how silently doth time
Float on his starry journey. Still he goes,
And goes, and goes, and doth not pass away.
He rises with the golden morning, calmly,
And with the moon at night. Methinks I see
Him stretching wide abroad his mighty wings,
Floating for ever o'er the crowds of men,
Like a huge vulture with its prey beneath.
Lo! I am here, and time seems passing on:
To-morrow I shall be a breathless thing-
Yet he will still be here; and the blue hours
Will laugh as gaily on the busy world
As though I were alive to welcome them.
There's one will shed some tears. Poor Charles!

[CHARLES enters.]

Ch. I am here. Did you not call?

Amel. You come in time. My thoughts
Were full of you, dear Charles. Your mother (now
I take that title), in her dying hour

Has privilege to speak unto your youth.
There's one thing pains me, and I would be calm.
My husband has been harsh unto me-yet
He is my husband; and you'll think of this
If any sterner feeling move your heart?
Scek no revenge for me. You will not?-Nay,
Is it so hard to grant my last request?
He is my husband: he was father, too,
Of the blue-eyed boy you were so fond of once.
Do you remember how his eyelids closed
When the first summer rose was opening?
Tis now two years ago-more, more: and I-
I now am hastening to him. Pretty boy!
He was my only child. How fair he looked
In the white garment that encircled him---
Twas like a marble slumber; and when we
Laid him beneath the green earth in his bed,

I thought my heart was breaking-yet I lived: But I am weary now.

Mar. You must not talk, Indeed, dear lady; nay

Ch. Indeed you must not.

Amel. Well, then, I will be silent; yet not so. For ere we journey, ever should we take

A sweet leave of our friends, and wish them well, And tell them to take heed, and bear in mind Our blessings. So, in your breast, dear Charles, Wear the remembrance of Amelia.

Poor faded girl! I was too harsh-unjust.
Ch. Look!

Mar. She has left us.
Ch. It is false. Revive!
Mother, revive, revive!
Mar. It is in vain.
Ch. Is it then so? My soul is sick and faint.
Oh! mother, mother. I-I cannot weep.
Oh for some blinding tears to dim my eyes,
So I might not gaze on her. And has death
Indeed, indeed struck her-so beautiful?
So wronged, and never erring; so beloved
By one-who now has nothing left to love.
Oh! thou bright heaven, if thou art calling now
Thy brighter angels to thy bosom-rest,
For lo! the brightest of thy host is gone-
Departed-and the earth is dark below.
And now-I'll wander far and far away,
Like one that hath no country. I shall find
A sullen pleasure in that life, and when
I say 'I have no friend in all the world,'
My heart will swell with pride, and make a show
Unto itself of happiness; and in truth
There is, in that same solitude, a taste
Of pleasure which the social never know.
From land to land I'll roam, in all a stranger,
And, as the body gains a braver look,

By staring in the face of all the winds,
So from the sad aspects of different things
My soul shall pluck a courage, and bear up
Against the past. And now-for Hindostan.

HENRY HART MILMAN.

The REV. HENRY HART MILMAN, vicar of St Mary, in the town of Reading, is author of several poems and dramas, recently collected and published in three volumes. He first appeared as an author in 1817, when his tragedy of Fazio was published. It was afterwards acted with success at Drury Lane theatre. In 1820 Mr Milman published a dramatic poem, the Fall of Jerusalem, and to this succeeded three other dramas, Belshazzar, the Martyr of Antioch, and Anne Boleyn, but none of these were designed for the stage. He has also written a narrative poem, Samor, Lord of the Bright City, and several smaller pieces. To our prose literature Mr Milman has contributed a History of the Jews, in three volumes, and an edition of Gibbon's Rome, with notes and corrections. Mr Milman is a native of London, son of an eminent physician, Sir Francis Milman, and was born in the year 1791. He distinguished himself as a classical scholar, and in 1815 was made a fellow of Brazen-nose college, Oxford.

He also held (1821) the office of professor of poetry in the university. The taste and attainments of Mr Milman are seen in his poetical works; but he wants the dramatic spirit, and also that warmth of passion and imagination which is necessary to vivify his sacred learning and his classical creations.

[Jerusalem before the Siege.]

Titus. It must be

And yet it moves me, Romans! It confounds
The counsel of my firm philosophy,
That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er,
And barren salt be sown on yon proud city.
As on our olive-crowned hill we stand,
Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters
Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,
As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,
How boldly doth it front us! how majestically!
Like a luxurious vineyard, the hill-side

Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line,
Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still, and nearer
To the blue heavens. There bright and sumptuous

palaces,

With cool and verdant gardens interspersed ;
There towers of war that frown in massy strength;
While over all hangs the rich purple eve,
As conscious of its being her last farewell
Of light and glory to that fated city.
And, as our clouds of battle, dust and smoke,
Are melted into air, behold the temple
In undisturbed and lone serenity,
Finding itself a solemn sanctuary
In the profound of heaven! It stands before us
A mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles!
The very sun, as though he worshipped there,
Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs,
And down the long and branching porticos,
On every flowery-sculptured capital,
Glitters the homage of his parting beams.
By Hercules! the sight might almost win
The offended majesty of Rome to mercy.

Hymn of the Captive Jews.] • [From Belshazzar."]

God of the thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of desolation flow:
Father of vengeance! that with purple feet,
Like a full wine-press, tread'st the world below:

The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havock on his prey,
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way,
Till thou the guilty land hast sealed for wo.
God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage suppress;
Father of mercies! at one word of thine

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness!

And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,

And pillared temples rise thy name to bless.
O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke, O Lord!

The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword,

Even her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Her temple sank amid the smouldering flame,

For thou didst ride the tempest-cloud of fate.
O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam,

And the sad city lift her crownless head; And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam,

Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the

dead.

The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maiden's cull the flowers,
To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers,
And angel-feet the glittering Sion tread.
Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,

And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves; With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves. The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep, And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep, 'Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep, Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves. The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;

Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home; He that went forth a tender yearling boy,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come. And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear. And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare; And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer, Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blazed the irradiate dome.

[Summons of the Destroying Angel to the City of Babylon.]

The hour is come! the hour is come! With voice
Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee,
Cyrus, the Lord's anointed! And thou river,
That flowest exulting in thy proud approach
To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls.
And brazen gates, and gilded palaces,
And groves, that gleam with marble obelisks,
Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights
Fretted and chequered like the starry heavens:
I do arrest thee in thy stately course,

By Him that poured thee from thine ancient fountain,
And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time,
One of his holy streams, to lave the mounts
Of Paradise. Thou hear'st me: thou dost check
Abrupt thy waters as the Arab chief

His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved
Yet toiling Persian breaks the ruining mound,
I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength;
And, through the deep and roaring Naharmalcha,
Roll on as proudly conscious of fulfilling
The omnipotent command! While, far away,
The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved,
Save by the rippling moonshine, heaves on high

Its foaming surface like a whirlpool-gulf,
And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide.
But silent as thy billows used to flow,
And terrible, the hosts of Elam move,
Winding their darksome way profound, where man
Ne'er trod, nor light e'er shone, nor air from heaven
Breathed. Oh! ye secret and unfathomed depths,
How are ye now a smooth and royal way

For the army of God's vengeance! Fellow-slaves
And ministers of the Eternal purpose,

Not guided by the treacherous, injured sons
Of Babylon, but by my mightier arm,

Ye come, and spread your banners, and display
Your glittering arms as ye advance, all white
Beneath the admiring moon. Come on! the gates
Are open-not for banqueters in blood
Like you! I see on either side o'erflow
The living deluge of armed men, and cry,
Begin, begin! with fire and sword begin
The work of wrath. Upon my shadowy wings
pause, and float a little while, to see
Mine human instruments fulfil my task
of final ruin. Then I mount, I fly,
And sing my proud song, as I ride the clouds,
That stars may hear, and all the hosts of worlds,
That live along the interminable space,
Take up Jehovah's everlasting triumph!

[The Fair Recluse.]

[From 'Samor, Lord of the Bright City."]

unk was the sun, and up the eastern heaven, Like maiden on a lonely pilgrimage, Moved the meek star of eve; the wandering air Breathed odours; wood, and waveless lake, like man, slept, weary of the garish, babbling day.

Dove of the wilderness, thy snowy wing Droops not in slumber; Lilian, thou alone, Mid the deep quiet, wakest. Dost thou rove, dolatrous of yon majestic moon, That like a crystal-throned queen in heaven, eems with her present deity to hush Co beauteous adoration all the earth?

Might seem the solemn silent mountain tops
stand up and worship! the translucent streams
Down the hills glittering, cherish the pure light
Beneath the shadowy foliage o'er them flung
At intervals; the lake, so silver-white,

listens; all indistinct the snowy swans Bask in the radiance cool. Doth Lilian muse To that apparent queen her vesper hymn? Nursling of solitude, her infant couch ever did mother watch; within the grave he slept unwaking: scornful turned aloof aswallon, of those pure instinctive joys Ey fathers felt, when playful infant grace, ouched with a feminine softness, round the heart Vinds its light maze of undefined delight, ontemptuous: he with haughty joy beheld is boy, fair Malwyn; him in bossy shield ocked proudly, him upbore to mountain steep ierce and undaunted, for their dangerous nest battle with the eagle's clam'rous brood. But she, the while, from human tenderness Stranged, and gentler feelings that light up he cheek of youth with rosy joyous smile, ke a forgotten lute, played on alone ychance-caressing airs, amid the wild

auteously pale and sadly playful grew, lonely child, by not one human heart loved, and loving none: nor strange if learnt er native fond affections to embrace Eings senseless and inanimate; she loved

l flowrets that with rich embroidery fair amel the green earth-the odorous thyme, Fild rose, and roving eglantine; nor spared

To mourn their fading forms with childish tears.
Gray birch and aspen light she loved, that droop
Fringing the crystal stream; the sportive breeze
That wantoned with her brown and glossy locks;
The sunbeam chequering the fresh bank; ere dawn
Wandering, and wandering still at dewy eve,
By Glenderamakin's flower empurpled marge,
Derwent's blue lake, or Greta's wildering glen.

Rare sound to her was human voice, scarce heard,
Save of her aged nurse or shepherd maid
Soothing the child with simple tale or song.
Hence all she knew of earthly hopes and fears,
Life's sins and sorrows: better known the voice
Beloved of lark from misty morning cloud
Blithe carolling, and wild melodious notes
Heard mingling in the summer wood, or plaint
By moonlight, of the lone night-warbling bird.
Nor they of love unconscious, all around
Fearless, familiar they their descants sweet
Tuned emulous; her knew all living shapes
That tenant wood or rock, dun roe or deer,
Sunning his dappled side, at noontide crouched,
Courting her fond caress; nor fled her gaze
The brooding dove, but murmured sounds of joy.

The Day of Judgment.

Even thus amid thy pride and luxury,

Oh earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
That secret coming of the Son of Man,
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:
When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan,
Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away;
Still to the noontide of that nightless day
Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain.
Along the busy mart and crowded street,
The buyer and the seller still shall meet,
And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain:
Still to the pouring out the cup of wo;

Till earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,
And mountains molten by his burning feet,
And heaven his presence own, all red with furnace
heat.

And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn
Like forest-leaves in the autumn of thine ire:
Faithful and True! thou still wilt save thine own!
The saints shall dwell within the unharming fire,
Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm.
Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side,
So shall the church, thy bright and mystic bride,
Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm.
Yes, 'mid yon angry and destroying signs,
O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines;
We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam,
Almighty to avenge, almightiest to redeem !

REV. GEORGE CROLY.

The REV. GEORGE CROLY, rector of St Stephen's, Walbrook, London, is, like Mr Milman, a correct and eloquent poet, but deficient in interest, and consequently little read. His poetical works are, Paris in 1815; The Angel of the World; Gems from the Antique, &c. Mr Croly has published several works in prose: Salathiel, a romance founded on the old legend of the Wandering Jew; a Life of Burke, in two volumes; and a work on the Apocalypse of St John. This gentleman is a native of Ireland, and was educated at Trinity college, Dublin.

Pericles and Aspasia.

This was the ruler of the land,

When Athens was the land of fame; This was the light that led the band,

When each was like a living flame; The centre of earth's noblest ring, Of more than men, the more than king. Yet not by fetter, nor by spear,

His sovereignty was held or won: Feared-but alone as freemen fear;

Loved-but as freemen love alone; He waved the sceptre o'er his kind By nature's first great title-mind! Resistless words were on his tongue,

Then Eloquence first flashed below; Full armed to life the portent sprung,

Minerva from the Thunderer's brow! And his the sole, the sacred hand, That shook her gis o'er the land. And throned immortal by his side,

A woman sits with eye sublime, Aspasia, all his spirit's bride;

But, if their solemn love were crime, Pity the beauty and the sage, Their crime was in their darkened age. He perished, but his wreath was won;

He perished in his height of fame: Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun,

Yet still she conquered in his name. Filled with his soul, she could not die; Her conquest was Posterity!

[The French Army in Russia.]
[From Paris in 1815."]

Magnificence of ruin! what has time
In all it ever gazed upon of war,
Of the wild rage of storm, or deadly clime,
Seen, with that battle's vengeance to compare?
How glorious shone the invader's pomp afar!
Like pampered lions from the spoil they came;
The land before them silence and despair,
The land behind them massacre and flame;
Blood will have tenfold blood. What are they now!
A name.