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Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;

And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree

Can emblems see,

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant ryhmc, One which may profit in the after time.

Thus though abroad perchance I might appcar
Harsh and austere;

To those, who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude ;-

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,

Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.

And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The holly leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they;

But, when the bare and wintry woods we sce,
What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;

So would seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they;

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.

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THOMAS CAMPBELL was born at Glasgow in the year 1777, and was educated at the University of his native city. At the age of twenty-one, he published a didactic poem entitled "The Pleasures of Hope," which was so favourably received that by the profits arising from its sale he was enabled to undertake a tour in Germany, during which he witnessed the battle of Hohenlinden, which he has so nobly commemorated. Settling in London, he edited "The New Monthly Magazine," from 1820 to 1831. He was three times elected Lord Rector of his University. He died in the year 1844 at Boulogne, whither he had gone to recruit his health; and was buried in the corner sacred to poets in Westminster Abbey. The most favourite productions of Campbell, beside his "Pleasures of Hope," and "Gertrude of Wyoming," are his lyrics devoted to the celebration of the glory and prestige of his native country. The "Battle of the Baltic," and others stir the heart like the sound of the trumpet. But it is in the "Last Man" that he seems to have uttered all the concentrated grandeur of his intellect and imagination.

THE LAST MAN.

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom—

The Sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume

Its immortality!

I saw a vision in my sleep,

That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of time!

I saw the last of human mould,
That shall creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime.

The Sun's eye had a sickly glare,
The earth with age was wan;
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man!

Some had expired in fight-the brands
Still rested in their bony hands-
In plague and famine some:
Earth's cities had no sound or tread,
And ships were drifting with the dead
To shores where all was dumb!

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high,

That shook the sere leaves from the wood,
As if a storm passed by;

Saying, "We are twins in death, proud Sun;
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,

"Tis mercy bids thee go;

For thou, ten thousand thousand years

Hast seen the tide of human tears,

That shall no longer flow.

What though beneath thee man put forth

His pomp, his pride, his skill:

And arts that made fire, flood, and earth

The vassals of his will?

Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim, discrownéd king of day;

For all those trophied arts,

And triumphs that bencath thee sprang
Healed not a passion or a pang

Entailed on human hearts.

Go, let oblivion's curtain fall

Upon the stage of men,

Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again:

Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh upon the rack
Of pain anew to writhe;

Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred,
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.

Even I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire:
Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire:

My lips that speak thy dirge of death,
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath,

To see thou shalt not boast.
The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall-
The majesty of darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!

This spirit shall return to Him
That gave its heavenly spark;
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim,
When thou thyself art dark!
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,
By Him recalled to breath,
Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of victory,

And took the sting from death!

Go, Sun, while mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste,
To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste-
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou sawest the last of Adam's race,
On earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality,

Or shake his trust in God!

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66

WILLIAM KNOX was born at Edinburgh in the year 1789. "His father," says Sir Walter Scott, was a respectable yeoman, and he himself succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon his own master, and plunged into dissipation and ruin. His talent then showed itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry."

It has been remarked that Knox throughout his life kept his domestic affections unimpaired, and that "from the force of early impressions of piety he was able, in the very midst of the most deplorable dissipation, to command his mind at intervals to the composition of verses alive with sacred fire, and breathing of Scriptural simplicity and tenderness." Knox died at Edinburgh, in the year 1825. His chief works are "The Lonely Hearth; Songs of Israel;" and the "Harp of Zion."

99 66

THE CURSE OF CAIN.

O the wrath of the Lord is a terrible thing!

Like the tempest that withers the blossoms of springLike the thunder that bursts on the summer's domainIt fell on the head of the homicide Cain.

And lo! like a deer in the fright of the chase,
With a fire in his heart, and a brand on his face,
He speeds him afar to the desert of Nod-
A vagabond smote by the vengeance of God.

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