The shield-like kuphars bound along; 1
And sad Cunaxa's field, where, mixing
With host to adverse host oppos'd,
'Mid clashing shield and spear transfixing,
The rival brothers sternly clos'd.
And further east, where, broadly roll'd,
Old Indus pours his stream of gold;

And there, where tumbling deep and hoarse,
Blue Ganga leaves her vaccine source; 2
Loveliest of all the lovely streams
That meet immortal Titan's beams,
And smile upon their fruitful way
Beneath his golden orient ray:
And southward to Cilicia's shore,
Where Cydnus meets the billows' roar,
And where the Syrian gates divide
The meeting realms on either side; 3

E'er

'en to the land of Nile, whose crops
Bloom rich beneath his bounteous swell,
To hot Syene's wondrous well,
Nigh to the long-liv'd Ethiops.
And northward far to Trebizonde,
Renown'd for kings of chivalry,
Near where old Hyssus, from the strand,
Disgorges in the Euxine sea-

The Euxine, falsely nam'd, which whelms
The mariner in the heaving tide,
To high Sinope's distant realms,

Whence cynics rail'd at human pride.

EGYPT

'Egypt's palmy groves, Her grots, and sepulchres of kings.'

MOORE'S Lalla Rookh.

THE Sombre pencil of the dim-grey dawn Draws a faint sketch of Egypt to mine eye, As yet uncolour'd by the brilliant morn,

And her gay orb careering up the sky.

And see! at last he comes in radiant pride,
Life in his eye, and glory in his ray;
No veiling mists his growing splendour hide,
And hang their gloom around his golden way.

The flowery region brightens in his smile,

Her lap of blossoms freights the passing gale, That robs the odours of each balmy isle, Each fragrant field and aromatic vale.

Pauses, and scans them with astonish'd eye,
As unfamiliar with their aged pile.

Awful, august, magnificent, they tower
Amid the waste of shifting sands around;
The lapse of year and month and day and hour,
Alike unfelt, perform th' unwearied round.

How often hath yon day-god's burning light,
From the clear sapphire of his stainless hea

ven,

Bath'd their high peaks in noontide brilliance bright,

Gilded at morn, and purpled them at even!*

THE DRUID'S PROPHECIES 5

Perhaps suggested by Cowper's 'Boadicea,' but longer and more elaborate, and here and there hardly inferior to that poem.

MONA! with flame thine oaks are streaming,
Those sacred oaks we rear'd on high:
Lo! Mona, Lo! the swords are gleaming
Adown thine hills confusedly.

Hark! Mona, Hark! the chargers' neighing!
The clang of arms and helmets bright!
The crash of steel, the dreadful braying
Of trumpets thro' the madd'ning fight!

Exalt your torches, raise your voices;

Your thread is spun- your day is brief;
Yea! Howl for sorrow! Rome rejoices,
But Mona-Mona bends in grief!

But woe to Rome, though now she raises
Yon eagles of her haughty power;
Though now her sun of conquest blazes,
Yet soon shall come her darkening hour!

Woe, woe to him who sits in glory,
Enthroned on thine hills of pride!
Can he not see the poignard gory,
With his best heart's-blood deeply dyed?

Ab! what avails his gilded palace,
Whose wings the seven-hill'd town enfold ?
The costly bath, the chrystal chalice?

The pomp of gems -the glare of gold?

See where, by heartless anguish driven,
Crownless he creeps 'mid circling thorns; 7
Around him flash the bolts of heaven,

And angry earth before him yawns.8

veste ferali, crinibus dejectis, faces præferebant. Druidæque circum, preces diras, sublatis ad cœlum manibus, fundentes, etc. - TACIT. Annal. xiv. c. 30.

6 Pliny says, that the golden palace of Nero extended all round the city.

7Ut ad diverticulum ventum est, dimissis equis inter fruticeta ac vepres, per arundineti semitam ægre, nec nisi strata sub pedibus veste, ad adversum villæ parietem evasit.'-SUETON. Vit. Cæsar.

8 Statimque tremore terræ, et fulgure adverso pave factus, audiit ex proximis castris clamorem,' etc. - Ibid.

Then, from his pinnacle of splendour,
The feeble king,1 with locks of grey,
Shall fall, and sovereign Rome shall render
Her sceptre to the usurper's 2
sway.

Who comes with sounds of mirth and gladness,
Triumphing o'er the prostrate dead? 3
Ay, me thy mirth shall change to sadness,
When Vengeance strikes thy guilty head.

Above thy noon-day feast suspended,
High hangs in air a naked sword:
Thy days are gone, thy joys are ended,
The cup, the song, the festal board.

Then shall the eagle's shadowy pinion
Be spread beneath the eastern skies; 4
And dazzling far with wide dominion,

Five brilliant stars shall brightly rise.5

Then, coward king! the helpless aged
Shall bow beneath thy dastard blow;
But reckless hands and hearts, enraged,
By double fate shall lay thee low.

And two,8 with death-wounds deeply mangled,
Low on their parent-earth shall lie;
Fond wretches! ah! too soon entangled
Within the snares of royalty.

Then comes that mighty one victorious
In triumph o'er this earthly ball,
Exulting in his conquests glorious -
Ah! glorious to his country's fall!

But thou shalt see the Romans flying,

O Albyn! with yon dauntless ranks; 10
And thou shalt view the Romans dying,
Blue Carun! on thy mossy banks.

But lo! what dreadful visions o'er me
Are bursting on this aged eye!
What length of bloody train before me,
In slow succession passes by ! 11

8 Utque campos, in quibus pugnatum est, adiit (i. e. Vitellius) plurimum meri propalam hausit,' etc.-SUET. 4 At the siege of Jerusalem.

5 The five good Emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, or Antoninus the Philosopher. Perhaps the best commentary on the life and virtues of the last, is his own volume of Meditations.

Debiles pedibus, et eos, qui ambulare non possent, in gigantum modum, ita ut a genibus de pannis et linteis quasi dracones digererentur; eosdemque sagittis confecit.'-EL. LAMPRID. in Vita Comm. Such were the laudable amusements of Commodus !

7 He was first poisoned; but the operation not fully answering the wishes of his beloved, he was afterwards strangled by a robust wrestler.

Pertinax and Didius Julian.

9 Severus, who was equally victorious in the Eastern and Western World: but those conquests, however glo

They come they leave their frozen regions,
Where Scandinavia's wilds extend;
And Rome, though girt with dazzling legions,
Beneath their blasting power shall bend.

Woe, woe to Rome! though tall and ample
She rears her domes of high renown;
Yet fiery Goths shall fiercely trample
The grandeur of her temples down!

She sinks to dust; and who shall pity
Her dark despair and hopeless groans?
There is a wailing in her city-

Her babes are dash'd against the stones!

Then, Mona! then, though wan and blighted Thy hopes be now by Sorrow's dearth, Then all thy wrongs shall be requited

The Queen of Nations bows to earth!

way,

The vulture behind them is wild for his prey; And the spirits of death, and the demons of wrath,

Wave the gloom of their wings o'er their desolate path.

Earth trembles beneath them, the dauntless, the bold.

Oh! weep for thy children, thou region of gold; 18

For thy thousands are bow'd to the dust of the plain,

And all Delhi runs red with the blood of her slain.

rious, were conducive to the ruin of the Roman Empire. -See GIBBON, vol. vi. chap. v. p. 203.

10 In allusion to the real or feigned victory obtained by Fingal over Caracul or Caracalla. — See OSSIAN. 11 Very few of the Emperors after Severus escaped assassination.

12 Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, Maximin Pupienus, Balbinus, Gordian, Philip, etc., were assassinated; Claudius died of a pestilential fever; and Carus was struck dead by lightning in his tent.

13 This invader required as a ransom for Mohammed Shah no less than thirty millions, and amassed in the rich city of Delhi the enormous sum of two hundred and thirty-one millions sterling. Others, however, dif fer considerably in their account of this treasure.

'Tis midnight o'er the dim mere's lonely bosom, Dark, dusky, windy midnight: swift are driven

The swelling vapours onward: every blossom
Bathes its bright petals in the tears of heaven.
Imperfect, half-seen objects meet the sight,
The other half our fancy must pourtray;
A wan, dull, lengthen'd sheet of swimming
light

Lies the broad lake: the moon conceals her ray,
Sketch'd faintly by a pale and lurid gleam
Shot thro' the glimmering clouds: the lovely
planet

Is shrouded in obscurity; the scream

Of owl is silenc'd; and the rocks of granite Rise tall and drearily, while damp and dank Hang the thick willows on the reedy bank. Beneath, the gurgling eddies slowly creep, Blacken'd by foliage; and the glutting wave, That saps eternally the cold grey steep, Sounds heavily within the hollow cave. All earth is restless from his glossy wing 3 The heath-fowl lifts his head at intervals; Wet, driving, rainy, come the bursting squalls; All nature wears her dun dead covering. Tempest is gather'd, and the brooding storm Spreads its black mantle o'er the mountain's form;

And, mingled with the rising roar, is swelling, From the far hunter's booth, the blood hound's yelling.

The water-falls in various cadence chiming,
Or in one loud unbroken sheet descending,
Salute each other thro' the night's dark
womb;

The moaning pine-trees to the wild blast bending,

Are pictured faintly thro' the chequer'd gloom;

The forests, half-way up the mountain climbing, Resound with crash of falling branches;

quiver

Their aged mossy trunks: the startled doe Leaps from her leafy lair: the swelling river Winds his broad stream majestic, deep, and slow.

SCOTCH SONG

In the reprint this is marked' (?)' but it is probably Alfred's. It is the only experiment in Scottish verse in the volume.

nante de sa majesté; 'Le rayonnant monarque du monde;' 'Sa majesté conquérante du monde; ' etc.

The land is as the garden of Eden before therr and behind them a desolate wilderness.'-JOEL. The succeeding lines are a paraphrase of Ossian.

But where art thou, thou comet of an age, Thou phoenix of a century? Perchance Thou art but of those fables which engage And hold the minds of men in giddy trance. Yet, be it so, and be it all romance,

The thought of thine existence is so bright With beautiful imaginings-the glance Upon thy fancied being such delight, That I will deem thee Truth, so lovely is thy might!

'AND ASK YE WHY THESE SAD TEARS STREAM?'

'Te somnia nostra reducunt.'

OVID.

AND ask ye why these sad tears stream? Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?

I had a dream -a lovely dream,

Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as 't was yesterday,

The bloom upon her cheek still glowing; And round her play'd a golden ray,

And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,

A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreath'd with lambent fire
And amaranth was woven round it.

I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
Co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels beaming.

I strove to reach her, when, behold,
Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian,
And all that rich scene wrapt in gold,
Faded in air -a lovely vision!

And I awoke, but oh! to me

That waking hour was doubly weary; And yet I could not envy thee, Although so blest, and I so dreary.

ON SUBLIMITY

One of the best of Alfred's early efforts. Here, as in Persia,' the metrical management of proper names is noteworthy.

'The sublime always dwells on great objects and terrible.'

BURKE.

O TELL me not of vales in tenderest green, The poplar's shade, the plantane's graceful tree;

Give me the wild cascade, the rugged scene,

The loud surge bursting o'er the purple sea:

On such sad views my soul delights to pore,
By Teneriffe's peak, or Kilda's giant height,
Or dark Loffoden's melancholy shore,

What time grey eve is fading into night; When by that twilight beam I scarce descry The mingled shades of earth and sea and sky.

Give me to wander at midnight alone,

Through some august cathedral, where, from high,

The cold, clear moon on the mosaic stone
Comes glancing in gay colours gloriously,
Through windows rich with gorgeous blazonry,
Gilding the niches dim, where, side by side,
Stand antique mitred prelates, whose bones lie
Beneath the pavement, where their deeds of
pride

Were graven, but long since are worn away
By constant feet of ages day by day.

Then, as Imagination aids, I hear

Wild heavenly voices sounding from the quoir,

And more than mortal music meets mine ear, Whose long, long notes among the tombs expire,

With solemn rustiing of cherubic wings,

Round those vast columns which the roof upbear;

While sad and undistinguishable things

Do flit athwart the moonlit windows there;
And my blood curdles at the chilling sound
Of lone, unearthly steps, that pace the hallow'd
ground!

I love the starry spangled heav'n, resembling
A canopy with fiery gems o'erspread,
When the wide loch with silvery sheen is trem-
bling,

Far stretch'd beneath the mountain's hoary head.

But most I love that sky, when, dark with

Raises his eyes to heaven. Oh! who would sleep

What time the rushing of the angry gale Is loud upon the waters?- Hail, all hail! Tempest and clouds and night and thunder's rending peal!

All hail, Sublimity! thou lofty one,

For thou dost walk upon the blast, and gird Thy majesty with terrors, and thy throne Is on the whirlwind, and thy voice is heard In thunders and in shakings: thy delight Is in the secret wood, the blasted heath, The ruin'd fortress, and the dizzy height, The grave, the ghastly charnel - house of death,

In vaults, in cloisters, and in gloomy piles, Long corridors and towers and solitary aisles!

Thy joy is in obscurity, and plain

Is nought with thee; and on thy steps attend Shadows but half-distinguish'd; the thin train Of hovering spirits round thy pathway bend, With their low tremulous voice and airy tread,1 What time the tomb above them yawns and