Storms have gone forth, which, in their fierce career, From his bold hand have struck the banner and the

spear.

The shrine hath sunk!-but thou unchanged art there!

Mount of the voice and vision, robed with dreams Unchanged, and rushing through the radiant air, With thy dark waving pines, and flashing streams, And all thy founts of song! their bright course

teems

With inspiration yet; and each dim haze,

Or golden cloud which floats around thee, seems As with its mantle veiling from our gaze

The mysteries of the past, the gods of elder days!

Away, vain phantasies!— doth less of power Dwell round thy summit, or thy cliffs invest, Though in deep stillness now, the ruin's flower Wave o'er the pillars mouldering on thy breast? -Lift through the free blue heavens thine arrowy

crest!

Let the great rocks their solitude regain!

No Delphian lyres now break thy noontide rest With their full chords:-but silent be the strain! Thou hast a mightier voice to speak th' Eternal's reign !1

'This, with the preceding, and several of the following pieces, first appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine.

21*

THE FESTAL HOUR.

WHEN are the lessons given

That shake the startled earth? When wakes the foe While the friend sleeps? When falls the traitor's blow?

When are proud sceptres riven,

High hopes o'erthrown?-It is when lands rejoice,
When cities blaze and lift th' exulting voice,
And wave their banners to the kindling heaven!

Fear ye the festal hour!

When mirth o'erflows, then tremble!-'Twas a night
Of gorgeous revel, wreaths, and dance, and light,
When through the regal bower

The trumpet peal'd, ere yet the song was done,
And there were shrieks in golden Babylon,
And trampling armies, ruthless in their power.

The marble shrines were crown'd:

Young voices, through the blue Athenian sky,
And Dorian reeds, made summer-melody,

And censers waved around;

And lyres were strung and bright libations pour'd! When, through the streets, flash'd out th' avenging

sword,

Fearless and free, the sword with myrtles bound!!

The sword of Harmodius.

Through Rome a triumph pass'd.
Rich in her sun-god's mantling beams went by
That long array of glorious pageantry,

With shout and trumpet-blast.

An empire's gems their starry splendour shed
O'er the proud march; a king in chains was led;
A stately victor, crown'd and robed, came last.1

And many a Dryad's bower

Had lent the laurels which, in waving play, Stirr'd the warm air, and glisten'd round his way, As a quick-flashing shower.

-O'er his own porch, meantime, the cypress hung, Through his fair halls a cry of anguish rungWoe for the dead!-the father's broken flower!

A sound of lyre and song,

In the still night, went floating o'er the Nile,
Whose waves, by many an old mysterious pile,
Swept with that voice along;

And lamps were shining o'er the red wine's foam
Where a chief revell'd in a monarch's dome,
And fresh rose-garlands deck'd a glittering throng.

'Twas Antony that bade

The joyous chords ring out!—but strains arose
Of wilder omen at the banquet's close!

Sounds, by no mortal made,"

1 Paulus Æmilius, one of whose sons died a few days before, and another shortly after, his triumph on the conquest of Macedon, when Perseus, king of that country, was led in chains.

'See the description given by Plutarch, in his life of Antony, of the supernatural sounds heard in the streets of Alexandria, the night before Antony's death.

Shook Alexandria through her streets that night,
And pass'd-and with another sunset's light,
The kingly Roman on his bier was laid.

Bright 'midst its vineyards lay
The fair Campanian city,' with its towers
And temples gleaming through dark olive-bowers,
Clear in the golden day;

Joy was around it as the glowing sky,
And crowds had fill'd its halls of revelry,
And all the sunny air was music's way.

A cloud came o'er the face

Of Italy's rich heaven!-its crystal blue
Was changed, and deepen'd to a wrathful hue
Of night, o'ershadowing space,

As with the wings of death!-in all his power
Vesuvius woke, and hurl'd the burning shower,
And who could tell the buried city's place?

Such things have been of
yore,
In the gay regions where the citrons blow,
And purple summers all their sleepy glow
On the grape-clusters pour;

And where the palms to spicy winds are waving,
Along clear seas of melting sapphire, laving,
As with a flow of light, their southern shore.

1 Herculaneum, of which it is related, that all the inhabitants were assembled in the theatres, when the shower of ashes which covered the city descended.

Turn we to other climes!

Far in the Druid-Isle a feast was spread,

'Midst the rock-altars of the warrior dead:1
And ancient battle-rhymes

Were chanted to the harp.; and yellow mead
Went flowing round, and tales of martial deed,
And lofty songs of Britain's elder time;

But, ere the giant-fane

Cast its broad shadows on the robe of even,
Hush'd were the bards, and in the face of heaven,
O'er that old burial-plain

Flash'd the keen Saxon dagger!-Blood was streaming
Where late the mead-cup to the sun was gleaming,
And Britain's hearths were heap'd that night in vain—

For they return'd no more!

They that went forth at morn, with reckless heart, In that fierce banquet's mirth to bear their part; And, on the rushy floor,

And the bright spears and bucklers of the walls, The high wood-fires were blazing in their halls; But not for them-they slept-their feast was o'er!

Fear ye the festal hour!

Ay, tremble when the cup of joy o'erflows! Tame down the swelling heart!—the bridal rose, And the rich myrtle's flower

'Stonehenge, said by some traditions to have been erected to the memory of Ambrosius, an early British king; and by others mentioned as a monumental record of the massacre of British chiefs here alluded to.