"Thrice the sad father tore thee from his heart, "And thrice returned to bless thee, and to part; "Thrice from his trembling lips he murmured low, "The plaint that owned unutterable woe; "Till Faith prevailing o'er his sullen doom,

"As bursts the morn on night's unfathomed gloom, "Lured his dim eye to deathless hopes sublime,

Beyond the realms of Nature and of Time!

"And weep not thus," he cried, " young Ellenore, "My bosom bleeds, but soon shall bleed no more! Short shall this half-extinguished spirit burn, "And soon these limbs to kindred dust return! "But not, my child, with life's precarious fire, "The immortal ties of nature shall expire; "These shall resist the triumph of decay, "When time is o'er and worlds have passed away! "Cold in the dust this perished heart may lie, "But that which warmed it once shall never die! "That spark, unburied in its mortal frame, "With living light, eternal, and the same, "Shall beam on joy's interminable years,

Unveiled by darkness, unassuaged by tears!

"Farewell! When strangers lift thy father's bier, "And place my nameless stone without a tear; "When each returning pledge hath told my child, That Conrad's tomb is on the desert piled;

"And when the dream of troubled Fancy sees

Its lonely rank grass waving in the breeze;

"Who then will soothe thy grief, when mine is o'er? Who will protect thee, helpless Ellenore?

'Shall secret scenes thy filial sorrows hide, "Scorned by the world, to factious guilt allied? Ah, no! methinks the generous and the good "Will woo thee from the shades of solitude! "O'er friendless grief, Compassion shall awake, "And smile on Innocence for Mercy's sake!

"Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be, "The tears of Love were hopeless, but for thee! "If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell,

If that faint murmur be the last farewell,

"If Fate unite the faithful but to part,

66

Why is their memory sacred to the heart?

Why does the brother of my childhood seem Restored awhile in every pleasing dream? "Why do I joy the lonely spot to view,

By artless friendship blessed when life was new?"
Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime,
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade!
When all the sister planets have decayed;
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!

CAMPBELL.

THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY.
UNFADING Hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust, return;
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour:
O then thy kingdom comes-Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly,
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day:
Then-then, the triumph and the trance begin!
And all the phoenix spirit burns within!
O deep-enchanting prelude to repose !
The dawn of bliss! the twilight of our woes!
Yet, half I hear the parting spirit sigh-
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untravelled by the sun,
Where Time's far-wandering tide has never run!
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears:

'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And, like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod
The roaring waves, and called upon his God,

With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks, and hovers o'er the dark abyss.
Daughter of Faith, awake! arise! illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb!
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul !
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er, the pangs of nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze,
The noon of Heaven, undazzled by the blaze,
On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky,
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody,
Wild as that hallowed anthem sent to hail
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale,
When Jordan hushed his waves, and midnight still
• Watched on the holy towers of Zion hill!

Soul of the just, companion of the dead!
Where is thy home? and whither art thou fled ?
Back to its heavenly source thy being goes;
Swift as the comet wheels to whence he rose ;
Doomed on his airy path awhile to burn,
And doomed, like thee, to travel and return ;-
Hark! from the world's exploding centre driven,
With sounds that shook the firmament of Heaven,
Careers the fiery giant, fast and far,

On bickering wheels and adamantine car;
From planet whirled to planet more remote,
He visits realms beyond the reach of thought;
But wheeling homeward, when his course is run,
Curbs the red yoke, and mingles with the sun.
So hath the traveller of earth unfurled
Her trembling wings, emerging from the world;
And, o'er the path by mortal never trod,
Sprung to her source-the bosom of her God!

CAMPBELL.

103

THE SPANISH ARMADA.

CLEAR shone the morn, the gale was fair,
When from Corunna's crowded port,

With many a cheerful shout and loud acclaim,
The huge Armada pass'd.

To England's shores their streamers point,
To England's shores their sails are spread;
They go to triumph o'er the sea-girt land,
And Rome has blest their arms.

Along the ocean's echoing verge,
Along the mountain range of rocks,
The clustering multitudes behold their pomp,
And raise the votive prayer.

Commingling with the ocean's roar,

Ceaseless and hoarse their murmurs rise,
And soon they trust to see the winged bark
That bears good tidings home.

The watch-tower now in distance sinks,
And now Galicia's mountain-rocks
Faint as the far-off clouds of evening lie,
And now they fade away.

Each, like some moving citadel,

On through the waves they sail sublime; And now the Spaniards see the silvery cliffs, Behold the sea-girt land!

O fools, to think that ever foe

Should triumph o'er that sea-girt land!

O fools, to think that ever Britain's sons
Should wear the stranger's yoke!

For not in vain hath Nature rear'd
Around her coast those silvery cliffs;

For not in vain old Ocean spreads his waves
To guard his favourite isle !

On come her gallant mariners!

What now avail Rome's boasted charms?
Where are the Spaniard's vaunts of eager wrath?
His hopes of conquest now?

And hark! the angry winds arise,
Old Ocean heaves his angry waves;

The winds and waves against the invaders fight,
To guard the sea-girt land.

Howling around his palace-towers,
The Spanish despot hears the storm;
He thinks upon his navies far away,
And boding doubts arise.

Long over Biscay's boisterous surge,
The watchman's aching eye shall strain;
Long shall he gaze, but never winged bark
Shall bear good tidings home.

SOUTHEY.

THE SURGEON'S TALE.

T'was on a dark December evening;
Loud the blast, and bitter cold;
Downward came the whirling waters,
Deep and black the river roll'd.
Not a dog beneath the tempest,
Not a beggar on his beat;

Wind and rain, and cold and darkness,
Swept through every desert street.

Muffled to the teeth that evening,
I was struggling in the storm,
Through pestilent lanes and hungry alleys;
Suddenly, -an ancient form

Peer'd from out a gloomy doorway,

And with trembling croak it said,

"In the left-hand empty garret

"You will find a woman dead.