'How shall I curse whom God hath blessed? With whom he dwells, with whom shall dwell!' He clasped his pale hands on his breast,
Then, be thou blest, O Israel!"
'Be Israel cursed,' was in his soul,
But on his lip the wild words died;
He paused, till on its myriads stole
The night; again the 'Curse' he tried.
A whirlwind from the desart rushed,
Deep thunder echoed round the hill;
King, prophet, multitude, were hushed;
The thunder sank, the blast was still!
Broad in the East a new-born STAR
On cloud, hill, desart, poured its blaze !
The prophet knew the SIGN afar,
And on it fixed his shuddering gaze.
'I shall behold it, but not now!
I shall behold him, but not nigh!
He comes to break the Oppressor's bow,
To triumph, suffer, weep, and die!
'All power is in his hand; the world
Is dust beneath his trampling heel;
The thunder from his lips is hurled,
The Heavens beneath his presence reel.
'He comes, a stranger to his own!
With the wild bird and fox he lies
The King! who makes the stars his throne,
A wanderer lives an outcast dies!
'Proud Israel! o'er thy diadem
What blood shall for his blood be poured!
Until that Star again shall beam,
Again JEHOVAH be the Lord!'
The Prophet ceased in awe; the STAR
Rose broader o'er the boundless plain,
Flashing on Balak's marshalled war,
On mighty Israel's farthest vane.
And sweet and solemn echoes flowed
From lips of more than mortals given;
Till in the central cope it glowed,
Then vanished in the heights of Heaven!
WHAT is the little lurking spell
That hovers round the eye?
Without a voice, a word can tell
The feelings as they fly.
When tearless it can speak of woe;
When weeping-still the same ;
Or in a moment, catch the glow
Of thoughts without a name.
Can beam with pity on the poor-
With anger on the proud
Can tell that it will much endure
Or flash upon the crowd!
Now brightly raised, or now depressed
With every shade of feeling-
It is the mirror of the breast-
The thought, the soul revealing!
Oh! tones are false and words are weak
The tutored slaves at call
The eye the eye alone can speak-
Unfettered tell us all!
All have drank of the eup of the enchantress.
SHE sat a crowned Queen the ruby's light
Gleamed like a red star on the dark midnight
Amid her curls; but as they downward fell
To meet her ivory neck's luxuriant swell,
Some roses twined around the flowing hair-
Fair roses yet her neck was far more fair:
They were in summer perfume, and they gave
Fresh fragrance forth at each light tress's wave.
Her cheek was crimson beauty, and her eye
Flashed light upon its varying brilliancy.
There was a spell in those dark eyes, and all
Bent joyfully beneath its radiant thrall:
Their power was on the heart. One white hand raised
A sparkling vase, where gold and opals blazed
Only less glorious than their starry eyes;
(How sweet the incensed breathings that arise
From that enchanted cup!) and she the while
Held the bright poison with a witching smile.
All gathered round. I marked a fair child stop
And kiss the purple bubbles from the top;
A white haired man, too, hung upon the brim-
Oh! that such pleasure should have charms for him-
And by his side a girl, whose blue eyes, bent
On the seducer, looked too innocent
For passion's madness;-but love's soul was there-
And for young love what will not woman dare !
There was a warrior-oh, the chain was sweet
That bound him prisoner to the Circe's feet:
He knelt and gazed upon her beauty; she
Smiled, and received his wild idolatry;
Then sighed that low sweet sigh, whose tender tone
Is witching, from its echo of our own.
The painter's skill has seized a moment where
Her hand is wreathing mid his raven hair;
And he is bent in worship, as that touch,
That soft light touch, were ecstasy too much.
He is just turned from that bewildering face
To the fair arm that holds the magic vase
The purple liquor is just sparkling up-
The youth has pledged his heart's truth in that cup!
Literary Gazette.
I CANNOT stain this snowy leaf
Without a sigh of pensive grief!
As musing on my days gone by,
And those that still before me lie,
I read a mournful emblem here,
That few could read without a tear!
For, as my musing eyes I cast,
Upon the pages that are past,
I search them all, but search in vain
To find even one without a stain!
But what has been, is not to be,-
The happy future yet is free;
Far as my forward eye can go,
The future still is white as snow;
So free from stains, so free from cares,
The tainted past it half repairs!
It is a goodly sight! but oh!
Too well within this heart I know
That this fair future, at the last,
Shall be itself the tainted past.
Blackwood's Magazine.
THOUGH from his native land afar
His step the Briton bends;
Still there his country's glories are,
And are to him as friends.
There they protect him; there they seem
A mantle o'er him spread,A guardian spell a sacred beam, A radiance 'round his head.
In every clime, at every hour,
He walks in England's fame;
Safe in the shelter of her power,
And honoured in her name.
Or borne o'er ocean, as the keels
Divide the sparkling foam,
That boundless main, he proudly feels,
Is yet a Briton's home.
For to the world's remotest shore,
Old Albion's deeds are known;
And till its white waves roll no more,
Shall ocean seem her own.
Then must the Briton, though he strays
O'er distant seas or earth,
Find reason yet to love and praise
The land that gave him birth.
The Council of Ten.
|