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VIII.-THEME FOR A POET.

(P. J. BAILEY.)

Philip James Bailey, author of Festus, The Mystic, &c., was born in Nottingham, in 1816.

THYSELF, thy race, thy love,

The faithless and the full of faith in God;
Thy race's destiny, thy sacred love.
Every believer is God's miracle.

Nothing will stand whose staple is not love;
The love of God, or man, or lovely woman:
The first is scarcely touched, the next scarce felt,
The third is desecrated; lift it up,

Redeem it, hallow it, blend the three in one
Great holy work. It shall be read in Heaven
By all the saved of sinners of all time.
Preachers shall point to it, and tell their wards
It is a handful of eternal truth.

Make ye a heartful of it; men shall will
That it be buried with them in their hands.
The young, the gay, the innocent, the brave,
The fair, with soul and body both all love,
Shall run to it with joy; and the old man,
Still hearty in decline, whose happy life

Hath blossomed downwards, like the purple bell-
flower,

Closing the book, shall utter lowlily,

Death, thou art infinite, it is life is little.
Believe thou art inspired, and thou art.
Look at the bard and others; never heed
The petty hints of envy. If a fault
It be in bard to deem himself inspired,
"Tis one which hath had many followers
Before him. He is wont to make, unite,
Believe; the world to part, and doubt, and narrow.
That he believes, he utters. What the world
Utters, it trusts not. But the time may come
When all, along with those who seek to raise

Men's minds, and have enough of pain, without
Suffering from envy, may be God-inspired

Still

To utter truth, and feel like love for men.
Poets are henceforth the world's teachers.
The world is all in sects, which makes one loathe it

IX. THE SONG OF STEAM.

(ANON.)

HARNESS me down with your iron bands,
Be sure of your curb and rein,

For I scorn the power of your puny hands,
As the tempest scorns a chain.

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How I laughed, as I lay concealed from sight
For many a countless hour,

At the childish boast of human might,
And the pride of human power!

When I saw an army upon the land,
A navy upon the seas,
Creeping along, a snail-like band,

Or waiting the wayward breeze;
When I marked the peasant faintly reel
With the toil which he daily bore,
As he feebly turned at the tardy wheel,
Or tugged at the weary oar;

When I measured the panting courser's speed,

The flight of the carrier dove,

As they bore the law a king decreed,

Or the lines of impatient love;

I could not but think how the world would feel,
As these were outstripped afar,

When I should be bound to the rushing keel,
Or chained to the flying car.

Ha ha ha! they found me at last;
They invited me forth at length,

And I rushed to my throne with thunder blast,

And laughed in my iron strength. Oh, then ye saw a wondrous change

On the earth and ocean wide, Where now my fiery armies range, Nor wait for wind or tide.

Hurrah! hurrah! the waters o'er
The mountains steep decline;
Time-space-have yielded to my power-
The world! the world is mine!
The rivers the sun hath earliest blest,
Or those where his beams decline,
The giant streams of the queenly west,
Or the orient floods divine.

The ocean pales where'er I sweep,
To hear my strength rejoice;
And the monsters of the briny deep
Cower, trembling, at my voice.

I carry the wealth and the lord of earth,

The thoughts of the god-like mind;

The wind lags after my flying forth.
The lightning is left behind.

In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine
My tireless arm doth play,

Where the rocks never saw the sun decline,
Or the dawn of the glorious day.

I bring earth's glittering jewels up
From the hidden cave below,
And I make the fountain's granite cup
With a crystal gush o'erflow.

I blow the bellows, I forge the steel,
In all the shops of trade;

I hammer the ore, and turn the wheel,

Where my arms of strength are made; I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint; I carry, I spin, I weave;

And all my doings I put into print
On every Saturday eve.

I've no muscle to weary, no breast to decay,
No bones to be "laid on the shelf,"
And soon I intend you "may go and play,"
While I manage the world by myself.
But harness me down with your iron bands,
Be sure of your curb and rein,

For I scorn the strength of your puny hands
As the tempest scorns a chain.

X.-JUGURTHA'S PRISON THOUGHTS.
(WOLFE.)

Jugurtha became king of Numidia, in Africa, by the murder of his two cousins, who were nearer to the throne than he. The Romans, in consequence, de

clared war against him. Having been overpowered by the Consul Marius, he was taken prisoner in 106 B.C., and two years afterwards died of starvation in a dungeon in Rome.

The Rev. Charles Wolfe was born in Dublin, in 1791, and after a brief but promising career as a poet and as a clergyman, died of consumption in 1823. His poems, essays, and sermons, have been collected under the title of "Wolfe's Remains."

WELL-is the rack prepared—the pincers heated?
Where is the scourge? How !-not employed in Rome!
We have them in Numidia. Not in Rome?
I'm sorry for it; I could enjoy it now;

I might have felt them yesterday; but now,-
Now I have seen my funeral procession:

The chariot-wheels of Marius have rolled o'er me:
His horses' hoofs have trampled me in triumph,-

I have attained that terrible consummation.
My soul could stand aloof, and from on high
Look down upon the ruins of my body,
Smiling in apathy: I feel no longer;

I challenge Rome to give another pang.-
Gods! how he smiled, when he beheld me pause
Before his car, and scowl upon the mob;
The curse of Rome was burning on my lips,

And I had gnawed my chain, and hurled it at them,

But that I knew he would have smiled again.—
A king! and led before the gaudy Marius,
Before those shouting masters of the world,
As if I had been conquered; while each street,
Each peopled wall, and each insulting window,
Pealed forth their brawling triumphs o'er my head
Oh! for a lion from thy woods, Numidia!—
Or, had I, in that moment of disgrace,
Enjoyed the freedom but of yonder slave,
I would have made my monument in Rome.
Yet am I not that fool, that Roman fool,
To think disgrace entombs the hero's soul,-
For ever damps his fires and dims his glories;
That no bright laurel can adorn the brow
That once has bowed; no victory's trumpet-sound
Can drown in joy the rattling of his chains:
No;-could one glimpse of victory and vengeance
Dart preciously across me, I could kiss

Thy footstep's dust again; then all in flame,
With Massinissa's energies unquenched,
Start from beneath thy chariot-wheels, and grasp
The gory laurel reeking in my view,

And force a passage through disgrace to glory—
Victory! Vengeance! Glory!-Oh, these chains!
My soul's in fetters, too; for, from this moment,
Through all eternity I see but-death;
To me there's nothing future now, but death:
Then come and let me gloom upon the past.-

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I'll sleep no more, until I sleep for ever:
When I slept last, I heard Adherbal scream.
I'll sleep no more! I'll think until I die:
My eyes shall pore upon my miseries,

Until my miseries shall be no more.—

Yet wherefore did he scream? Why, I have heard
His living scream,-it was not half so frightful.

Whence comes the difference? When the man was living,

Why, I did gaze upon his couch of torments

With placid vengeance, and each anguished cry

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