And by the breath of mercy made to roll
Right onwards to the golden gates of Heaven,
Where, to the eye of faith, it peaceful lies,
And tells to man his glorious destinies.

WILSON.

CORONACH.

1. HE is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, re-appearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

2. The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing,

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing,

When blighting was nearest.

3. Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber,

Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,

Thou art gone, and for ever!

difficulty

SCOTT.

Coronach. The coronach of the Highlanders was a wild expression of lamentation, poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed friend; when the words of it were articulate, they expressed the praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his decease.

THE CATARACT OF VELINO.

[GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, born 22nd January, 1788, early became famous as a poet. He died at the early age of 36, in 1824. His poems are too numerous to be mentioned here. Our extract is taken from "Childe Harold," perhaps the most enduring of all his works.]

1. THE roar of waters !—from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
The fall of waters! rapid as the light

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ;
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

2. And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,
Making it all one emerald:-how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

3. To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,

With many windings, through the vale:-Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cataract,

4. Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworu
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn :
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.
BYRON.

Velino. A river of Italy, which rises in the west slope of the Apennines, flows S.S.W. until it enters Rieti, where it turns N.N.W., and, dashing over a precipice of about 900 feet in height, forms the celebrated falls of Terni— one of the grandest falls in Europe.

Phlegethon.-Literally means flaming, and was the name given to a river in the lower world, in whose channel flowed flames instead of water.

Iris.-The personification of the rainbow, which was regarded as the swift messenger of the gods.

THE ISLES OF GREECE.

1. THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho loved and sung;
Where grew the arts of war and peace;
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung;-
Eternal summer gilds them yet—
But all, except their sun, is set !
2. The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse.-
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds, which echo farther west
Than your sires' Islands of the bless'd."
3. The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea :

And musing there an hour, alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free!

For, standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.—

4. A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men, in nations—all were his !
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set, where were they?

5. And where are they? and where art thou,
My country-On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—

The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

6. 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here ?-

For Greeks, a blush!—for Greece, a tear!

7. Must we but weep o'er days more bless'd?
Must we but blush-our fathers BLED.
Earth render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the Three Hundred, grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!

8. What, silent still? and silent all?

Ah! no;-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And answer, "Let one living head,
But one arise, we come, we come!
'Tis but the living who are dumb.

BYRON.

Sappho.-A famous Greek poetess, a native of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos.

Delos.-An island in the Archipelago. According to a legend, it was called out of the deep by the trident of Neptune, but was a floating island until Jupiter fastened it to the bottom of the sea.

Phœbus.-Apollo, who was born in Delos.

Scian muse.-Homer, who was said to be a native of Scio or Chios.

Teian muse.-Anacreon, a native of Teos, a city in Asia Minor.

Islands of the bless'd.-The "Insulæ Fortunate" of the ancients, the abode of the happy dead, placed at the western extremity of the earth, near the River Oceanus. Marathon.-A village of Attica in Greece, where the Persians, in the reign of Darius, were signally defeated by the Greeks, B.C. 490.

Salamis.--An island in the Ægean Sea, off the west coast of Attica, in the neighbourhood of which the Persian fleet was completely destroyed by the Greeks, B.C. 480. Thermopyla.-A famous pass lying between Mount Eta and the Egean Sea, where 300 Spartans kept at bay the whole Persian army, until they were surrounded by treachery.

THE LAMENT OF OUTALISSI.

"AND I could weep ;" th' Oneyda chief
His descant wildly thus begun ;
"But that I may not stain with grief
The death-song of my father's son !
Or bow his head in woe;

For by my wrongs, and by my wrath!

To-morrow Areouski's breath

(That fires yon heav'n with storms of death)

Shall light us to the foe:

And we shall share, my Christian boy!

The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy!