In vain! in vain! Strike other chords,-
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold bacchanal !

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Trust not for freedom to the Franks -
They have a king who buys and sells :
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.
Place me on Sunium's marble steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die :
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine.
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

XXXV.- - THE CRUCIFIXION.

I ASKED the heavens ; ·

BYRON.

What foe to God had done
This unexampled deed?" The heavens exclaim,
""T was man; and we in horror snatched the sun
From such a spectacle of guilt and shame."
I asked the sea; the sea in fury boiled,
And answered, with his voice of storms,
My waves in panic at his crime recoiled,

"Twas man;

Disclosed the abyss, and from the center ran.”

I asked the earth; the earth replied, aghast, "'T was man; and such strange pangs my bosom rent, That still I and shudder at the past."

groan

To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man, I went, And asked him next: he turned a scornful eye,

Shook his proud head, and deigned me no reply.

MONTGOMERY.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

XXXVI.-THREE WORDS OF STRENGTH.
THERE are three lessons I would write-
Three words- as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light,
Upon the hearts of men.

Have HOPE!-Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadows from thy brow-
No night but hath its morn.

Have FAITH!

Where'er thy bark is driven

The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth-
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The inhabitants of earth.

Have LOVE! Not love alone for one,

But man, as man, thy brother call,
And scatter like the circling sun
Thy charities on all.

Thus these lessons on thy soul,

grave

Hope, Faith, and Love, and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

335

XXXVII. —THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

Mr. Key, the author of the following noble stanzas, had left Baltimore in a cartel, or ship sent for exchange of prisoners, for the purpose of effecting the release of a friend on board the British fleet. He was compelled to remain on board the cartel, under the eye of the British, while the latter bombarded Fort Henry. Mr. Key paced the deck of his ship all night, fearing the effect of the attack on the American fort. He saw our flag waving as the sun went down, and occasionally, by the light of bursting shells, after dark; but, as the bombardment was continued during the night, he feared that we might have surrendered. What was his joy, "at the morning's first dawn," on seeing that "our flag was still there!" The attack on Baltimore had failed. He embodied his emotions, on the spur of the moment, in this immortal song. This was in the year 1814.

O, SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming; And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there? O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses ?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:

'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner.O, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where are the foes who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood hath washed out their foul footstep's pollution! No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto, "In God is our trust,'

And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

F. S. KEY.

XXXVIII. - THE CHAMOIS* HUNTER.

NIGHT gloomed apace, and dark on high
The thousand banners of the sky

Their awful width unfurled,
Veiling Mont Blanc's majestic brow,
That seemed, among its cloud-wrapt snow,
The ghost of some dead world, -

When Pierre, the hunter, cheerly went
To scale the Catton's battlement

Before the peep of day.

He took his rifle, pole, and rope –
His heart and eyes alight with hope,
He hasted on his way.

* Pronounced sham'o-a; the last a broad, as in fall.

THE CHAMOIS HUNTER.

He crossed the vale- he hurried on
He forded the cold Ar've-ron -

The first rough terrace gained;
Threaded the fir-wood's gloomy belt,
And trod the snows that never melt,
And to the summit strained.

And now he nears the chasmed ice ;
He stoops to leap, and in a trice

His foot hath slipped! - O, heaven!
He hath leaped in, and down he falls
Between those blue, tremendous walls,
Standing asunder riven ! ·

But quick his clutching, nervous grasp
Contrives a jutting crag to clasp,
And thus he hangs in air;·
O, moment of exulting bliss!
Yet hope, so nearly hopeless, is
Twin-brother to despair.

He looked beneath, - a horrible doom!
Some thousand yards of deepening gloom
Where he must drop to die!
He looked above, and many a rood
Upright the frozen ramparts stood,
Around a speck of sky.

There two long dreadful hours he hung,
And often, by strong breezes swung,
His fainting body twists;

Scarce can he cling one moment more
His half-dead hands are ice, and sore
His burning, bursting wrists.

His head grows dizzy he must drop:
He half resolves; but stop, O, stop!
Hold on to the last spasm !
Never in life give up your hope:
Behold! behold! a friendly rope
Is dropping down the chasm!

They call thee, Pierre !

See, see them here;
Thy gathered neighbors far and near :
Be cool, man— hold on fast!

337

And so from out that terrible place,
With death's pale hue upon his face,
They drew him up at last.

And home he went, an altered man,
For many harrowing terrors ran

Through his poor heart that day:

He thought how all through life, though young,
Upon a thread, a hair, he hung,

Over a gulf midway:

He thought what fear it were to fall
Into the pit that swallows all,

Unwinged with hope and love:
And when the succor came, at last,
O, then he learnt how firm and fast
Was his best Friend above.

M. F. TUPPER.

XXXIX.

- ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

SEPTEMBER, 1782.

TOLL for the brave! the brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave, fast by their native shore!
Eight hundred of the brave, whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel, and laid her on her side.
A land-breeze shook the shrouds, and she was overset ;
Down went the Royal George, with all her crew complete!

Toll for the brave! Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought -- his work of glory done.
It was not in the battle; no tempest gave the shock ;
She sprang no fatal leak; she ran upon no rock.
His sword was in his sheath, his fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down with twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up, once dreaded by our foes,

And mingle with our cup the tear that England owes !
Her timbers yet are sound, and she may float again,

Full charged with England's thunder, and plow the distant main. But Kempenfelt is gone, his victories are o'er;

And he and his eight hundred shall plow the wave no more.

COWPER.