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The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,
These are thy toys; and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee.
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, - what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow:
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime, —
The image of Eternity, the throne

Of the Invisible: even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers; they to me
Were a delight; and, if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was, as it were, a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here.

LAKE GENEVA.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction: once I loved
Torn ocean's roar; but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

It is the hush of night; and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capt hights appear
Precipitously steep and, drawing near,

:

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar; Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; He is an evening reveler, who makes His life and infancy, and sings his fill. At intervals, some bird from out the brakes Starts into voice a moment, then is still. There seems a floating whisper on the hill: But that is fancy; for the starlight dews All silently their tears of love instill, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

The sky is changed; and such a change! O night
And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue;
And Jura answers through her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

And this is in the night! Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber: let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea!
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 'tis black; and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill;
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail;
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

DARKNESS.

I HAD a dream which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless; and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.

Morn came and went and came, and brought no day;
And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.

And they did live by watch-fires; and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings, the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons. Cities were consumed;
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face:

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes and their mountain-torch!
A fearful hope was all the world contained.
Forests were set on fire; but hour by hour
They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash, and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them: some lay down,
And hid their eyes, and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clinchèd hands, and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world, and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnashed their teeth, and howled. The wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless, they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again. A meal was bought
With blood; and each sate sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom. No love was left:
All earth was but one thought, and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meager by the meager were devoured:
Even dogs assailed their masters, - all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws: himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress, he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees: but two
Of an enormous city did survive;

And they were enemies. They met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage: they raked up,

And, shivering, scraped with their cold skeleton hands,
The feeble ashes; and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery: then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects, saw and shrieked and died,
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written fiend. The world was void;
The populous and the powerful was a lump, -
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,
A lump of death, -a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still;
And nothing stirred within their silent depth.
Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea;

grave;

And their masts fell down piecemeal as they dropped,
They slept on the abyss without a surge.
The waves were dead; the tides were in their
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air;
And the clouds perished. Darkness had no need
Of aid from them: she was the universe.

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SIR WALTER SCOTT.

1771-1832. BORN IN EDINBURGH.

The celebrated author of "The Waverley Novels," "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "Lady of the Lake," all having an historical groundwork. His Life of Napoleon" was written too near the time and place of the events commemorated, and by too much of an Englishman, to do justice to the subject. A prodigy of industry, and the soul of honor as a man.

THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

THE GUARD-ROOM.

THE sun, awakening, through the smoky air
Of the dark city casts a sullen glance,
Rousing each caitiff to his task of care, -
Of sinful man the sad inheritance;
Summoning revelers from the lagging dance;
Scaring the prowling robber to his den;
Gilding on battled tower the warder's lance ;
And warning student pale to leave his pen,
And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of men.

What various scenes, and, oh! what scenes of woe,
Are witnessed by that red and struggling beam!
The fevered patient, from his pallet low,
Through crowded hospital beholds it stream;
The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam;

The debtor wakes to thoughts of gyve and jail;

The lovelorn wretch starts from tormenting dream;
The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale,

Trims her sick infant's couch, and soothes his feeble wail.

At dawn, the towers of Stirling rang
With soldier-step and weapon-clang;
While drums, with rolling note, foretell
Relief to weary sentinel.

Through narrow loop, and casement barred,
The sunbeams sought the Court of Guard,
And, struggling with the smoky air,
Deadened the torches' yellow glare.
In comfortless alliance shone

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The lights through arch of blackened stone,
And showed wild shapes in garb of war,
Faces deformed with beard and scar,
All haggard from the midnight watch,
And fevered with the stern debauch;
For the oak table's massive board,
Flooded with wine, with fragments stored,

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