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While, like a midnight robber stealing by,
Death plunders time by hour and hour away.
When least we fear, then is the traitor nigh;
Where most secure we seem, he loves to come:
Less swift than he, the bolts of thunder fly,
Less sure than he, the lightning strikes the dome.

He rules o'er all-and Him must kings obey, Whose will no counsel knows, and no control; The proud and gilded great ones are his prey, Who stand like pillars in a tyrant's hall!

ODE FROM CASIMIR SARBIEVIUS,

A Polish Poet.

HON. W. HERBERT.

THE Snow that crowns each mountain's brow,
And whitens ev'ry spray,

From each high rock and loaded bough
Will quickly melt away.

Soon as the sun, reviving, flings

His beams to warm the gale,

And Zephyrs wild expand their wings
To wanton in the vale.

When Time upon thine aged brow
Shall shed the fatal shower,
The hoary frost, the chilling snow,
Will melt from thence no more.

Quick summer flies, and autumn's suns,
And winter's cheerless gloom;

In changeful turn each season runs,
And spring breathes new perfume.

Unchang'd o'er us the tempest lowers,
Till death's last hour arrives;

Nor robe, nor garland deck'd with flowers,
The bloom of life revives.

What youth on us but once bestows,
Age once shall snatch away;
But Fame can stop the fatal blows,
And double life's short day.

Long shall he live, whose bright career
Deserv'd a patriot's sigh;

All else flies with the fleeting year,
But Fame can never die.

BLINDNESS.

RUSHTON.

AH! think, if June's delicious rays
The eye of sorrow can relume,
If dark December's beamless days

Can fling o'er all a transient gloom;
Ah! think, if skies obscure or bright

Can thus depress or cheer the mind, Then think, 'mid clouds of utter night, What mournful moments wait the blind!

And who may tell his cause of woe?

To love the wife he must not see,

To be a sire, yet not to know

The tender babe that climbs his knee;

To have his feelings daily torn;

With pain the passing meal to find; To live distress'd, and die forlorn;

Are woes that oft await the blind.

When to the breezy uplands led

At noon, at blushing eve, at morn, He hears the red-breast o'er his head,

While round him breathes the scented thorn: But, oh! instead of nature's face,

Hills, dales, and woods, and streams combin'd, Instead of tints, and forms, and grace,

Night's blackest mantle shrouds the blind.

If rosy Youth, bereft of sight,

'Mid countless thousands pines unblest,
As the gay flower withdrawn from light,
Bows to the earth where all must rest;
Ah! think in Life's declining hours,
To chilling poverty consign'd,
When age has palsied all his powers,

What mournful moments wait the blind!

LOVE.

SOUTHEY.

THEY sin who tell us Love can die :
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.

In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell:
Earthly these passions, as of earth,
They perish where they have their birth.
But love is indestructible;

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceiv'd, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,

And hath in heaven its perfect rest :
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
Oh when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the anxious night,
all her tears,

For all her sorrow,

An over-payment of delight?

SONG.

ANONYMOUS.

THOU art looking on the face of night, my love! Is not yon evening star bright, my love?

Methinks it is

A world of bliss

For spirits all softness and light, my love!

This earth is so chilled with care, my dear! Would we might wing our flight there, my dear, For love to blaze

With the cloudless rays

It would have in a world so fair, my dear!

But my wish to visit that star, dear love!
Is vain as my other hopes are, dear love!
For my heart's wild sigh

Of idolatry

Breathes with thee like that planet afar, dear love!

STANZAS, ADDRESSED TO THE GREEKS.

ANONYMOUS.

ON, on! to the just and glorious strife!
With your swords your freedom shielding;
Nay, resign, if it must be so, even life,
But die, at least, unyielding.

On to the strife! for 'twere far more meet
To sink with the foes who bay you,
Than crouch, like dogs, at your Tyrants' feet,
And smile on the swords that slay you.

Shall the Pagan slaves be masters, then,

Of the land which your fathers gave you? Shall the Infidel lord it o'er Christian men, When your own good swords may save you?

No! let him feel that their arms are strong-
That their courage will fail them never,
Who strike to repay long years of wrong,
And bury past shame for ever.

Let him know there are hearts, however bow'd
By the chains which he threw around them,
That will rise like a spirit from pall and shroud,
And cry
"woe" to the slaves who bound
them.

Let him learn how weak is a Tyrant's might,
'Gainst Liberty's sword contending;
And find how the sons of Greece can fight,
Their freedom and land defending.

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