ADDRESS TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS. 223

As armies, priests, and crowds, bewail'd in chorus
Their King-their God—their Serapis-their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they trust

Thee and the Lord of all the nations round.

Grim King of Silence! Monarch of the dust!
Embalm'd-anointed-jewell'd-scepter'd-crown'd,

Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark,
A leathern Pharaoh grinning in the dark.

Thus ages roll'd—but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprison'd thing,
Which wore a ghastly royalty in death,
As if it struggled still to be a King;
And each revolving century, like the last,
Just dropp'd its dust upon thy lid—and pass'd.

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt pour'd
His devastating host-a motley crew;
The steel-clad horsemen-the barbarian horde-
Music and men of every sound and hue→
Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines and brutes-
Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers and lutes.

Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away

The ponderous rock that seal'd the sacred tomb; Then did the slowly penetrating ray

Redeem thee from long centuries of gloom, And lower'd torches flash'd against thy side As Asia's king thy blazon'd trophies eyed.

Pluck'd from his grave, with sacrilegious taunt,
The features of the royal corpse they scann'd :-
Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt,

They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand,
And on those fields, where once his will was law,
Left him for winds to waste, and beasts to gnaw.

Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past,
Unclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill,
And nature, aiding their devotion, cast

Over its entrance a concealing rill.

Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

But he from whom nor pyramid nor sphinx

Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni, came;

From the tomb's mouth unloosed the granite links,
Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame,
And brought thee from the sands and desert forth
To charm the pallid children of the North.

Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new,
Was, what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste,
Where savage beasts more savage men pursue,—
A scene by Nature cursed—by man disgraced.
Now-'tis the world's metropolis—the high
Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury.

Here, where I hold my hand, 'tis strange to think
What other hands perchance preceded mine;'
Others have also stood beside thy brink,

And vainly conn'd the moralizing line.

Kings, sages, chiefs, that touch'd this stone, like me, Where are ye now ?—where all must shortly be !

All is mutation ;-he within this stone

Was once the greatest monarch of the hour:-
Ilis bones are dust-his very name unknown.
Go-learn from him the vanity of power:
Seek not the frame's corruption to control,
But build a lasting mansion for thy soul.

THE OBLIGING ASSASSIN.

FROM THE FRENCH.

ONCE sleeping in an Inn at Dover,
Dreaming of thieves-my passage over—
And murderous hands that grasp'd a trigger,
The door flew open-I awoke,

When a pale heteroclite figure,

With dusty shoes, stalk'd in and spoke:

"You see what 'tis I want-make haste!
Dress!-you've no moment's time to waste."

Trembling all over with the notion
Of being suddenly dispatch'd,

I huddled on my clothes, and snatch'd
My hat-prepared for locomotion;
But thrust into a chair, he put

Round me a winding-sheet, or shroud:
Behold me pinion'd hand and foot,

What horrors to my fancy crowd!
While no resistance could be plann'd
To one with instrument in hand,
Who with a grin began to seize and
Grasp me firmly by the wesand,

In this alarming plight compell'd
To keep as silent as a fish,
Some compound to my lips he held,
Mixing it in a brazen dish;

And when I winced, and made grimace,
He dash'd it foaming in my face.
Fuming and fretting, white as snow,
Expecting some terrific death,

Drops from my face began to flow,

I clench'd my teeth and pump'd my breath.

Moved by the terror I betray'd,
And wishing to dispatch me quicker,
He flourish'd an alarming blade,

Whose very aspect made me sicker:
To work he went-my throat soon ran
With blood from an incision given ;
More than half dead, I then began
To recommend my soul to Heaven.
The cut-throat presently repenting

That all my pangs should thus be sped,
Stepp'd back, and then came on, presenting
A sort of fire-arm at my head.
He seized me by the throttle fast,
Until my visage black became;
And then, to finish all at last,

Th' assassin took deliberate aim.-
Amazement! spite of all his pains,
By miracle I 'scaped his ire,
For meaning to blow out my brains,
The powder hit me-not the fire.
Madden'd to find his purpose balk'd,

He tried a different method quite,
In clouds of dust, as round he stalk'd,
Striving to stifle me outright.

As fate still saved me from his fangs,
And Death was slow to grant his prayer,

In order to increase my pangs,

He twisted, pull'd and tore my hair.

I gave a sigh-th' assassin prone

To let no prize his clutches pass,
Snatch'd up my purse beside me thrown,
And then prepared my Coup-de-grace.

At this transported more and more,
My knife (of bone) I fiercely drew;
My adversary gain'd the door,
And in a glass my face I view.

Guess my surprise-my joy to see,
That the assassin who distress'd me,
Instead of mortal injury,

Had kindly powder'd, shaved, and dress'd me!

ON LIPS AND KISSING.

"But who those ruddy lips can miss,

Which blessed still themselves do kiss."

How various, delicate, and delightful, are the functions of the lips! I purpose not to treat them anatomically, or I might expatiate on the exquisite flexibility of those muscles, which, by the incalculable modulations they accomplish, supply different languages to all the nations of the earth, and hardly ever fatigue the speaker, though they so often prove wearisome to the auditor. Nor shall I dwell upon the opposite impressions which their exercise is calculated to excite, from the ruby mouth of a Corinna, to the lean-lipped Xantippe, deafening her hen-pecked mate, or the gruff voice of the turnkey who wakes you out of a sound sleep, to tell you it is seven o'clock, and you must get up directly to be hanged. But I shall proceed at once to external beauty, although it must be admitted, before I enter into the mouth of my subject, that there is no fixed standard of perfection for this feature, either in form or colour. Poor Mungo Park, after having turned many African women sick, and frightened others into fits, by his unnatural whiteness, was once assured by a kind-hearted woolly-headed gentleman,