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 depths:
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.

'T WAS off the Wash-the sun went down-the sea looked black and grim,

For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the

brim ;

Titanic shades! enormous gloom!-as if the solid night

Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light!

It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye,

With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky! Down went my helm-close reefed-the tack held freely in my hand

With ballast snug I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee; my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came, borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail! What darksome caverns yawned before! what jagged steeps behind!

Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the

wind.

Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase,
But where it sank another rose, and galloped in its place;
As black as night-they turned to white, and cast against
the cloud

A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor's shroud :
Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run!
Behold yon fatal billow rise-ten billows heaped in one!
With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling fast,
As if the scooping sea contained one only wave, at last!
Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift-pursuing grave;
It seemed as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to a
wave!

Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face

I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base!
I saw its Alpine hoary head impending over mine!

Another pulse, and down it rushed, an avalanche of brine!
Brief pause had I on God to cry, or think of wife and home;
The waters closed-and when I shrieked, I shrieked below
the foam!

Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after-deed-
For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed.
"Where am I? In the breathing world, or in the world of
death ?"

With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath;
My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound;
And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seemed around?
A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft;
But were those eyes the eyes of man that looked against my
own?

O! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight

As met my gaze, when first I looked on that accursed night! I've seen a thousand horrid shapes, begot of fierce extremes Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams

Hyenas, cats, blood-loving bats, and apes with hateful stare, Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls, the lion, and she-bear, Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spiteDetested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light! Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs

All fantasies and images, that flit in midnight glooms-
Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast,-
But nothing like that Grimly One who stood beside the
mast!

His cheek was black-his brow was black-his eyes and hair as dark:

His hand was black, and where it touched it left a sable

mark;

His throat was black, his vest the same, and when I looked

beneath,

His breast was black-all, all was black, except his grinning teeth.

His sooty crew were like in hues, as black as Afric slaves!
O, horror! e'en the ship was black, that plowed the inky

waves!

"Alas!" I cried, "for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake,

Where am I? in what dreadful ship? upon what dreadful lake?

What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any coal?
It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gained my soul!
O, mother dear! my tender nurse! dear meadows that be-
guiled

My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child-
My mother dear-my native fields, I never more shall see:
I'm sailing in the Devil's ship, upon the Devil's sea!"
Loud laughed that sable mariner, and loudly in return
His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to

stern

A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce-
As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once:
A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoyed the merry fit,
With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like demons of the
pit.

They crowed their fill, and then the chief made answer for the whole,

"Our skins," said he, "are black, ye see, because we carry coal;

You'll find your mother, sure enough, and all your native fields

For this here ship has picked you up-the 'Mary Ann,' of Shields!"

Ex. CXXIV.-THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET.

ALBERT G. GREENE.

O'ER a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest ray,
Where, in his last strong agony, a dying warrior lay,—
The stern old Baron Rudiger, whose frame had ne'er been
bent

By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength had spent.

"They come around me here, and say my days of life are o'er,

That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band no

more;

They come, and, to my beard, they dare to tell me now that I,

Their own liege lord and master born, that I-ha! ha!— must die.

"And what is death? I've dared him oft, before the Paynim spear;

Think ye he's entered at my gate-has come to seek me here?

I've met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight was

raging hot;

I'll try his might, I'll brave his power!-defy, and fear him not!

"Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower, and fire the culverin; Bid each retainer arm with speed; call every vassal in. Up with my banner on the wall,-the banquet-board pre

pare,

Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my armor there!"

An hundred hands were busy then: the banquet forth was spread,

And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial tread;

While from the rich, dark tracery, along the vaulted wall, Lights gleamed on harness, plume and spear, o'er the proud old Gothic hall.

Fast hurrying through the outer gate, the mailed retainers poured,

On through the portal's frowning arch, and thronged around the board:

While at its head, within his dark, carved, oaken chair of state,

Armed cap-à-pie, stern Rudiger, with girded falchion, sat.

"Fill every beaker up, my men!-pour forth the cheering wine!

There's life and strength in every drop,-thanksgiving to the vine!

Are ye all there, my vassals true?-mine eyes are waxing dim:

Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim !

"Ye're there, but yet I see you not!-forth draw each trusty sword,

And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my board!

I hear it faintly!-louder yet! What clogs my heavy

breath?

Up, all!—and shout for Rudiger, 'Defiance unto death !'"

Bowl rang to bowl, steel clanged to steel, and rose a deafen

ing cry,

That made the torches flare around, and shook the flags on high:

"Ho! cravens! do ye fear him? Slaves! traitors! have ye flown?

Ho! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone?

"But I defy him!-let him come !" Down rang the massy

cup,

While from its sheath the ready blade came flashing half-way

up;

And, with the black and heavy plumes scarce trembling on

his head,

There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair, old Rudiger satdead!