THE FREE.

THE wild streams leap with headlong sweep
In their curbless course o'er the mountain steep⚫
All fresh and strong they foam along,
Waking the rocks with their cataract song.
My eye bears a glance like the beam on a lance,
While I watch the waters dash and dance;
I burn with glee, for I love to see
The path of any thing that's free.

The skylark springs with dew on his wings,
And up in the arch of heaven he sings
Trill-la-trill-la, oh, sweeter far

Than the notes that come through a golden bar
The joyous bay of a hound at play,
The caw of a rook on its homeward way-
Oh! these shall be the music for me,
For I love the voices of the free.

The deer starts by with his antlers high,
Proudly tossing his head to the sky;
The barb runs the plain unbroke by the rein,
With streaming nostrils and flying mane;
The clouds are stirr'd by the eaglet bird,
As the flap of its swooping pinion is heard.
Oh! these shall be the creatures for me,
For my soul was form'd to love the free.

The mariner brave, in his bark on the wave,
May laugh at the walls round a kingly slave;
And the one whose lot is the desert spot
Has no dread of an envious foe in his cot.
The thrall and state at the palace gate
Are what my spirit has learnt to hate:
Oh! the hills shall be a home for me,

For I'd leave a throne for the hut of the free.

THE OLD ARM-CHAIR.

[sighs;

I LOVE it, I love it; and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-chair?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,
I've bedew'd it with tears, and embalm'd it with
"T is bound by a thousand bands to my heart;
Not a tie will break, not a link will start.
Would ye learn the spell? a mother sat there,
And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair.

In childhood's hour I linger'd near
The hallow'd seat with listening ear:
And gentle words that mother would give,
To fit me to die and teach me to live.
She told me shame would never betide,
With truth for my creed and God for my guide;
She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer,
As I knelt beside that old arm-chair.

I sat and watch'd her many a day,
When her eye grew dim, and her locks were gray;
And I almost worshipp'd her when she smiled
And turn'd from her Bible to bless her child.
Years roll'd on, but the last one sped-
My idol was shatter'd, my earth-star fled;
I learnt how much the heart can bear,
When I saw her die in that old arm-chair.

"Tis past! 'tis past! but I gaze on it now
With quivering breath and throbbing brow:
"T was there she nursed me, 't was there she died
And memory flows with lava tide.

Say it is folly, and deem me weak,
While the scalding drops start down my cheek;
But I love it, I love it, and cannot tear
My soul from a mother's old arm-chair.

MY GRAVE.

SWEET is the ocean grave, under the azure wave, Where the rich coral the sea-grot illumes; Where pearls and amber meet, decking the win ling-sheet,

Making the sailor's the brightest of tombs. Let the proud soldier rest, wrapt in his gory vest, Where he may happen to fall on his shield, To sink in the glory-strife was his first hope in life; Dig him his grave on the red battle-field. Lay the one great and rich in the strong cloister Give him his coffin of cedar and gold; [niche, Let the wild torch-light fall, flouting the velvet pall, Lock him in marble vaul, darksome and cold. But there's a sunny hill, fondly remember'd still, Crown'd with fair grass and a bonnie elm tree: Fresh as the foamy surf, sacred as churchyard turf. There be the resting-place chosen by me! Though the long formal prayer ne'er has been utter'd there,

Though the robed priest has not hallow'd the sod; Yet would I dare to ask any in saintly mask

Where is the spot that's unwatch'd by a God!"

There the wind loud and strong whistles its winter

Few will regret when my spirit departs; And I loathe the vain charnel fame, praising an empty name,

Dear, after all, but to two or three hearts. Who does not turn and laugh at the false epitaph Painting man spotless and pure as the dove? If aught of goodly worth grace my career on earth, All that I heed is its record above.

"Tis on that sunny hill, fondly remember'd still, Where my young footsteps climb'd happy and free;

Fresh as the foamy surf, sacred as churcnyard turi, There be the sleeping-place chosen by me.

MR. SIMMONS was for a number of years a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, and in

THE DISINTERMENT

LOST Lord of Song! who grandly gave
Thy matchless timbrel for the spear—
And, by old Hellas' hallow'd wave

Died at the feet of Freedom-hear!
Hear from thy lone and lowly tomb,

Where mid thy own "inviolate Isle," Beneath no minster's marble gloom,

No banner's golden smile,

Far from the swarming city's crowd,
Thy glory round thee for a shroud,
Thou sleepest,-the pious rustic's tread
The only echo o'er thy bed,

Save, few and faint, when o'er the foam
The pilgrims of thy genius come,
From distant earth, with tears of praise,
The homage of their hearts to raise,
And curse the country's very name,
Unworthy of thy sacred dust,
That draws such lustre from thy fame,

That heaps such outrage on thy bust!
Wake from the dead-and lift thy brow
With the same scornful beauty now,
As when beneath thy shafts of pride
Envenom'd cant-the Python-died!
Prophet no less than bard, behold
Matured the eventful moment, told
In those divine predictive words
Four'd to the lyre's transcendent chords :-
"If e'er his awful ashes can grow cold-
But no, their embers soon shall burst their mould-
-France shall feel the want

Of this last consolation, though but scant.
Her honour, fame, and faith demand his bones,
To pile above a pyramid of thrones!"
If, then, from thy neglected bier,
One humblest follower thou canst hear,

O mighty Master! rise and flce,

Swift as some meteor bold and bright, With me thy cloud, attending thee,

Across the dusky tracts of night,

To where the sunset's latest radiance shone
O'er Afric's sea interminably lone.

Below that broad unbroken sea

Long since the sultry sun has dropp'd, And now in dread solemnit?

-As though its course Creation stopp'd One wondrous hour, to watch the birth Of deeds portentous unto earthThe moonless midnight far and wide, Solidly black, flings over all

1843 he published a volume of poems entitled Legends and Lyrics.

The giant waste of waveless t.le
Her melancholy pall,

Whose folds in thickest gloom unfuri',
Each ray of heaven's high face debar,
Save, on the margin of the world

Where leans yon solitary star,
Large, radiant, restless, tinting with far smile
The jagged cliffs of a gray barren Isle.
Hark! o'er the waves distinctly swell
Twelve slow vibrations of a bell!
And out upon the silent ear

At once ring bold and sharply clear,
With shock more startling than if thunder
Had split the slumbering earth asunder,
The iron sounds of crow and bar;

Ye scarce may know from whence they come, Whether from island or from star,

Both lie so hush'd and dumb!

On, swift and deep, those echoes sweep,
Shaking long-buried kings from sleep-
Up, up! ye sceptred Jailers-ho!

Your granite heaped his head in vain;
The very grave gives back your foe-
Dead Cæsar wakes again!
The nations, with a voice as dread
As that which once in Bethany
Burst to the regions of the dead,

And set the loved-one free,
Have cried, "Come forth!" and lo! again,
To smite the hearts and eyes of men
With the old awe he once instill'd
By many an unforgotten field,
Napoleon's look shall startle day-

That look that, where its anger fell,
Scorch'd empires from the earth away
As with the blasts of hell!

Up-from the dust, ye sleepers, ho!

By the blue Danube's stately waveFrom Berlin's towers-from Moscow's snow, And Windsor's gorgeous grave! Come-summon'd by the omnific power, The spirit of this thrilling hour

And, stooping from yon craggy height,

Girt by each perish'd satellite,

Each cunning tool of kingly terror

Who served your reigns of fraud and error,
Behold, where with relentless lock
Ye chain'd Prometheus to his rock,
And, when his tortured bosom ceased
Your vulture's savage beak to feast,
Where fathom-deep ye dug his cell,

And built and barr'd his coffin down,

Half doubting if even deat could quell

Such terrible renown; Now mid the torch's solemn glare, And bended knee, and mutter'd prayer, Within that green sepulchral glen Uncover'd groups of warrior men Breathless perform the high behes!

Of winning back, in priceless tract, For the regenerated West,

Your victim's mighty dust.

Hark how they burst your cramps and rings-
Ha, ha! ye banded, baffled kings!

Stout men! delve on with axe and bar,
Ye're watch'd from yonder restless star :
Hew the tough masonry away-

Bid the tomb's ponderous portals fly!
And firm your sounding levers sway,

And loud your clanking hammers ply
Nor falter though the work be slow,
Ye something gain in every blow,
While deep each heart in chorus sings,
"Ha, ha! ye banded, baffled kings!"
Brave men! delve on with axe and bar,
Ye're watch'd from yonder glorious star.
'Tis morn- -the marble floor is cleft,
And slight and short the labour left;
"Tis noon- -they wind the windlass now
To heave the granite from his brow:
Back to each gazer's waiting heart
The life-blood leaps with anxious start-
Down Bertrand's cheek the tear-drop steals—
Low in the dust Las Casas kneels,
(Oh! Tried and trusted-still, as long
As the true heart's fidelity
Shall form the theme of harp and song,

High bards shall sing of ye!)
One moment, and thy beams, O sun!
The bier of him shall look upon,
Who, save the heaven-expell'd, alone
Dared envy thee thy blazing throne;
Who haply oft, with gaze intent,

And sick from victory's vulgar war,
Panted to sweep the firmament,

And dash thee from thy car,
And cursed the clay that still confined
His narrow conquests to mankind.

"Tis done-his chiefs are lifting now
The shroud from that tremendous brow,
That with the lightning's rapid might
Illumed Marengo's awful night-
Flash'd over Lodi's murderous bridge,
Swept Prussia from red Jena's ridge,
And broke once more the Austrian sword
By Wagram's memorable ford.
And may man's puny race, that shook
Before the terrors of that look,
Approach unshrinking now, and see
How far corruption's mastery
Has tamed the tyrant-tamer?

Raise

That silken cloud, what n.eets the gaze?
The scanty dust, or whitening bones,
Or fleshless jaws' horrific mirth,

Of him whose threshold-steps were thrones,
A mockery now to earth?
No-even as though his haughty clay
Scoff'd at the contact of decay,

And from his mind's immortal flame
Itself immortalized became,

Tranquilly there NAPOLEON lies reveal'd
Like a king sleeping on his own proud shield,
Harness'd for conflict, and that eagle-star,
Whose fire-eyed legion foremost waked the war
Still on his boson 1, tarnish'd too and dim,
As if hot battle's cloud had lately circled him

Fast fades the vision-from that glen
Wind slow those aching-hearted men,
While every mountain echo floats,
Fill'd with the bugle's regal notes-
And now the gun's redoubled roar
Tells the lone peak and mighty main,
Beneath his glorious Tricolor

Napoleon rests again!

And France's galley soon the sail
Shall spread triumphant to the gale,
Till, lost upon the lingering eye,
It melts and mingles in the sky.

Let Paris, too, prepare a show,
And deck her streets in gaudy wo
And rear a more than kingly shrine,
Whose tapers' blaze shall ne'er be dim,
And bid the sculptor's art divine

Be lavish'd there for him,

And let him take his rest serene,
(Even so he will'd it) by the Seine;
But ever to the poet's heart,

Or pilgrim musing o'er those pages
(Replete with marvels) that impart
His story unto ages,
The spacious azure of yon sea
Alone his minster floor shall be,
Coped by the stars-red evening's smilə
His epitaph; and thou, rude Isle,
Austerely-brow'd and thunder rent,
Napoleon's only monument!

VIEW ON THE HUDSON.

SOUND to the sun thy solemn joy for ever!

Roll forth the enormous gladness of thy waves, Mid boundless bloom, thou bright majestic river,

Worthy the giant land thy current laves! Each bend of beauty, from the stooping cliff, Whose shade is dotted by the fisher's skiff,— From rocks embattled, that, abrupt and tall, Heave their bulk skyward like a castle-wall, And hem thee in, until the Rapids hoarse Split the huge marble with an earthquake's force, To where thy waves are sweet with summer scents Flung from the Highland's softer lineamentsEach lovelier change thy broadening billows take Now sweeping on, now like some mighty lake, Stretching away where evening-tinted isles Woo thee to linger raid their rosy smiles→→

The lonely cove-the village-humming hill-
'The green dell lending thee its fairy rill-
All, all, are old familiar scenes to one
Who tracks thee but by fancy's aid alone.
Yet well his boyhood's earnest hours adored
Thy haunted headlands, since he first explored
With Weld the vast and shadowy recesses
Of their grand woods and verdant wildernesses;
Since first he open'd the enchanted books
(Whose words are silver liquid as the brook's)
Of that loved wanderer, who told the west
Van Winkle's wondrous tale, and fill'd each breast
By turns with awe, delight, or blithe emotion,

Painting the life thy forest-shadows knew, What time the settlers, crowding o'er the ocean, Spread their white sails along thy waters blue. Theirs were the hearts true liberty bestows-

The valour that adventure lights in men; And in their children still the metal glows,

As well can witness each resounding glen Of the fair scene, whose mellow colours shine Beneath the splendour of yon evening orb, That sinks serene as WASHINGTON'S decline, Whose memory here should meaner thoughts

absorb.

Here rose the ramparts, never rear'd in vain
When Justice smites in two the oppressor's chain;
Here, year on year, through yonder heaven of blue,
The bomb's hot wrath its rending volleys threw
Against those towers, which, scorning all attack,
Still roll'd the assailants' shatter'd battle back;
Till, as they fled in final rout, behind

Soar'd the Republic's flag, high-floating in the wind!
Long may that star-emblazoned banner wave
Its folds triumphant o'er a land so brave,
Fann'd by no breeze but that which wafts us now
The laugh of Plenty, leaning on the plough.
And should Columbia's iron-hearted men
Try the fierce fortune of the sword again,
Be theirs to wield it in no wanton cause,
Fired by no braggart orators' applause,
In no red conflict, whose unrighteous tide
Could call nor Truth nor Mercy to their side,
So may their empire still supremely sweep
From age to age the illimitable deep,
With sway surpassing all but her proud reign,
Whose hand reposes on her lion's mane-
The Ocean Queen-within whose rude isle lock'd
Their own stern fathers' infancy was rock'd;
Where first they breathed, amid the bracing north,
Fair Freedom's spirit, till she sent them forth-
Her cloud above their exodus unfurl'd-
To spread her worship o'er a second world.

DEATH-CHANT FOR THE SULTAN MAHMOUD.

RAISE the song to the mighty, whose glory shall die When the moon of his empire has dropp'd from the sky;

And if wail be awaken'd for him who smote down Grim bigotry's Moloch, guilt's bloody renown,

Be it lost in the trumpet's magnificent wo, From the Bosphorus swelling,

To Christendom telling

That the fiery Rome-tramplers' descendant is low
By the Prophet! remember his terrible mirth,
When he swept the Janitzars as stubble from earth
On the domes of Sophia like midnight he stood,
The avenger of Selim's and Mustapha's blood!
Red dogs of rebellion, with tearing and yell
And chain'd valour's despair,

In their own savage lair,

Mow'd down beneath cannon and carbine they fel. Raise the song to the mighty! high Mahmoud. whose stroke

In a moment the fetters of centuries broke!
Far kings of the west, how your trophies grow din
In the light of the fame that awaiteth for him!
The contemner of Korans, who, girded by foes,
The Ark of salvation

First launch'd for his nation,
When the press mid the curses of fanatics rose.
Hu Allahu Alla! the blest caravan

Is in sight from Damascus, and Mecca is wanSheik and Imam are trembling with terror and awe, For this Cadmus of Caliphs has laugh'd at the law: Fair painting must sully the Prophet's proud tomb, For Athenè, not loth,

Has left Greece to the Goth,

And planted her arts-shading olive in Roum.
In vain, Ghazi-Sultaun! when Pera's sweet shore
In the blue of Propontis is rosy no more-
When Olympus no longer on Thrace looks abroad,
And the name of the Frank shall not signify fraud,
Then the slaves shall be worthy the war-vest, and
then,

When thy spirit imparts

To their recreant hearts

Its grandeur, thy horse-tails may flap over men. Sound the trump for the mighty! great Allah thy

son

With Azrel, the angel unsparing, is gone! While round his shrunk borders the thunder was growling,

And the Muscovite wolves thickly herded were howling,

And snuffing the gales that, refreshingly cool,
On their merciless thirst

In wild redolence burst, Where, bulwark'd in gold, blush the brides of Stamboul.

Sound the trump for the mighty! he died ere the tramp

Of the terror-horsed Tartar who dash'd from the camp

Stay'd his soul with the tale that his dastardly hordes Lay reap'd upon Nekshib, where sickles were swords!

And the lords of the spear's haughty kingdom has past

To the Rebel and Hun.

And the death-song is done:

But thy praise shallot perish, ost Mahmoud the

Last!

Mr. FABER is a young clergyman of the established church, and is the author of The Cherwell Water-Lily and other Poems, published in 1840, and Sir Launcelot, in

the summer of 1844. His style is sin pla and poetical, and his productions are gene rally serious in sentiment and earnest in thought.

KING'S BRIDGE.

THE dew falls fast, and the night is dark, And the trees stand silent in the park ; And winter passeth from bough to bough, With stealthy foot that none may know; But little the old man thinks he weaves His frosty kiss on the ivy leaves.

From bridge to bridge with tremulous fall The river droppeth down,

And it washeth the base of a pleasant hall
On the skirts of Cambridge town.
Old trees by night are like men in thought,
By poetry to silence wrought;

They stand so still and they look so wise,
With folded arms and half-shut eyes,
More shadowy than the shade they cast
When the wan moonlight on the river past.
The river is green, and runneth slow-
We cannot tell what it saith;

It keepeth its secrets down below,
And so doth Death!

Oh! the night is dark; but not so dark

As my poor soul in this lonely park:

There are festal lights by the stream, that fall,
Like stars, from the casements of yonder hall
But harshly the sounds of joyaunce grate
On one that is crush'd and desolate.

From bridge to bridge with tremulous fall
The river droppeth down,

As it washeth the base of a pleasant hall
On the skirts of Cambridge town.

O Mary! Mary! could I but hear
What this river saith in night's still ear,
And catch the faint whispering voice it brings
From its lowlands green and its reedy springs:
It might tell of the spot where the gray beard's spade
Turn'd the cold wet earth in the lime-tree shade.
The river is green, and runneth slow-
We cannot tell what it saith:

It keepeth its secrets down below,
And so doth Death!

For death was born in thy blood with life-
Too holy a fount for such sad strife:
Like a secret curse from hour to hour
The canker grew with the growing flower;
And little we deem'd that rosy streak
Was the tyrant's seal on thy virgin cheek.

From bridge to bridge with tremalous fan
The river droppeth down,

As it washeth the base of a pleasant hall
On the skirts of Cambridge town.

But fainter and fainter thy bright eyes grew,
And redder and redder that rosy hue;
And the half-shed tears that never fell,
And the pain within thou wouldst not tell,
And the wild, wan smile,-all spoke of death,
That had wither'd my chosen with his breath.
The river is green, and runneth slow-
We cannot tell what it saith:

It keepeth its secrets down below,
And so doth Death!

'Twas o'er thy harp, one day in June,
I marvell'd the strings were out of tune;
But lighter and quicker the music grew,
And deadly white was thy rosy hue;
One moment-and back the colour came,
Thou calledst me by my Christian name.
From bridge to bridge with tremulous fall
The river droppeth down,

As it washeth the base of a pleasant hall
On the skirts of Cambridge town.

Thou badest me be silent and bold,

But my brain was hot, and my heart was cold.

I never wept, and I never spake,

But stood like a rock where the salt seas break,
And to this day I have shed no tear

O'er my blighted love and my chosen's bier.
The river is green, and runneth slow-
We cannot tell what it saith:

It keepeth its secrets down below,
And so doth Death!

I stood in the church with burning brow,
The lips of the priest moved solemn and slow
I noted each pause, and counted each swell,
As a sentry numbers a minute-bell;
For unto the mourner's heart they call
From the deeps of that wondrous ritual.
From bridge to bridge with tremulous fall
The river droppeth down,

As it washeth the base of a pleasant hail
On the skirts of Cambridge town.
My spirit was lost in a mystic scene,
Where the sun and moon in silvery sheen
Were belted with stars on emerald wings,
And fishes and ocasts, and all fleshly things,