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Remember the pruning knife is keen, cutting cankers even from the vine;

Remember, twelve were chosen, and one among them liveth in perdition.

Yea, for standing unatoned, the soul is a bison on the prairie, Hunted by those trooping wolves, the many sinful yesterdays: And it speedeth a terrified Deucalion, flinging back the pebble in his flight,

The pebble that must add one more to those pursuing ghosts.
Oman! there is a storm behind, should drive in thy bark to haven:
The foe, the foe, is on thy track, patient, certain and avenging;
Day by day, solemnly and silently followeth the fearful past,—
His step is lame but sure; for he catcheth the present in eternity:
And how to escape that foe, the present-past in future?

How to avert that fate, living consequence of causes unexistent?
Boldly we must overleap his birth, and date above his memories,
Grafted on the living Tree that was before a yesterday;
No refuge of a younger birth than one that saw creation,
Can hide the child of time from still condemning yesterday.
There is the Sanctuary-city, mocking at the wrath of thine
Avenger,

Close at hand, with its wicket on the latch; haste for thy life, poor hunted one!

The gladiator, Guilt, fighteth as of old, armed with net and dagger;

Snaring in the mesh of yesterdays, stabbing with the poniard of to-day;

Fly, thy sword is broken at the hilt; fly, thy shield is shiver'd; Leap the barriers and baffle him; the arena of the past is his. The bounds of guilt are the cycles of time; thou must be safe

within Eternity;

The arms of God alone shall rescue thee from yesterday.

A POET'S PARTING THOUGHT.*-MOTHERWELL.

WHEN I beneath the cold red earth am sleeping,
Life's fever o'er,

Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I'm no more?

Will there be any heart still memory keeping
Of heretofore?

When the great winds through leafless forests rushing,
Sad music make;

When the swollen streams, o'er crag and gully gushing,
Like full hearts break,-

Will there then one, whose heart despair is crushing,
Mourn for my sake?

When the bright sun upon that spot is shining,
With purest ray,

And the small flowers, their buds and blossoms twining,
Burst through that clay,-

Will there be one still on that spot repining
Lost hopes all day?

When no star twinkles with its eye of glory,
On that low mound,

And wintry storms have, with their ruins hoary,
Its loneness crown'd,-

Will there be then one, vers'd in misery's story,
Pacing it round ?—

It may be so, but this is selfish sorrow
To ask such meed,—

*These lines of Motherwell,-so touching in their simple pathos, and so unselfish in the calm resignation of their close, —were given to a friend by the author, a day or two before his decease.

A weakness and a wickedness to borrow,
From hearts that bleed,

The wailings of to-day for what to-morrow
Shall never need.

Lay me then gently in my narrow dwelling,
Thou gentle heart;

And though thy bosom should with grief be swelling,
Let no tear start:

It were in vain,-for time hath long been knelling;Sad one, depart!

DIALOGUE AND DRAMATIC PIECES.

LOCHIEL'S WARNING.-CAMPBELL.

WIZARD-LOCHIEL.*

Wiz.-Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day
When the lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scatter'd in fight.
They rally, they bleed for their kingdom and crown;
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain!
But hark! through the fast flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning; no rider is there;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!

Oh weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead.

* In this dialogue, the tone of the Wizard, or Seer-who is supposed to be gifted with second-sight-must be deep, and solemn; increasing in pitch and force as the images of horror crowd upon his vision, and varied occasionally by the soft tones of grief. The expression of the chieftain Lochiel must be that of bold confidence, daring, and contempt of the Wizard's prediction. His pitch will therefore be higher, and his tone louder.

For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,
Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.
Loc.-Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer!
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight
This mantle-to cover the phantoms of flight.

Wiz.-Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?
Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn !—
Say, rush'd the bold eagle exultingly forth

From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode,
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad:

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast ?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of heaven.
Oh! crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling; all lonely return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood!

Loc.-False Wizard, avaunt! I have marshall'd my clan,
Their swords are a thousand, their hearts are but one!
They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws;
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanronald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array-

Wiz.-Lochiel, Lochiel! beware of the day!

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