the shadows of grief in Crathmo. But raise my remem brance on the banks of Lora, where my fathers dwelt. Perhaps the husband of Moina will mourn over his fallen Carthon." His words reached the heart of Clessàmmor : he fell, in silence, on his son. The host stood darkened around: no voice is on the plains of Lora. Night came, and the moon, from the east, looked on the mournful field: but still they stood, like a silent grove that lifts its head on Gormal, when the loud winds are laid, and dark autumn is on the plain.

Three days they mourned over Carthon: on the fourth his father died. In the narrow plain of the rock they lie; and a dim ghost defends their tomb. There lovely Moina is often seen; when the sun-beam darts on the rock, and all around is dark. There she is seen, Malvina, but not like the daughters of the hill. Her robes are from the stran ger's land; and she is still alone.

Fingal was sad for Carthon; he desired his bards to mark the day, when shadowy autumn returned. And often did they mark the day, and sing the hero's praise. " Who comes so dark from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud? Death is trembling in his hand! his eyes are flames of fire! Who roars along dark Lora's heath? Who but Carthon king of swords? The people fall! see! how he strides, like the sullen ghost of Morven! But there he lies, a goodly oak, which sudden blasts overturned! When shalt thou rise, Balclutha's joy! lovely car-borne Carthon? Who comes so dark from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud?" Such were the words of the bards, in the day of their mourning: I have accompanied their voice; and added to their song. My soul has been mournful for Carthon, he fell in the days of his valour: and thou, O Clessàmmor! where is thy dwelling in the air? Has the youth forgot his wound? And flies he, on the clouds, with thee? I feel the sun, O Malvina; leave me to my rest. Perhaps they may come to my dreams; I think I hear a feeble voice. The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave of Carthon : I feel it warm around.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth, in thy awful beauty, and the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the

mountains fall: the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again: the moon herself is lost in heaven; but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests; when thunder rolls, and lightning flies; thou lookest in thy beauty, from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian, thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps, like me, for a season, and thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills; the blast of the north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

LESSON CXXX.

Apostrophe to the Sun.-J. G. PERCIVAL.

CENTRE of light and energy! thy way

Is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne, Morning, and evening, and at noon of day,

Far in the blue, untended and alone:

Ere the first-wakened airs of earth had blown,

On didst thou march, triumphant in thy light;

Then didst thou send thy glance, which still hath flown Wide through the never-ending worlds of night,

And yet thy full orb burns with flash unquenched and bright.

Thy path is high in heaven-we cannot gaze
On the intense of light that girds thy car;
There is a crown of glory in thy rays,
Which bears thy pure divinity afar
To mingle with the equal light of star;
For thou, so vast to us, art, in the whole,
One of the sparks of night, that fire the air;
And, as around thy centre planets roll,

So thou, too, hast thy path around the Central Soul.

Thou lookest on the earth, and then it smiles;

Thy light is hid and all things droop and mourn; Laughs the wide sea around her budding isles,

When through their heaven thy changing car is borne ; Thou wheel'st away thy flight, the woods are shorn Of all their waving locks, and storms awake;

All, that was once so beautiful, is torn

By the wild winds which plough the lonely lake,
And in their maddening rush the crested mountains shake.

The earth lies buried in a shroud of snow;
Life lingers, and would die, but thy return
Gives to their gladdened hearts an overflow
Of all the power, that brooded in the urn

Of their chilled frames, and then they proudly spurn All bands that would confine, and give to air

Hues, fragrance, shapes of beauty, till they burn, When, on a dewy morn, thou dartest there

Rich waves of gold to wreath with fairer light the fair.

The vales are thine :—and when the touch of Spring
Thrills them, and gives them gladness, ir thy light
'They glitter, as the glancing swallow's wing
Dashes the water in his winding flight,

And leaves behind a wave, that crinkles bright,
And widens outward to the pebbled shore ;—

The vales are thine; and when they wake from night,
The dews that bend the grass tips, twinkling o'er
Their soft and oozy beds, look upward and adore.

The hills are thine :-they catch thy newest beam,
And gladden in thy parting, where the wood
Flames out in every leaf, and drinks the stream,
That flows from out thy fulness, as a flood
Bursts from an unknown land, and rolls the food
Of nations in its waters; so thy rays

Flow and give brighter tints, than ever bud,
When a clear sheet of ice reflects a blaze

Of many twinkling gems, as every glossed bough plays.

Thine are the mountains,--where they purely lift
Snows that have never wasted, in a sky
Which hath no stain; below the storm may drift
Its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by ;-
Aloft in thy cternal smile they lie

Dazzling but cold; thy farewell glance looks there,

And when below thy hues of beauty die,
Girt round them, as a rosy belt, they bear
Into the high dark vault, a brow that still is fair.

The clouds are thine; and all their magick hues
Are pencilled by thee; when thou bendest low,
Or comest in thy strength, thy hand imbues

Their waving folds with such a perfect glow
Of all pure tints, the fairy pictures throw
Shame on the proudest art;

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These are thy trophies, and thou bend'st thy arch,
The sign of triumph, in a seven-fold twine,
Where the spent storm is hasting on its march;
And there the glories of thy light combine,
And form, with perfect curve, a lifted line
Striding the earth and air -man looks and tells
How Peace and Mercy in its beauty shine,
And how the heavenly messenger impels
Her glad wings on the path, that thus in ether swells.

The ocean is thy vassal :-thou dost sway
His waves to thy dominion, and they go

Where thou, in heaven, dost guide them on their way,
Rising and falling in eternal flow:

Thou lookest on the waters, and they glow,

And take them wings and spring aloft in air,

And change to clouds, and then, dissolving, throw Their treasures back to earth, and, rushing, tear The mountain and the vale, as proudly on they bear.

In thee, first light, the bounding ocean smiles
When the quick winds uprear it in a swell,
That rolls in glittering green around the isles,
Where ever-springing fruits and blossoms dwell.
O! with a joy no gifted tongue can tell,
I hurry o'er the waters when the sail

Swells tensely, and the light keel glances well
Over the curling billow, and the gale

Comes off from spicy groves to tell its winning tale.

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LESSON CXXXI.

Apostrophe to the Ocean.-BYRON.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes

By the deep sea, and musick in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control

Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yest of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage,-what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :-not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkles on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.