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Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth: But he whom sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.

THE PLEASURES OF HOPE.

BYRON.

CEASE, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, O leave, the light of Hope behind!
What though my wingèd hours of bliss have been,
Like angel's visits, few and far between?

Her musing mood shall every pang appease,
And charm, when pleasures lose the power to please.
But why so short is Love's delighted hour?
Why fades the dew on Beauty's sweetest flower?
Why can no hymnèd charm of music heal
The sleepless woes impassioned spirits feel?
Can Fancy's fairy hands no veil create,
To hide the sad realities of Fate?

No! not the quaint remark, the sapient rule
Nor all the pride of Wisdom's worldly school,
Have power to soothe, unaided and alone,
The heart that vibrates to a feeling tone!
When step-dame Nature every bliss recalls,
Fleet as the meteor o'er the desert falls;
When 'reft of all, yon widowed sire appears
A lonely hermit in the vale of years;
Say, can the world one joyous thought bestow
To Friendship weeping at the couch of Woe?

No! but a brighter soothes the last adieu;
Souls of impassioned mould, she speaks to you!
"Weep not," she says, at "Nature's transient pain,
Congenial spirits part to meet again!

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"What plaintive sobs thy filial spirit drew;

"What sorrow choked thy long and last adieu! Daughter of Conrad !

When he heard his knell,

"And bade his country and his child farewell; "Doom'd the long isles of Sydney-cove to see, The martyr of his crimes, but true to thee!

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"Thrice the sad father tore thee from his heart, "And thrice returned to bless thee, and to part; "Thrice from his trembling lips he murmured low, "The plaint that owned unutterable woe;

"Till Faith prevailing o'er his sullen doom,

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As bursts the morn on night's unfathomed gloom, "Lured his dim eye to deathless hopes sublime, "Beyond the realms of Nature and of Time!

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And weep not thus," he cried, "young Ellenore, 'My bosom bleeds, but soon shall bleed no more! "Short shall this half-extinguished spirit burn, 'And soon these limbs to kindred dust return!

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But not, my child, with life's precarious fire,

"The immortal ties of nature shall expire;

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'These shall resist the triumph of decay,

"When time is o'er and worlds have passed away! "Cold in the dust this perished heart may lie, "But that which warmed it once shall never die!

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That spark, unburied in its mortal frame,

With living light, eternal, and the same,

Shall beam on joy's interminable years, "Unveiled by darkness, unassuaged by tears!

"Farewell! When strangers lift thy father's bier, "And place my nameless stone without a tear; "When each returning pledge hath told my child, "That Conrad's tomb is on the desert piled;

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And when the dream of troubled Fancy sees

Its lonely rank grass waving in the breeze;

"Who then will soothe thy grief, when mine is o'er? Who will protect thee, helpless Ellenore?

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Shall secret scenes thy filial sorrows hide,

Scorned by the world, to factious guilt allied? Ah, no! methinks the generous and the good "Will woo thee from the shades of solitude! “O'er friendless grief, Compassion shall awake, "And smile on Innocence for Mercy's sake!

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"Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be,

"The tears of Love were hopeless, but for thee!
If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell,
"If that faint murmur be the last farewell,
"If Fate unite the faithful but to part,

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Why is their memory sacred to the heart?

Why does the brother of my childhood seem
Restored awhile in every pleasing dream?

"Why do I joy the lonely spot to view,

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By artless friendship blessed when life was new?”
Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime,
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade!
When all the sister planets have decayed;
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!

CAMPBELL.

THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY.
UNFADING Hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust, return;
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour:
O then thy kingdom comes-Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly,
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day
Then-then, the triumph and the trance begin!
And all the phoenix spirit burns within!
O deep-enchanting prelude to repose!
The dawn of bliss! the twilight of our woes!
Yet, half I hear the parting spirit sigh-
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untravelled by the sun,
Where Time's far-wandering tide has never run!
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears:

'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And, like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod
The roaring waves, and called upon his God,

With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks, and hovers o'er the dark abyss.
Daughter of Faith, awake! arise! illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb!
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er, the pangs of nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze,
The noon of Heaven, undazzled by the blaze,
On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky,
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody,
Wild as that hallowed anthem sent to hail
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale,
When Jordan hushed his waves, and midnight still
Watched on the holy towers of Zion hill!

Soul of the just, companion of the dead!
Where is thy home? and whither art thou fled?
Back to its heavenly source thy being goes;
Swift as the comet wheels to whence he rose ;
Doomed on his airy path awhile to burn,

And doomed, like thee, to travel and return ;—
Hark! from the world's exploding centre driven,
With sounds that shook the firmament of Heaven,
Careers the fiery giant, fast and far,

On bickering wheels and adamantine car;
From planet whirled to planet more remote,
He visits realms beyond the reach of thought;
But wheeling homeward, when his course is run,
Curbs the red yoke, and mingles with the sun.
So hath the traveller of earth unfurled
Her trembling wings, emerging from the world;
And, o'er the path by mortal never trod,
Sprung to her source-the bosom of her God!

CAMPBELL.

103

THE SPANISH ARMADA.

CLEAR shone the morn, the gale was fair,
When from Corunna's crowded port,

With many a cheerful shout and loud acclaim,
The huge Armada pass'd.

To England's shores their streamers point, To England's shores their sails are spread; They go to triumph o'er the sea-girt land, And Rome has blest their arms.

Along the ocean's echoing verge,
Along the mountain range of rocks,
The clustering multitudes behold their pomp,
And raise the votive prayer.

Commingling with the ocean's roar,

Ceaseless and hoarse their murmurs rise, And soon they trust to see the winged bark That bears good tidings home.

The watch-tower now in distance sinks,

And now Galicia's mountain-rocks

Faint as the far-off clouds of evening lie,
And now they fade away.

Each, like some moving citadel,

On through the waves they sail sublime; And now the Spaniards see the silvery cliffs, Behold the sea-girt land!

O fools, to think that ever foe

Should triumph o'er that sea-girt land!

O fools, to think that ever Britain's sons
Should wear the stranger's yoke!

For not in vain hath Nature rear'd'
Around her coast those silvery cliffs;

For not in vain old Ocean spreads his waves
To guard his favourite isle !

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