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That he was forced this day, whether or no,
To combat with the prince; and that although
His noble brother was no fratricide,

Yet in that fight, and on his sword,-he died."
I understand," with firmness answered she;
afore low in voice, but still composedly.

Now, Tristan-faithful friend-leave me; and take
This trifle here, and keep it for my sake."
So saying, from the curtains she put forth
Her thin white hand, that wore a ring of worth;
And he, with tears no longer to be kept
From quenching his heart's thirst, silently wept,
And kneeling took the ring, and touched her hand
To either streaming eye, with homage bland,
And looking on it once, gently up started,
And, in his reverent stillness, so departed.

Her favorite lady then with the old nurse
Returned, and fearing she must now be worse,
Gently withdrew the curtains, and looked in:-
O, who that feels one godlike spark within,

Shall bid not earth be just, before 'tis hard, with sin?
There lay she praying, upwardly intent,
Like a fair statue on a monument,

With her two trembling hands together prest,
Palm against palm, and pointing from her breast.
She ceased, and turning slowly towards the wall,
They saw her tremble sharply, feet and all,—
Then suddenly be still. Near and more near
They bent with pale inquiry and close ear;—
Her eyes were shut-no motion-not a breath-
The gentle sufferer was at peace in death.

I pass the grief that struck to every face,
And the mute anguish all about that place,
In which the silent people, here and there,
Went soft, as though she still could feel their care.
The gentle-tempered for a while forgot
Their own distress, or wept the common lot:
The warmer, apter now to take offence,
Yet hushed as they rebuked, and wondered whence
Others at such a time could get their want of sense.

Fain would I haste indeed to finish all

And so at once I reach the funeral.
Private 'twas fancied it must be, though some

Thought that her sire, the poor old duke, would come.
And some were wondering in their pity, whether
The lovers might not have one grave together.
Next day, however, from the palace gate
A blast of trumpets blew, like voice of fate;
And all in sable clad, forth came again

Of knights and squires the former sprightly train:
Gerard was next, and then a rank of friars;

And then, with heralds on each side, two squires,
The one of whom upon a cushion bore
The coroneted helm Prince Paulo wore,
His shield the other;-then there was a space,
And in the middle, with a doubtful pace,

His horse succeeded, plumed and trapped in black,
Bearing the sword and banner on his back:
The noble creature, as in state he trod,
Appeared as if he missed his princely load;
And with back-rolling eye and lingering pride,
To hope his master still might come to ride.
Then Tristan, heedless of what passed around,
Rode by himself, with eyes upon the ground.
Then heralds in a row: and last of all
Appeared a hearse, hung with an ermined pall,
And pearing on its top, together set,
A prince's and princess's coronet.

Mutely they issued forth, black, slow, dejected,
Nor stopped within the walls, as most expected;
But passed the gates-the bridge-the last abode,-

And towards Ravenna held their silent road.

The prince, it seems, struck, since his brother's death, With what he hinted with his dying breath,

And told by others now of all they knew,

Had fixed at once the course he should pursue;

Ant from a mingled feeling, which he strove
To hide no longer from his taught self-love,

Of sorrow, shame, resentment, and a sense
Of justice owing to that first offence,

Had, on the day preceding, written word
To the old duke of all that had occurred :—
"And though I shall 1 ot," (so concluded he)
"Otherwise touch thine age's misery,

Yet as I would that both one grave should hide,
Which can, and must not be, where I reside,
'Tis fit, though all have something to deplore,

That he, who join'd them once, should keep to part no mora

The wretched father, who, when he had read
This letter, felt it wither his gray head,

And ever since had paced about his room.
Trembling, and seiz'd as with approaching doom,
Had given such orders, as he well could frame,
To meet devoutly whatsoever came;
And as the news immediately took flight,
Few in Ravenna went to sleep that night,
But talked the business over, and reviewed
All that they knew of her, the fair and good;
And so with wondering sorrow the next day,
Waited till they should see that sad array.

The days were then at close of autumn,-still,
A little rainy, and towards night-fall chill;
There was a fitful, moaning air abroad;
And ever and anon, over the road,

The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees,
Whose trunks now thronged to sight, in dark varistia
The people, who from reverence kept at home,
Listened till afternoon to hear them come;
And hour on hour went by, and nought was heard
But some chance horseman, or the wind that stirred,
Till towards the vesper hour; and then 'twas said
Some heard a voice, which seemed as if it read
And others said, that they could hear a sound
Of many horses trampling the moist gro nd
Still nothing came,-till on a sudden, ju-t
As the wind opened in a rising gust,

A voice of chanting rose, and as it spread,
They plainly heard the anthem for the dead
It was the choristers, who went to meet
The train, and now were entering the first street.
Then turned aside that city, young and old,
And in their lifted hands the gushing sorro's rolled

But of the older people, few could bear

To keep the window, when the train drew near;
And all felt double tenderness to see
The bier approaching, slow and steadily,
On which those two in senseless coldness lay,
Who but a few short months-it seemed a day,
Had left their walls, lovely in form and mind,
In sunny manhood he,--she first of womankind.

They say that when Duke Guido saw them come,
He clasped his hands, and looking round the room
Lost his old wits for ever. From the morrow
None saw him after. But no more of sorrow:-
On that same night, those lovers silently
Were buried in one grave, under a tree.
There side by side, and hand in hand, they lay
In the green ground:-and on fine nights in May
Young hearts betrothed used to come there to pray

THE NILE.

A SONNET. BY LEIGH HUNT.

Ir flows through old hushed Egypt, and its sands
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,-
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roamed through the young world, the glory exuer

Of high Sesostris, and that Southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,

As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream. lapsing along
"Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake

NOTES.

THE ANGEL OF THE WORLD, by the Rev. George Croly, is a paraphrase of one of the most graceful fictions of the Koran. The angels HARUTH and MARUTH had, it seems, spoken uncharitably, concerning mankind, and had_expressed, in the regions above, great contempt for those temptations which are and have been long found, most efficacious for overthrowing the resolutions of terrestrial virtue. That they might have their purity put to the proof, the two proud angels were sent down to dwell for a season on the earth. A woman was sent to tempt them-and they fell. Her charms won them first to drink of the forbidden fruit of the grape; and, after that fall, all others were easy. They stained their essence with the corruptions of sense, and betrayed to mortal ears "the words that raise men to angels." Croly writes, (for our relishing, at least,) with a better conception than Moore, for this particular style of poem, and with a far more soaring and ennobling flow of melody. The Loves of the Angels, to this poem, are as the hop of the sparrow to the long swoop of the eagle. Unparalleled splendor of language and imagery is Croly's great gift, and in|| reading his poem, the imagination sails easily and toweringly away and lies dreamily in the clouds, listening to him. It is marvellous that this most glorious poem should ever have been forgotten as it is—for it will be, to most readers, || a work entirely new.

"The STORY of RIMINI is founded on the beautiful epiaode of Paulo and Francesca in the fifth book of the INFERNO, where it stands like a lily in the mouth of Tartarus. The substance of what Dante tells us of the history of the two lovers is to be found at the end of the third Canto. The rest has been gathered from the commentators. They differ in their accounts of it, but all agree that the lady was, in some measure, beguiled into the match with the elder and less attractive Malatesta,-Boccaccio says, by having the younger brother pointed out to her as her destined huspand, as he was passing over a square. ||

us at a distance, does not on a closer inspection turn out an opaque substance. This is a charge that none of his friends will bring against Mr. Leigh Hunt. He improves upon acquaintance. The author translates admirably into the man. Indeed the very faults of his style are virtues in the individual. His natural gaiety and sprightliness of manner, his high animal spirits, and the vinous quality of his mind produce an immediate fascination and intoxication in those who come in contact with him, and carry off in society whatever in his writings may to some seem fl and impertinent. From great sanguineness of temper, from great quickness and unsuspecting simplicity, he runs on to the public as he does at his own fire-side, and talks about himself, forgetting that he is not always among friends His lock, his tone are required to point many things that he says: his frank, cordial manner reconciles you instantly to a little over-bearing, over-weening self-complacency. "To be admired, he needs but to be seen:" but perhaps he ought to be seen to be fully appreciated. No one ever sought his society who did not come away with a more favourable opinion of him: no one was ever disappointed, except those who had entertained idle prejudices against him. He sometimes trifles with his readers, or tires of a subject (from not being urged on by the stimulus of immediate sympathy)-but in conversation he is all life and animation, combining the vivacity of the school-boy with the resources of the wit and the taste of the scholar. The personal character, the spontaneous impulses, do not appear to excuse the author, unless you are acquainted with his situation and habits-like some proud beauty who gives herself what we think strange airs and graces under a mask, but who is instantly forgiven when she shows her face. We have said that Lord Byron is a sublime coxcomb: why should we not say that Mr. Hunt is a delightful one? There is certainly an exuberance of satisfaction in his manner which is more than the strict logical premises warrant, and which dull and phlegmatic constitutions know nothing of, and cannot understand till they see it. He is the only poet or literary man we ever knew who put us in mind of Sir John Suckling or Killigrew or Carew; or who united rare intellectual acquirements with outward grace and natural gentility. Mr. Hunt ought to have been a gentleman born, and to have patronised men of letters. He might then have played, and sung, and laughed, and talked his life away; have written manly prose, elegant verse; and his Story of Rimini would have been praised by the Blackwood Magazine. As it is, there is no man now living who at the. same time writes prose and verse so well, with the exception of Mr. Southey (an exception, we fear, that will be little palatable to either of these gen tlemen.) His prose writings, however, display more con

Francesca of Ravenna was the daughter of Guido Novello da Polenta, lord of that city, and was married to Giovanni, r, as others call him, Launcelot Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, under circumstances that had given her an innocent predilection for Paulo, his younger brother. The falsehood thus practised upon her had fatal consequences. In the Poem before the reader, the Duke her father, a weak, though not ill-disposed man, desirous, on a political account, of marrying her to the Prince of Rimini, and dreading her objections in case she sees him, and becomes acquainted with his unamiable manners, contrives that he shall send his brother as his proxy, and that the poor girl shall believe the one prince to be the sample of the other. Experience undeceives her; Paulo has been told the perilous secret of her preference for him; and in both of them a struggle with their sense of duty takes place, for which the insin-sistency of principle than the laureate's: his verses mon cere and selfish morals of others had not prepared them. Giovanni discovers the secret, from words uttered by his wife in her sleep: he forces Paulo to meet him in single combat, and slays him, not without sorrow for both, and great indignation against the father; Francesca dies of a broken heart; and the two lovers, who had come to Ravenna in the midst of a gay cavalcade, are sent back to Ravenna, dead, in order that he who first helped to unite them with his falsehood, should bury them in one grave for his repentance. The poor old man loses his wits; and the burial takes place.

Leigh Hunt (James Henry Leigh Hunt) is of American parentage, by both father's and mother's side. He is the son of a royalist who fled to England at the commencement of the Revolution. The mother of the poet was a sister of Benj. West, the painter. Hunt was born 1784, and educated at Christ's Hospital, on leaving which he was for some time in the office of an attorney. He next obtained a situation under government, which he was obliged to quit on establishing the paper called the Examiner, in 1809, before which he was the editor of the News. His last speculation was successful, owing to the virulence of its politics, which brought upon him a prosecution for a libel against the Prince Regent, and he was kept for some time in confinement.

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taste. We will venture to oppose his Third Canto of the Story of Rimini, for classic elegance and natural feeling to any equal number of lines from Mr. Southey's Epics, o even from Mr. Moore's Lalla Rookh. In a more gay and conversational style of writing, we think his Epistle to Lord Byron on his going abroad, is a masterpiece-and the Feast of the Poets has run through several editions A light, familiar grace, and mild unpretending pathos are the characteristics of his more sportive or serious writings whether in poetry or prose. A smile plays round the features of the one; a tear is ready to start from the thoughtful gaze of the other. He perhaps takes too little pains, and indulges in too much wayward caprice in both. A wit and a poet, Mr. Hunt is also distinguished by fineness of tact and sterling sense: he has only been a visionary in humanity, the fool of virtue. It was said by a friend and con temporary, that Hunt was born with the disposition of a lord -Leigh Hunt is the founder of a school, ridiculed in Blackwood's Magazine under the name of the Cockney School. There is much boldness in the political principles of Leigh Hunt; but his poetry is characterised by gentleness. A luxury of images in Moore's style may be discerned in it, and a degree of harmony unrestrained by rules and ordinary language: but above all an affected negligence. Mr. Hunt rhymes like a noble bel esprit: and thinks like a dema gogue. His enthusiasm for nature has more the air of a pretence than a real emotion; for his descriptions are nei

Personal intimacy (says Hazlitt, who gives the following interesting sketch of him) might be supposed to render us partial to Mr. Leigh Hunt It is well when personal intimacy produces this effect; and when the light, that dazzlesther pastoral nor urartificial.

THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD.

THERE is no authentic history of the world from the creation to the deluge, besides that which is found in the first chapters of Genesis. He, therefore, who fixes the date of a fictitious narrative within that period, is under obligation to no other authority whatever, for conformity of manners, events, or even localities: he has full power to accommodate these to his peculiar purposes, observing only such analogy as shall consist with the brief information, contained in the sacred records, concerning mankind in the earliest ages. The present writer acknowledges, that he has exercised this undoubted right with great freedom. Success alone sanctions bold innovation; if he has succeeded in what he has attempted, he will need no arguments to justify it; if he has miscarried, none will avail him. Those who imagine that he has exhibited the antediluvians, as more skilful in arts and arms than can be supposed, in their stage of society, may read the Eleventh book of PARADISE LOST: and those, who think he has made the religion of the patriarchs too evangelical, may read the Twelfth.

With respect to the personages and incidents of his story, the author having deliberately adopted them, under the conviction, that in the characters of the one he was not stepping out of human nature, and in the construction of the other not exceeding the limits of poetical probability-he asks no favor, he deprecates no censure, on behalf of either; nor shall the facility, with which "much malice and little wit" might turn into ridicule every line that he has written, deter him from leaving the whole to the mercy of general readers.

But, here is a large web of fiction involving a small fact of Scripture! Nothing could justify a work of this kind, if it were, in any way, calculated to impose on the credulity, pervert the principles, or corrupt the affections of its approv ers. Here, then, the appeal lies to conscience rather than to taste, and the decision on this point is of infinitely more importance to the poet than his name among men or his interests on earth. It was his design, in this composition, to present a similitude of events, that might be imagined to have happened in the first age of the world, in which such. Scripture characters as are introduced would probably have acted and spoken, as they are made to act and speak. The story is told as a parable only, and its value, in this view, must be determined by its moral or rather by its religious influence on the mind and on the heart, Fiction though it be, it is the fiction that represents truth, and that is truth— truth in the essence, though not in the name; truth in the spirit, though not in the letter.

CANTO FIRST.

THE invasion of Eden by the descendants of Cain.-The flight of
Javan from the camp of the invaders to the valley where the
patriarchs dweit.-The story of Javan's former life.

EASTWARD of Eden's early-peopled plain,
When Abel perished by the hand of Cain,
The murderer from his judge's presence filed:
Thence to the rising sun his offspring spread;
But he, the fugitive of care and guilt,
Forsook the haunts he chose, the homes he built;
While filial nations hailed him sire and chief,
Empire nor honor brought his soul relief:

He found, where'er he roamed uncheered, unblest,
No pause from suffering, and from toil no rest.

Ages meanwhile, as ages now are told,
O'er the young world in long succession rolled;
For such the vigor of primeval man,
Through numbered centuries his period ran,
And the first parents saw their hardy race,
O'er the green wilds of habitable space,
By tribes and kindreds, scattered wide and far,
Beneath the track of every varying star.
But as they multiplied from clime to clime,
Emboldened by their elder brother's crime,
They spurned obedience to the patriarch's yoke,
The bonds of nature's fellowship they broke;
The weak became the victims of the strong,
And earth was filled with violence and wrong.
Yet long on Elen's fair and fertile plai 1,
A righteous nation dwelt, that knew not Cain:
There fruits and flowers, in genial light and lew,
Luxuriant vines, and golden harvests grew;

By freshening waters, flocks and cattle strayed,
While youth and childhood watched them from the shade
Age, at his fig-tree, rested from his toil,
And manly vigor tilled the unfailing soil;
Green sprang the turf, by holy footsteps trod,
Round the pure altars of the living God;
Till foul idolatry those altars stained,
And lust and revelry through Eden reigned.
Then fled the people's glory and defence,
The joys of home, the peace of innocence;
Sin brought forth sorrows in perpetual birth,
And the last light from heaven forsook the earth,
Save in one forest glen, remote and wild,
Where yet a ray of lingering mercy smiled,
Their quiet course where Seth and Enoch ran.
And God and Angels deigned to walk with man.

Now from the east, supreme in arts and arms,
The tribes of Cain, awakening war-alarms,
Full in the spirit of their father, came

To waste their brethren's land with sword and flame
In vain the younger race of Adam rose,
With force unequal to repel their foes;
Their fields in blood, their homes in ruin lay,
Their whole inheritance became a prey;
The stars, to whom as Gods they raised their cry,
Rolled, heedless of their offerings through the sxy;
Till urged on Eden's utmost bounds at length,
In fierce despair they rallied all their strength.
They fought, but they were vanquished in the fight,
Captured, or slain, or scattered in the flight:
The morning battle-scene at ere was spread
With ghastly heaps, the dying and the dead;
The dead unmourned, unburied left to lie,
By friends and foes, the dying left to die.

The victim, while he groaned his soul away,
Heard the gaunt vulture hurrying to his prey,
Then strengthless felt the ravening beak, that tore
His widened wounds and drank the living gore.

One sole surviving remnant, void of fear,
Woods in their front, Euphrates in their rear,
Were sworn to perish at a glorious cost,

For all they once had known, and loved, and lost,
A small, a brave, a melancholy band,
The orphans and the childless of the land.
The hordes of Cain, by giant-chieftains led,
Wide o'er the north their vast encampment spread:
A broad and sunny champaign stretched between ;
Westward a maze of waters girt the scene;
There on Euphrates, in its ancient course,
'Three beauteous rivers rolled their confluent force,
Whose streams, while man the blissful garden trod,
Adorned the earthly paradise of God;
But since he fell, within their triple bound,
Fenced a lone region of forbidden ground;
Meeting at once, where high athwart their bed
Repulsive rocks a curving barrier spread,
The embattled floods, by mutual whirlpools crost,
In hoary foam and surging mist were lost;
Thence, like an Alpine cataract of snow,
White down the precipice they dashed below;
There in tumultuous billows broken wide,
They spent their rage, and yoked their fourfold tide;
Through one majestic channel, calm and free,
The sister-rivers sought the parent-sea.

The midnight watch was ended; down the west
The glowing moon declined toward her rest;
Through either host the voice of war was dumb;
In dreams the hero won the fight to come;
No sound was stirring, save the breeze that bore
The distant cataract's everlasting roar,
When from the tents of Cain, a youth withdrew;
Secret and swift from post to post he flew,
And passed the camp of Eden, while the dawn
Gleamed faintly o'er the interjacent lawn;
Skirting the forest, cautiously and slow,
He feared at every step to start a foe;
Oft leaped the hare across his path, upsprung
The lark beneath his feet, and soaring sung;
What time, o'er eastern mountains seen afar,
With golden splendor rose the morning star,
As if an angel-sentinel of night,

From earth to heaven, had winged his homeward flight,
Glorious at first, but lessening by the way,
And lost insensibly in higher day.

From track of man and herd his path he chose,
Where high the grass, and thick the copsewood rose;
Thence by Euphrates' banks his course inclined,
Where the gray willows trembled to the wind;
With toil and pain their humid shade he cleared,
When at the porch of heaven the sun appeared,
Through gorgeous clouds that streaked the orient sky,
And kindled into glory at his eye;

While dark amid the dews that glittered round
From rock and tree, long shadows traced the ground.
Then climbed the fugitive an airy height,
And resting, back o'er Eden cast his sight.

Far on the left, to man for ever closed, The Mount of Paradise in clouds reposed: The gradual landscape opened to his view; From Nature's face the veil of mist withdrew, And left, in clear and purple light revealed, The radiant river, and the tented field; The black pine-forest, in whose girdle lay, The patriot phalanx, hemmed in close array; The verdant champaign narrowing to the north, Whence from their dusky quarters sallied forth The proud invaders, early roused to fight, Tribe after tribe emerging into light; Whose shields and lances, in the golden beams, Flashed o'er the restless scene their flickering gleams, As when the breakers catch the morning glow, And ocean rolls in living fire below;

So round the unbroken border of the wood,
The giants poured their army like a flood,
Eager to force the covert of their foe,
And lay the last defence of Eden low.

From the safe eminence, absorbed in thought,
Even till the wind the shout of legions brought,
He gazed-his heart recoiled-he turned his head,
And o'er the southern hills his journey sped.

Who was the fugitive? in infancy

A youthful mother's only hope was he.
Whose spouse and kindred, on a festal day,
Precipitate destruction swept away:
Earth trembled, opened, and entombed them all;
She saw them sinking, heard their voices call.
Beneath the gulf-and agonized, aghast,
On the wild verge of eddying ruin cast,
Felt in one pang at that convulsive close,
A widow's anguish and a mother's throes;
A babe sprang forth, and inauspicious birth,
Where all had perished that she loved on earth.
Forlorn and helpless, on the upriven ground,
The parent, with her offspring, Enoch found;
And thence with tender care and timely aid,
Home to the patriarchs' glen his charge conveyed.

Restored to life, one pledge of former joy,
One source of bliss to come, remained-her boy!
Sweet in her eye the cherished infant rose,
At once the seal and solace of her woes;
When the pale widow clasped him to her breast,
Warm gushed the tears, and would not be represt;
In lonely anguish, when the truant child
Leaped o'er the threshold, all the mother smiled.
In him while fond imagination viewed
Husband and parents, brethren, friends renewed,
Each vanished look, each well remembered grace,
That pleased in them, she sought in Javan's face;
For quick his eye and changeable its ray,
As the sun glancing through a vernal day;
And like the lake, by storm or moonlight seen,
With darkening furrows or cerulean mien,
His countenance the mirror of his breast,
The calm or trouble of his soul expressed.

As years enlarged his form, in moody hours,
His mind betrayed its weakness with its powers:
Alike his fairest hopes and strangest fears
Were nursed in silence, or divulged with tears;
The fulness of his heart, repressed his tongue,
Though none might rival Javan when he sung.
He loved, in lonely indolence reclined,
To watch the clouds and listen to the wind;
But from the north, when snow and tempest came,
His nobler spirit mounted into flame;
With stern delight he roamed the howling woods,
Or hung in ecstacy o'er headlong floods.
Meanwhile excursive fancy longed to view
The world, which yet by fame alone he knew:
The joys of freedom were his daily theme,
Glory the secret of his midnight dream;

That dream he told not; though his heart would ache,
His home was precious for his mother's sake.
With her the lowly paths of peace he ran,
His guardian angel, till he verged to man;
But when her weary eye could watch no more,
When to the grave her timeless corse he bore,
Not Enoch's counsels could his steps restrain;
He fled, and sojourned in the land of Cain.
There, when he heard the voice of Jubal's lyre,
Instructive genius, caught the ethereal fire;
And soon, with sweetly modulating skill,
He learned to wind the passions at his will,
To rule the chords with such mysterious art,
They seemed the life-strings of the hearer's heart
Then glory's opening field he proudly trod,
Forsook the worship and the ways of God,
Round the vain world pursued the phantom fame,
And cast away his birthright for a name.

Yet no delight the minstrel's bosom knew,
None save the tones that from his harp he drew,

And the warm vis. ns of a wayward mind,
Whose transient splendor left a gloom behind,
Frail as the clouds of sunset, and as fair,
Pageants of light resolving into air,

The world, whose charms his young affections stole,
He found too mean for an immortal soul;
Wound with his life, through all his feelings wrought,
Death and eternity possessed his thought;
Remorse impelled him, unremitting care
Harassed his path, and stung him to despair,
Still was the secret of his griefs unknown,
Amid the universe he sighed alone;

The fame he followed, and the fame he found,
Healed not his heart's immedicable wound;
Admired, applauded, crowned, where'er he roved,
The bard was homeless, friendless, unbeloved.
All else that breathed below the circling sky,
Were linked to earth by some endearing tie;
He only, like the ocean-weed uptorn,
And loose along the world of waters borne,
Was cast companionless, from wave to wave,
On life's rough sea-and there was none to save.

The giant-king, who led the host of Cain,
Delighted in the minstrel and his vein;
No hand, no voice, like Javan's could control,
With soothing concords, his tempestuous soul.
With him the wandering Bard, who found no rest
Through ten years' exile, sought his native west;
There from the camp retiring, he pursued
His journey to the patriarchs' solitude.
This son of peace no martial armor wore,
A scrip for food, a staff in hand he bore;
Flaxen his robe; and o'er his shoulder hung,
Broad as a warrior's shield, his harp unstrung,
A shell of tortoise exquisitely wrought
With hieroglyphics of embodied thought,
Jubal himself enchased the polished frame;
And Javan won it in the strife for fame,
Among the sons of music when their sire
To his victorious skill adjudged the lyre.

'Twas noon, when Javan climbed the bordering hill,
by many an old remembrance hallowed still,
Whence he beheld, by sloping woods enclosed,
The hamlet where his parent's dust reposed,
His home of happiness in early years,
And still the home of all his hopes and fears,
When from ambition struggling to break free,
He mused on joys and sorrows yet to be.
A while he stood, with rumination pale,
Casting an eye of sadness o'er the vale.
When, suddenly abrupt, spontaneous prayer
Burst from his lips for one who sojourned there;
For one, whose cottage, far appearing, drew,
Even from his mother's grave, his transient view;
Ole, whose unconscious smiles were wont to dart
Ineffable emotion through his heart:

A nameless sympathy, more sweet, more dear
Than friendship, solaced him when she was near,
And well he guessed, while yet a timorous boy,
That Javan's artless songs were Zillah's joy.
But when ambition, with a fiercer flame
Than untold love, had fired his soul for fame,
This infant passion, cherished yet represt,
Lived in his pulse, but died within his breast;
For oft in distant lands, when hope beat high,
Westward he turned his eager glistening eye,
And gazed in spirit on her absent form,

Fair as the moon emerging through the storm,
Till sudden, strange bewildering horrors crossed
His thought, and every glimpse of joy was lost.
Even then, when melancholy numbed his brain,
And life itself stood still in every vein,
While his cold, quivering lips sent vows above,
-Never to curse her with his bitter love!
His heart, espoused with hers, in secret sware
To hold its truth unshaken by despair:

The vows dispersed that from those lips were borne,
Pat never, never was that heart forsworn ;
Throughout the world, the charm of Zillah's name
Repelled the touch of every meaner flame.

Jealous and watchful of the sex's wiles,
He trembled at the light of woman's smiles!
So turns the mariner's mistrusting eye
From proud Orion bending through the sky,
Beauteous and terrible, who shides afar,
At Jace the brightest and most Daneful star."

Where avan from that Eastern hill surveyed
The ircling forest and embosomed glade,
Earth wore one summer :obe of living green,
In heaven's blue arch the sun alone was seen;
Creation slumbered in the coadless light,
And noon was silent as the depth of night.
O what a throng of rushing thoughts oppressed,
In that vast solitude, his anxious breast!
-To wither in the blossom of renown,
And unrecorded to the dust go down,
Or for a name on earth to quit the prize
Of immortality beyond the skies.

Perplexed his wavering choice: when conscience failed,
Love rose against the world, and love prevailed;
Passion, in aid of virtue, conquered pride,
And woman won the heart to heaven denied

CANTO SECOND.

Javan, descending through the Forest, arrives at the place where he had formerly parted with Zillah, when he withcrew from the Patriarchs' Glen.-There he again discovers her in a bower form ed on the spot. -Their strange interview and abrupt separation

STEEP the descent, and wearisome the way;
The twisted boughs forbade the light of day;
No breath from heaven refreshed the sultry gloom,
The arching forest seemed one pillared tomb,
Upright and tall the trees of ages grow,
While all is loneliness and waste below;
There, as the massy foliage, far aloof
Displayed a dark impenetrable roof,

So, gnarled and rigid, clasped and interwound,
An uncouth maze of roots embossed the ground:
Midway beneath, the sylvan wild assumed

A milder aspect, shrubs and flowerets bloomed :
Openings of sky, and little spots of green,

And showers of sun-beams through the eaves were seen.

Awhile the traveller halted at the place,
Where last he caught a glimpse of Zillah's face,
One lonely eve, when in that calm retreat,
They met, as they were often wont to meet,
And parted, not as they were wont to part,

With gay regret, but heaviness of heart;

"hough Javan named for his return the night,
When the new moon had rolled to full-orbed light.
She stood, and gazed through tears, that forced their way,
Oft as from steep to steep, with fond delay,
Lessening at every view, he turned his head,
Hailed her with weaker voice, then forward sped.
From that sad hour, she saw his face no more
In Eden's woods, or on Euphrates' shore:
Moons waxed and waned; to her no hope appeared,
Who much his death, but more his falsehood feared.

Now, while he paused, the lapse of years forgot,
Remembrance eyed her lingering near the spot.
Onward he hastened; all his bosom burned,
As if that eve of parting were returned;
And she, with silent tenderness of wo,
Clung to his heart, and would not let him go.
Sweet was the scene! apart the cedars stood,
A sunny islet opened in the wood;
With vernal teints the wild-brier thicket glows,
For here the desert flourished as the rose;
From sapling trees, with lucid foliage crowned,
Gay lights and shadows twinkled on the ground;
Up the tall stems luxuriant creepers run
To hang their silver blossoms in the sun;

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