more,

Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,

But in it there were three tall trees, And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, And by it there were waters flowing, And on it there were young flowers growing,

Of gentle breath and hue.
The fish swam by the castle-wall,
And they seemed joyous each and
all;

The eagle rode the rising blast;
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seemed to fly,
And then new tears came in my
eye,

And I felt troubled,- and would fain
I had not left my recent chain.
BYRON.

FROM PARISINA.

EXECUTION.

THE Convent-bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;
In the gray square turret swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro.
Heavily to the heart they go!
Hark! the hymn is singing-

The song for the dead below,

Or the living, who shortly shall be so!

For a departing being's soul
The death-hymn peals, and the hol-
low bells knoll:

He is near his mortal goal;
Kneeling at the friar's knee;
Sad to hear, and piteous to see,
Kneeling on the bare cold ground,
With the block before and the guards
around; -

And the headsman with his bare arm ready,

That the blow may be both swift and steady,

Feels if the axe be sharp and trueSince he set its edge anew:

While the crowd in a speechless circle gather,

To see the son fall by the doom of the father.

It is a lovely hour as yet
Before the summer sun shall set,
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As, his last confession pouring,
To the monk his doom deploring,
In penitential holiness,

He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.

He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bowed and prayed,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
BYRON.

Forms in his phalanx each Janizar; Alp at their head; his right arm is bare,

So is the blade of his scimitar; The Khan and his pachas are all at their post:

The vizier himself at the head of the host.

When the culverin's signal is fired, then On!

Leave not in Corinth a living oneA priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,

A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.

God and the prophet - Alla Hu! Up to the skies with that wild halloo! "There the breach lies for passage,

the ladder to scale;

And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?

He who first downs with the red cross may crave

His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!"

Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier;

The reply was the brandish of sabre

and spear,

And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire:

Silence-hark to the signal-fire! BYRON.

ENTRANCE OF BOLINGBROKE INTO LONDON.

Duchess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the story off,

Of our two cousins coming into London.

York. Where did I leave?

Duch. - At that sad stop, my lord, Where rude misgoverned hands, from windows' tops,

Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head,

York. Then as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon, a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,

With slow but stately pace, kept on his course,

While all tongues cried, "God save thee, Bolingbroke!"

You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old

Through casements darted their desiring eyes

Upon his visage, and that all the walls,

With painted imagery, had said at

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,

Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reaped,

Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home;

He was perfumèd like a milliner; And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and

anon

He gave his nose, and took't away again;

Who therewith angry, when it next came there,

Took it in snuff:- and still he smiled and talked;

And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

To bring a slovenly unhandsome

corse

Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me; among the rest demanded

My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,

To be so pestered with a popinjay, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered neglectingly, I know not what;

He should, or he should not; - for he made me mad

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting-gentle

The windlass strains the tackle
chains, the black mound
heaves below,
And red and deep a hundred veins
burst out at every throe:

It rises, roars, rends all outright,
O Vulcan, what a glow!

'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright, -the high sun shines not so!

The high sun sees not, on the earth,

such a fiery fearful show; The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths that stand, an ardent

band, like men before the foe. As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster, slow

Sinks on the anvil;-all about the faces fiery grow.

"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out

leap out;" bang, bang, the sledges go; Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low;

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow, The leathern mail rebounds the

hail, the rattling cinders strew The ground around; at every bound

the sweltering fountains flow, And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant "Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out, and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor; — a bower thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode, And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road,· The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains!

But courage still, brave mariners! the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing-here am I."

Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time: Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime. But while you sling your sledges, sing, and let the burthen be, The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in-the sparks be

gin to dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din,

our work will soon be sped. Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array, For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here, For the yeo-heave-o', and the heaveaway, and the sighing seaman's cheer; When, weighing slow, at eve they go - far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;

A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast.

O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!

O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? The hoary monster's palaces! methinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb plunging down amid

the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging

tails!

Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn,

And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtile sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn;

And for the ghastly-grinning shark to laugh his jaws to scorn; To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles

He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles;

Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls;

Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals Of his back-browsing ocean-calves; or, haply in a cove, Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love, To find the long-haired maidens; or, hard by icy lands,

To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.

O broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine? The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line;

And night by night, 'tis thy delight,

thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white,

the giant game to play, But shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave,

A fisher's joy is to destroy, - thine office is to save.

O lodger in the sea-king's halls! couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping

band,

Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream,

blessing their ancient friend;O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee,

Thine iron side would swell with pride, ―thou'dst leap within the sea!

Give honor to their memories who left the pleasant strand

To shed their blood so freely for the love of father-land,

Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave!

O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,

Honor him for their memory whose bones he goes among!

SAMUEL FERGUSSON.

THE ICE PALACE.

LESS worthy of applause, though more admired,

Because a novelty, the work of man, Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,

Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,

The wonder of the North. No forest fell

When thou wouldst build; no quarry

sent its stores

To enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods,

And make thy marble of the glassy

wave.

Silently as a dream the fabric rose; No sound of hammer or of saw was there:

Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked

Than water interfused to make them one.

Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues,