But the powers of darkness yield,
For the Cross is in the field,
And the light of life reveal'd:
Rays from rock to rock it darts,
Conquers adamantine hearts,
And immortal bliss imparts.
North and west receding far
From the evening's downward star,
Now I mount Aurora's car 1,
Pale Siberia's deserts shun,

From Kamschatka's 2 headlands run
South and east to meet the sun.

Jealous China, strange Japan,
With bewilder'd thought I scan:

They are but dead seas of man.
Lo! the eastern Cyclades 3,
Phoenix-nests and halcyon 5 seas;
But I tarry not with these.

4

Pass we now New Holland's shoals,
Where no ample river rolls 6;

World of undiscover'd souls!

Bring them forth; -'tis Heaven's decree;
Man, assert thy dignity;

Let not brutes look down on thee.

Aurora, in mythology, the goddess of the morning. She is generally represented by the poets as drawn in a rose-coloured chariot, by winged horses, and opening with her rosy fingers the gates of the east.

2 Kamschatka, a peninsula of Asia, on the north-eastern extremity of Siberia.

3 Cyclades, the islands of the eastern seas, in contrast with those in the Mediterranean, belonging to Greece. The word is derived from kuklos, a circle, because the latter islands form a kind of circle around that of Paros. 4 Birds' nests form an article of export from Java and other East India islands. The Phoenix was, among the ancients, a bird of great celebrity, and regarded as the emblem of immortality. "It was said to live for 500 years in the wilderness, at the termination of which it built itself a

funeral pile of wood and aromatic gums, which it kindled with the fanning of its wings, and thus apparently consumed itself, but not really; this being the process by which it endowed itself with new vitality."Univ. Etym. Dictionary.

5 Halcyon, calm, quiet. The bird called the king-fisher was, by the ancients, denominated halcyon. She was accustomed to lay her eggs in nests built on rocks by the sea-shore, seven days before and seven days after the winter solstice; hence the expression halcyon days. The weather at this period was not tempestuous.

6 Australia, or New Holland, is singularly destitute of navigable rivers. The Murray is the largest, but it decreases as it approaches the sea, on account of the arid nature of the soil through which it passes.

By the gulf of Persia sail,
Where the true-love nightingale
Woos the rose in every vale.
Though Arabia charge the breeze
With the incense of her trees,
On I press o'er southern seas.
Cape of Storms 2, the sceptre's fled,
And the angel Hope, instead,
Lights from heaven upon thy head.
St. Helena's dungeon keep
Scowls defiance o'er the deep;
There Napoleon's relics sleep.3

Mammon's plague-ships throng the waves:
Oh! 't were mercy to the slaves,
Were the maws of sharks their graves.
Hercules, thy pillars stand 4,

Sentinels of sea and land;
Cloud-capt Atlas towers at hand.
Mark the dens of caitiff Moors 5 ;
Ha! the pirates seize their oars;
-Fly the desecrated shores.

1 India within, and India without the Ganges.

2 Bernal Diaz, the first who doubled the Cape of Good Hope, called it on account of the tempestuous weather he encountered, the Stormy Cape. King John of Portugal, however, changed the name to that of Good Hope, because he now hoped to be able to reach India by sailing eastward along the coast of Africa.

3 St. Helena, an island in the Atlantic belonging to Britain. It was the residence of Napoleon, from 1815 till his death in 1821. His body was conveyed to Paris in 1840.

4 C. Tarifa, in Spain, and C. Ceuta, in Africa, are the Pillars of Hercules. Fable says, that Hercules broke through the isthmus which joined Europe and Africa; that he there erected two pillars, which by the ancients were regarded as the boundaries of the world.

5 The Barbary States, but especially Algiers, were till lately notorious for being the haunts of pirates. In 1816 Algiers was bombarded by Lord Exmouth, and the Christian captives set at liberty. Algiers now belongs to the French.

Egypt's hieroglyphic realm,

Other floods than Nile's o'erwhelm ;
Slaves turn'd despots hold the helm.

Judah's cities are forlorn,

Lebanon and Carmel shorn,

Zion trampled down with scorn.
Greece, thine ancient lamp is spent ;
Thou art thine own monument;
But the sepulchre is rent.

And a wind is on the wing
At whose breath new heroes spring,
Sages teach, and poets sing.
Italy, thy beauties shroud
In a gorgeous evening cloud;
Thy refulgent head is bow'd:

Yet where Roman genius reigns,
Roman blood must warm the veins;

Look well, tyrants, to your chains.
Feudal realm of old romance,
Spain, thy lofty front advance,

Grasp thy shield, and couch thy lance.

At the fire-flash of thine eye,
Giant bigotry shall fly;
At thy voice, oppression die.

Lusitania, from the dust

Shake thy locks; thy cause is just;
Strike for freedom, strike and trust.

France, I hurry from thy shore;
Thou art not the France of yore;
Thou art new-born France no more.
Sweep by Holland like the blast
One quick glance at Denmark cast,
Sweden, Russia ;— all is past.

Elbe nor Weser tempt my stay;
Germany, beware the day

When thy schoolmen bear the sway.
Now to thee, to thee I fly,
Fairest isle beneath the sky,
To mine heart as in mine eye!

1 Lusitania, the ancient name of Portugal.

I have seen them, one by one,
Every shore beneath the sun,
And my voyage now is done.
While I bid them all be blest;
Britain thou'rt my home, my rest;
My own land, I love thee best.

LESSON XV.

CHEVY CHACE.1

Montgomery.

Heaven prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safetyes all;

A woeful hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall.

To drive the deere with hound and horne,

Erle Percy took his way;

The child may rue that is unborne,

The hunting of that day.

The stout Erle of Northumberland
A vow he once did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer days to take;

The cheefest harts in Chevy-Chace
To kill and beare away.

These tydings to Erle Douglas came,
In Scotland where he lay :

Who sent Erle Percy present word,
He would prevent his sport.
The English Erle, not fearing that,
Did to the woods resort,

With fifteen hundred bow-men bold;
All chosen men of might,

Who knew full well in time of neede

To ayme their shafts arright.

1 Chevy Chace, or Cheviot Chace, a preserve for game on the Cheviot Hills, in Northumberland. This

ballad is supposed to have been written about the year 1600.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran,
To chase the fallow deere :
On Munday they began to hunt,
When day-light did appeare;

And long before high noone they had
An hundred fat buckes slaine;
Then having dined, the drovyers went,
To rouze the deere againe.

The bow-men muster'd on the hills,
Well able to endure;

And all their reare, with speciall care,
That day was guarded sure.

The hounds ran swiftly through the wood
The nimble deere to take,

That with their cryes the hills and dales
An eccho shrill did make.

Lord Percy to the quarry went,

To view the slaughter'd deere; Quoth he, "Erle Douglas promised This day to meet me heere:

"But if I thought he would not come,
Noe longer wold I stay."

With that, a brave younge gentleman
Thus to the Erle did say :

"Loe, yonder doth Erle Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scottish speres
All marching in our sight;

"All men of pleasant Tivydale,

Fast by the river Tweede :"

"Then cease your sports," Erle Percy said, "And take your bowes with speede:

"And now with me, my countrymen,
Your courage forth advance;
For never was there champion yett,
In Scottland or in France,

"That ever did on horsebacke come,
But if my hap it were,

I durst encounter man for man,

With him to break a spere."