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Well! we forget and they forgive,
For both have bravely done,
And friends again must so remain,
Since Inkerman was won.

"Tis hard to say, on that proud day,
Which fought most gallantly,
But 'twas the Soldiers' battle,
The Soldiers' victory!

How well and bravely Raglan fought,
How gallant Cathcart fell,

How Cambridge then led on his men,
Let Fame's loud trumpet tell;
How Evans struggled to the last,
What brave Sir Colin did-
On History's page, each future age,
Ne'er let their deeds be hid.
But when they tell of Inkerman,
Let this the record be-

That was the Soldiers' battle,

The Soldiers' victory!

MOTHER, CAN THIS THE GLORY BE?

DUET.

1st Voice.

Mother, can this the glory be, of which men proudly tell,
When speaking of the fearless ones who in the battle fell?
Where is the light that cheer'd our home, its sunshine and its joy;
Ours was, they say, the victory-but mother, where's thy boy?
2nd Voice.

My boy! I see him in my dreams-I hear his battle-cry,
I know his brave and loyal heart-he does not fear to die.
E'en now methinks I see him still his country's banner wave:
On-on! and win a deathless fame, my beautiful, my brave.

Both.

God of the Battle shield him still, and yet Thy will be done,
A sister for a brother prays, a mother for her son;
We seek to share no glory now-we ask Thee but to save
The noble hearts of England, our beautiful and brave.

1st Voice.

Mother! I know thy courage well-thine is an ancient race,
Yet while thy heart so proudly swells, a tear steals down thy face;
E'en now you guess the fearful truth-still, still our banners wave,
But on that dreadful battle-field where sleeps thy young and brave?
2nd Voice.

Yes-yes, I knew it must be so- -I told not all my dream,
I saw my gallant boy ride forth where crimson flowed the stream;
I hear the shouts of victory-cease, cease those sounds of joy,
They cannot glad a mother's heart, nor give me back my boy!

Both.

God of the Battle hear us now, and yet Thy will be done,
A sister for a brother mourns, a mother for her son;
We cannot share the glory now-but ask Thee still to save
The noble hearts of England, the beautiful and brave!

AHASUERUS, THE EVER-LIVING JEW.

FROM THE DANISH OF F. PALUDAN-MÜLLER.

BY MRS. BUSHBY.

It is no wonder that the subject of the Wandering Jew should be so much liked by that class of authors who devote themselves to works of the imagination, for it is perhaps the most sublime fiction that the mind of man ever created. In the graceful fables of antiquity we read of eternal youth being bestowed by the gods on mortals as a precious boon, and in the fantastic legends of fairy lore, as the brightest of magic gifts; but in this solitary tradition, to live on for ages was not accorded as a blessing or a reward, but imposed as a punishment and a curse. Bending under the weight of centuries, not renewing his youth, and revelling over and over again amidst the passions and pleasures of that period of life, the Wandering Jew was doomed to outlive his family, his friends, his race; to see generation after generation sink into the tomb, empires rise and fall, mankind pass from transition to transition, yet ever to remain a lonely wanderer over the face of the earth.

This extraordinary legend is supposed to have been first disseminated about the beginning of the fourth century; it may possibly have owed its origin to the gloomy fancy of monkish superstition, but with whomsoever it originated, it was a grand and striking idea. According to the story, as it prevails in the East, the Jew is called Joseph-is said to have become a Christian about the time that St. Paul was baptised-and to reside principally in Armenia. The tradition of the West gives him the name of Ahasuerus; describes him as having been met with in various countries of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; as speaking the language of every nation he visits, and as never having been seen to laugh.

It is said that the celebrated Goethe had intended writing an epic poem on the subject of this wonderful Jew, but he did not accomplish his design. "Le Juif Errant," by Eugène Sue, is well known; and so, to many readers, may also be "Ahasverus," by Edgar Quinet; but the Danish dramatic poem of "Ahasverus, den Evige Jöde," has not yet, probably, found its way into England.

In Eugène Sue's voluminous work, the mysterious Jew is only occasionally introduced as a spectral apparition might be-now on the snowladen steppes of Siberia, now amidst the twilight darkness of some thick wood on the brow of some rocky height. This strange being, who, for eighteen hundred years had walked the earth, is yet described by the French author as having ties still existing among the creatures who people it; and these were the descendants of his sister. He makes his Jew exclaim:

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Passing through so many generations, by the veins of the poor and of the rich, of the sovereign and of the bandit, of the sage and of the madman, of the coward and of the brave, of the saint and of the atheist, the blood of my sister has been perpetuated even until this hour."

He then had some interest in life, some worldly objects to engross his mind; he had traced the descendants of his family through ages, and

though his remote kindred knew him not, he watched over them, in as far, at least, as the invisible agency which ever compelled him to move on would admit of his protecting them.

The other French author-Edgar Quinet-imbues his Ahasuerus with a deep longing for human sympathy, and bestows it upon him also, in the devoted love of a female called Rachel, whose affectionate companionship is a great solace to the pilgrim of ages.

But Frederik Paludan-Müller, the Danish writer, with a finer conception of the gloomy grandeur of the character, makes his Ahasuerus to have his thoughts fixed only on the earnest longing for repose, and escape from the weary world, mingled with horror at the remembrance of his own daring crime in ages long gone by, when he insulted his Saviour, and spurned him from his door. He describes him as living without sympathy, without affection for anything beneath the sun; a waif on the ocean of life-a wanderer from ancient times-bearing always about him the principle of vitality, yet longing to close his eyes in death, and envying the myriads whom he had seen descend into the quiet grave; in short, one who had been

Too long and deeply wrecked

On the lone rock of desolate despair.

"Ahasverus, den Evige Jöde," forms a portion of a volume published in Copenhagen last year by Frederik Paludan-Müller, a writer much admired in Denmark. This volume is modestly entitled "Tre Digte”— "Three Poems." One of these, the "Death of Abel," was originally published in a periodical work; the other two are dramas in verse"Kalanus," which the author calls an historical poem-and "Ahasuerus, the Ever-living Jew," a dramatic poem. It is with the latter that we have at present to do.

Paludan-Müller's Wandering Jew is introduced by a "Prologue," consisting of a conversation, in blank verse, between the author and "his Muse," which is supposed to have taken place in an apartment at Fredensborg Castle, in the North of Zealand, during the summer of 1853. His Muse urges the poet to select the last day-or Doomsday-for his next subject, and is answered thus:

What! Should my lay be formed of thoughts and words
So gloomy in their import, and obscure?
And were this possible-wert thou thyself
To lend my Fancy wings to reach that age
So far remote, and midst the flight of Time
To grasp the outline of the world's last days,
How lifeless would my picture be without
One human form? For who will live till then?
The Muse. One of mankind will live.

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The Muse. The ever-living Jew, who o'er this world,
While it exists, must wander, and who thus

Will be the witness of its latest day.

His history thou surely knowest well?

Feb.-VOL. CIII. NO. CCCCX.

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Though of terrific length, 'tis quickly told.
'Twas on Good Friday morn, his evil fate
Led him to leave his workshop for the street,
Whence rose loud cries from a tumultuous throng;
There, Jesus Christ was passing from the Hall,
Where Pontius Pilate had his doom pronounced,
To Golgotha-followed by friends and foes.
Beneath the burden of the Cross he bore
He almost sank, and sought a moment's rest
Upon a bench that by the Jew's door stood.
Ahasuerus drove him thence with scorn,
And striking in contempt the fatal tree,
He heaped harsh maledictions on the Lord.
Then as the legend tells-the Saviour turned,
And sternly thus addressed the guilty man:
"Thou thrustest forth the weary-rest denying
To him who for a moment sought it here.
No more shalt thou find rest upon this globe-
And as thou dost reject the dying now,

Death shall spurn thee! Tarry thou here on earth
Until-when the world ends-I call for thee!"

The Muse having thus fixed upon a subject, presents the scene to the poet. It is described as an ancient and deserted churchyard in ruins, situated at the foot of a hill, and close to the sea. Ahasuerus enters, and seating himself on an old tombstone, soliloquises for a time about the misery and wickedness of the world, on the horrors that are being enacted-riot, rapine, and murder apparently let loose-and how small is the band of true believers who are awaiting in faith and prayer the hour of dissolution. He then exclaims, as he casts a searching glance around: Shak'st thou at length, thou fast-poised world!

To thy foundations tremblest thou-
Comes the last awful earthquake now,
And shall the sun be forthwith hurled
From the vast firmament on high?
At mid-day shall the starry sky
Be visible and fiery red;
Whilst, motionless as the cold dead,
Hangs in the west the fading moon
Casting its shadows wan at noon?
And shall a thick sulphureous steam
The atmosphere's pure air soon taint;
Whilst 'midst the sound of thunders faint,
O'er earth's dark shores blue vapours gleam,
So that each object far and near
Shall in death's pallid hues appear;
And mankind in that solemn gloom
Behold the sign of Nature's doom?

I can conceive that man will smite
Upon his breast, and in affright
Utter loud shrieks of agony.
For what of miracles knows he-
Whose life is but like summer snow?
While I-the wayfarer, alas!

Of years more than a thousand-lo!
What horrors have not I seen pass,

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The ancient man is then addressing a prayer for release from his misery to the Lord of Heaven, whom he had derided and ill-used, when he is interrupted by two men with drawn swords rushing into the funereal asylum. Gold, the cause of so much evil, is the occasion of their quarrel, which ends in one murdering the other. Ahasuerus, of course, reproves him, and tries to awaken him to a proper sense of the crime he has committed, but is scoffed at as the "mad old Jew." The wife and child of the murdered man next enter on the scene; and the all-pervading love of gold is still shown forth in the more vehement lamentations of the newlymade widow for the loss of her husband's money, which had been carried off by his murderer, than of his life.

After a long and, in the original, beautiful monologue, in which the aged wanderer complains of his weariness, his loneliness, and his desolation, two young lovers stray into the old churchyard, and the female

exclaims in terror:

Oh, save me! See-the stars are falling!

To which the youth, with a mixture of gallantry and levity, replies:

Well-let them fall

And let them be extinguished all!
So long as these dear stars are bright
Which now I gaze on with delight-
And in thy lovely glances shine

The heaven which I hail as divine-
So long as I possess thy love,

I care not for yon orbs above!

But the damsel's terrors are not pacified by his complimentary speeches; and after a time she asks him why he had brought her there—

Amidst a churchyard's moss-grown stones.

He tells her that there they would be sure to be alone, that the sleeping dead around could be no tell-tale witnesses of their love, and that no living being would intrude on them amidst these forgotten tombs. Just

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