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If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed, The nature of thy private life unfold:A heart has throbbed beneath thy leathern breast,

And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled;

Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?

Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgmentmorning,

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever? What was thy name and station, age and Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and race?

Statue of flesh! Immortal of the dead! Imperishable type of evanescence ! Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our pre

sence!

pure

In living virtue; that, when both must

sever,

Although corruption may our frame con

sume,

The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

HORACE SMITH.

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Echoed from Earth a hollow roar,
Like ocean on the midnight shore;
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheeled,
The solid ground beneath them reeled;
In dust sank roof and battlement-
Like webs the giant walls were rent ;
Red, broad, before his startled gaze,
The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.

A thousand ships were on the wave
Where are they?-ask that foaming grave:
Down go the hope, the pride of years,
Down go the myriad mariners;
The riches of Earth's richest zone,
Gone, like a flash of lightning, gone!

And, lo! that first fierce triumph o'er,
Swells Ocean on the shrinking shore;

Still swelled the plague--the flame grew | Still onward, onward, dark and wide,

pale;

Burst from the clouds the charge of hail;
With arrowy keenness, iron weight,
Down poured the ministers of fate;
Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed,
Covered with death the boundless field.

Engulfs the land the furious tide!
Then bowed thy spirit, stubborn king,
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting;
Humbled before the prophet's knee,
He groaned, "Be injured Israel free!"

To heaven the sage upraised his wand;

Still swelled the plague-uprose the blast, Back rolled the deluge from the land;

The avenger, fit to be the last;
On ocean, river, forest, vale,

Thundered at once the mighty gale.
Before the whirlwind flew the tree,
Beneath the whirlwind roared the sea;

Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapours pale;
Broad burned again the joyous sun :-
The hour of wrath and death was
done.
CROLY.

PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

train;

'MID blazing helms, and bucklers rough On earth's last margin throng the weeping with gold, Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots Their cloudy guide moves on:-' must we swim the main?"

"And

rolled? Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's 'Mid the light spray their snorting camels fates, stood,

Old Thebes hath poured through all her Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood.
hundred gates,
He comes their leader comes! The man
Mother of armies!

How the emeralds

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Red from the scourge, and recent from the chain?

God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!

of God O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod, And onward treads. The circling waves retreat,

In hoarse, deep murmurs, from his holy feet;

And the chased surges, inly roaring, show

The hard wet sand and coral hills below.

With limbs that falter, and with hearts

that swell,

Down, down they pass a steep and slippery dell;

Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled, Giver and Lord of freedom, help the The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;

slave!

North, south, and west, the sandy whirl

winds fly,

The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.

And flowers that blush beneath the ocean

green,

And caves, the sea-calves' low-roofed haunt,

are seen.

Down, safely down the narrow pass they And strange and sad the whispering breezes tread; bore The beetling waters storm above their The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

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Invoke for light their monster-gods in The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams vain;

subdued, Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude, sight confine, Till, kindling into warmer zeal, around And tenfold darkness broods above their The virgin timbrel waked its silver line. sound; Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supled, pressed, And range unconscious through the ocean's The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam's bed; breast. Till, midway now, that strange and fiery She, with bare arms, and fixing on the form

sky

Showed His dread visage lightening through The dark transparence of her lucid eye,

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Again the prophet stretched his dreadful And every pause between, as Miriam wand.

sang,

With one wild crash the thundering waters From tribe to tribe the martial thunder

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spread-

And all is waves—a dark and lonely deep! And loud and far their stormy chorus Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs

passed,

As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast;

'Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath trium

phèd!"

HEBER.

MIRIAM'S SONG.

SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark | Praise to the Conqueror! praise to the

sea!

Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!

Sing! for the pride of the tyrant is broken: His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave,

Lord!

His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword!

Who shall return to tell Egypt the story Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride?

How vain was their boasting!-the Lord For the Lord hath looked out from his hath but spoken,

And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave!

pillar of glory,

And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark

sea!

Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!

sea!

Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!

MOORE

THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.

'Tis an old story now, that Battle of the Nile; but a brave story' can never die of age.

The Bay is wide, but dangerous from shoals: the line of deep blue water, and the old castle of Aboukir, map out the position of the French fleet on the 1st of August, 1798. Having landed Buonaparte and his army, Brueys, the French Admiral, lay moored in the form of a crescent close along the shore. His vastly superior force, and the strength of his position (protected towards the northward by dangerous shoals, and towards the westward by the castle and batteries), made him consider that position impregnable; and, on the strength of this conviction, he wrote to Paris that Nelson had purposely avoided him. Was he undeceived, when Hood, in the Zealous, made signal that the enemy was in sight, and a cheer of triumph burst from every ship in the British fleet?

-that fleet which had been sweeping the seas with bursting sails for six long weeks in search of its formidable foe, and now bore down upon him with fearless exultation. The soundings of that dangerous bay were unknown to Nelson; but he knew that where there was room for a French ship to swing, there must be room for an Englishman to anchor at either side of him, and the closer the better.

As his proud and fearless fleet came on, he hailed Hood, to ask whether the action should commence that night; then receiving the answer he longed for, the signal for "close battle" flew from his mast-head.

The delay thus caused to the Zealous gave Foley the lead. He showed the example of leading inside the enemy's lines, and anchored by the stern alongside the second ship; thus leaving to Hood the first. The latter, putting his own generous construction on an accident, exclaimed, "Thank God, he has nobly left to his old friend still to lead the van!" Slowly and majestically, as the evening fell, the remainder of the fleet came on beneath a cloud of sails, receiving the fire of the castle and the batteries in portentous silence, only broken by the crash of spars, or the boatswain's whistle; each ship furling her sails calmly, as a sea-bird might fold its wings, and gliding tranquilly onward till she found her destined foe. Then the anchor dropped astern, and the fire burst from her blood-stained decks with a vigour that showed how sternly it had been repressed till then. The leading ships passed between the enemy and the shore; but when the admiral came up, he led the remainder of the fleet along the seaward side; thus doubling on the Frenchman's line, and placing it in a defile of fire. The sun went down soon after Nelson anchored; and his rearward ships were only guided through the darkness and the dangers of that formidable bay by the Frenchman's fire flashing fierce welcome, as each enemy arrived and went hovering along the lines. He coolly scrutinized how he might draw most of that fire upon himself. The Bellerophon, with reckless gallantry, fastened on the gigantic Orient, by whose terrible artillery she was soon crushed, and scorched into a wreck. Then she drifted helplessly to leeward. But she had already done her work-the Orient was already on fire, and through the terrible roar of battle a whisper went for a moment that paralyzed every eager heart and hand. During that dread pause the fight was suspended; the very wounded ceased to groan: yet the burning ship still continued to fire broadsides from her flaming decks; her gallant crew alone unawed by their approaching fate, and shouting their own death-song. At length

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