To warn the living maidens fair,
The loved of Heaven, the spirits' care,
That all whose minds unmeled remain
Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.

With distant music, soft and deep,
They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep;
And when she awakened, she lay her lane,
All happed with flowers in the green-wood

wene.

When seven long years were come and fled;

When grief was calm, and hope was dead ; When scarce was remembered Kilmeny's

name,

Late, late in a gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!

And O, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her e'e!
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maiden's een
In that mild face could never be seen.
Her seymar was the lily flower,
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower,
And her voice like the distant melodye,
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped afar frae the haunts of

men;

Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers, and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hill were cheered;
The wolf played blithely round the field,
The lordly bison lowed and kneeled;
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at even the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,

O, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came,
Broke from their bughts and faulds the
tame,

And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,
And murmured, and looked with anxious
pain

For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;
The corby left her houf in the rock;
The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew;
The hind came tripping o'er the dew;
The wolf and the kid their raike began,
And the tod, and the lamb, and the
leveret ran;

123

FLY TO THE DESERT.

FLY to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But, O, the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love, or thrones without?

Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
The acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness.
Our sands are bare, but down their slope
The silvery-footed antelope
As gracefully and gayly springs
As o'er the marble courts of kings.

Then come,-thy Arab maid will be
The loved and lone acacia-tree,
The antelope, whose feet shall bless
With their light sound thy loveliness.

O, there are looks and tones that dart
An instant sunshine through the heart,
As if the soul that minute caught
Some treasure it through life had sought;

As if the very lips and eyes
Predestined to have all our sighs,
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled and spoke before us then!

So came thy every glance and tone, When first on me they breathed and shone;

New as if brought from other spheres,
Yet welcome as if loved for years.

THE MID HOUR OF NIGHT.

AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,

And tell me our love is remembered even in the sky!

Then I sing the wild song 't was once

such pleasure to hear,

When our voices, commingling, breathed like one on the ear;

And, as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,

I think, O my love! 't is thy voice, from the Kingdom of Souls, Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

'T was that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,

Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,

And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,

When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

Sweet Vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest

In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best;

Where the storms that we feel in this And our hearts, like thy waters, be mincold world should cease, gled in peace.

O THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURN-
ER'S TEAR.

O THOU who dry'st the mourner's tear!
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee.
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give

Must weep those tears alone.
But thou wilt heal that broken heart
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And e'en the hope that threw
A moment's sparkle o'er our tears
Is dimmed and vanished too,

O, who would bear life's stormy doom,
Did not thy wing of love
Come, brightly wafting through the gloom
Our peace-branch from above?
Then sorrow, touched by thee, grows
bright

With more than rapture's ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day!

THOU ART, O GOD!

THOU art, O God! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from thee.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes, Thus mellowed to that tender light Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-
place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

125

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf

on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when sumThat host with their banners at sunset mer is green,

were seen;

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That

host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,

But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride:

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!