From sky, or earth, or hell, hath power
Since that unutterable hour.

He rose to speak, but paused, and listening stood,
Not daunted, but in sad and curious mood,

With knitted brow, and searching eye of fire.
A deathlike silence sank on all around,

And through the boundless space was heard no sound,
Save the soft tones of that mysterious lyre.
Broken, faint, and low,

At first the numbers flow.
Louder, deeper, quicker, still
Into one fierce peal they swell,
And the echoing palace fill
With a strange funereal yell.
A voice comes forth.

But what, or where?

On the earth, or in the air?

Like the midnight winds that blow
Round a lone cottage in the snow,
With howling swell and sighing fall,
It wails along the trophied hall.
In such a wild and dreary moan
The watches of the Seraphim

Poured out all night their plaintive hymn
Before the eternal throne.

Then, when from many a heavenly eye

Drops as of earthly pity fell
For her who had aspired too high,

For him who loved too well.

When, stunned by grief, the gentle pair

From the nuptial garden fair,

Linked in a sorrowful caress,

Strayed through the untrodden wilderness;

And close behind their footsteps came
The desolating sword of flame,

And drooped the cedared alley's pride,
And fountains shrank, and roses died.

"Rejoice, oh Son of God, rejoice,"
Sang that melancholy voice.
"Rejoice, the maid is fair to see;
The bower is decked for her and thee;
The ivory lamps around it throw
A soft and pure and mellow glow.
Where'er the chastened lustre falls
On roof or cornice, floor or walls,
Woven of pink and rose appear
Such words as love delights to hear.
The breath of myrrh, the lute's soft sound,
Float through the moonlight galleries round.

O'er beds of violet and through groves of spice,
Lead thy proud bride into the nuptial bower;
For thou hast bought her with a fearful price,

And she hath dowered thee with a fearful dower.
The price is life. The dower is death.
Accursed loss! Accursed gain!

For her thou givest the blessedness of Seth,
And to thine arms she brings the curse of Cain.
Round the dark curtains of the fiery throne

Pauses awhile the voice of sacred song:

From all the angelic ranks

goes

forth a groan,

'How long, O Lord, how long?'

The still small voice makes answer, 'Wait and see,
Oh sons of glory, what the end shall be.'

"But, in the outer darkness of the place
Where God hath shown his power

without his grace,

Is laughter and the sound of glad acclaim,
Loud as when, on wings of fire,
Fulfilled of his malign desire,

From Paradise the conquering serpent came.
The giant ruler of the morning star

From off his fiery bed

Lifts high his stately head,

Which Michael's sword hath marked with many a scar,
At his voice the pit of hell
Answers with a joyous yell,

And flings her dusky portals wide
For the bridegroom and the bride.

"But louder still shall be the din
In the halls of Death and Sin,
When the full measure runneth o'er,
When mercy can endure no more,
When he who vainly proffers grace,
Comes in his fury to deface

The fair creation of his hand;

When from the heaven streams down amain

For forty days the sheeted rain;

And from his ancient barriers free,

With a deafening roar the sea
Comes foaming up the land.
Mother, cast thy babe aside:
Bridegroom, quit thy virgin bride :
Brother, pass thy brother by:
"Tis for life, for life, ye fly.
Along the drear horizon raves
The swift advancing line of waves.
On on their frothy crests appear
Each moment nearer and more near.

64

Urge the dromedary's speed;
Spur to death the reeling steed;
If perchance ye yet may gain

The mountains that o'erhang the plain.

"Oh thou haughty land of Nod,
Hear the sentence of thy God.
Thou hast said Of all the hills
Whence, after autumn rains, the rills
In silver trickle down,

The fairest is that mountain white
Which intercepts the morning light
From Cain's imperial town.
On its first and gentlest swell

Are pleasant halls where nobles dwell;
And marble porticoes are seen
Peeping through terraced gardens green.
Above are olives, palms, and vines;
And higher yet the dark blue pines;
And highest on the summit shines
The crest of everlasting ice.
Here let the God of Abel own

That human art hath wonders shown

Beyond his boasted paradise.'

Therefore on that proud mountain's crown
Thy few surviving sons and daughters

Shall see their latest sun go down

Upon a boundless waste of waters.
None salutes and none replies;

None heaves a groan or breathes a prayer;
They crouch on earth with tearless eyes,
And clenched hands, and bristling hair.

The rain pours on: no star illumes
The blackness of the roaring sky,
And each successive billow booms
Nigher still and still more nigh.
And now upon the howling blast

The wreaths of spray come thick and fast;
And a great billow by the tempest curled

Falls with a thundering crash; and all is o'er. And what is left of all this glorious world?

A sky without a beam, a sea without a shore.

"Oh thou fair land, where from their starry home Cherub and seraph oft delight to roam,

Thou city of the thousand towers,
Thou palace of the golden stairs,

Ye gardens of perennial flowers,

Ye moated gates, ye breezy squares;

Ye parks amidst whose branches high
Oft peers the squirrel's sparkling eye;
Ye vineyards, in whose trellised shade
Pipes many a youth to many a maid;
Ye ports where rides the gallant ship;

Ye marts where wealthy burghers meet;
Ye dark green lanes which know the trip
Of woman's conscious feet;

Ye grassy meads where, when the day is done,
The shepherd pens his fold;

Ye purple moors on which the setting sun
Leaves a rich fringe of gold;

Ye wintry deserts where the larches grow;
Ye mountains on whose everlasting snow
No human foot hath trod;

Many a fathom shall ye sleep

Beneath the grey and endless deep,
In the great day of the revenge of God."

(By the late THOMAS HOOD.

QUEEN MAB.

From "Fairy Land; or, Recrcation for the Rising Generation.")

A little fairy comes at night,

Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown,

With silver spots upon her wings,

And from the moon she flutters down.

She has a little silver wand,

And when a good child goes to bed,
She waves her wand from right to left,
And makes a circle round its head.

And then it dreams of pleasant things,
Of fountains filled with fairy fish,
And trees that bear delicious fruit,
And bow their branches at a wish:

Of arbours filled with dainty scents
From lovely flowers that never fade;
Bright flies that glitter in the sun,
And glow-worms shining in the shade:
And talking birds with gifted tongues
For singing songs and telling tales,
And pretty dwarfs to show the way
Through fairy hills and fairy dales.

But when a bad child goes to bed,
From left to right she weaves her rings,
And then it dreams all through the night
Of only ugly, horrid things!

Then lions come with glaring eyes,
And tigers growl,-a dreadful noise;
And ogres draw their cruel knives,
To shed the blood of girls and boys.

Then stormy waves rush on to drown,
And raging flames come scorching round,
Fierce dragons hover in the air,

And serpents crawl along the ground.

Then wicked children wake and weep,
And wish the long black gloom away;
But good ones love the dark, and find
The night as pleasant as the day.

DUNDONALD IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

(From Punch.)

Ashes to Ashes! Lay the hero down
Within the gray old Abbey's glorious shade.
In our Walhalla ne'er was worthier laid
Since martyr first won palm, or victor crown.

"Tis well the State he served no farthing pays
To grace with pomp and honour all too late

His grave, whom, living, Statesmen dogged with hate, Denying justice, and withholding praise.

Let England hide her face above his tomb,

As much for shame as sorrow. Let her think
Upon the bitter cup he had to drink-
Heroic soul, branded with felon's doom.

A Sea-King, whose fit place had been by Blake
Or our own Nelson, had he been but free
To follow glory's quest upon the sea,
Leading the conquered navies in his wake-

A Captain, whom it had been ours to cheer
From conquest on to conquest, had our land
But set its wisest, worthiest in command,
Not such as hated all the good revere.