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That forms these tones of gladness we despise, That lifts their steps, that sparkles in their eyes; That talks or laughs or runs or shouts or plays, And speaks in all their looks and all their ways.

CRABBE.

SLAVERY THAT WAS.

AGES', ages have departed

Since the first dark vessel bore
Afric's children, broken-hearted,
To the Caribbean shore;
She, like Rachel,

Weeping, for they were no more.

Millions, millions have been slaughter'd
In the fight and on the deep;
Millions, millions more have water'd,
With such tears as captives weep,

Fields of travail,

Where their bones till doomsday sleep.

Mercy, mercy vainly pleading,

Rent her garments, smote her breast,
Till a voice, from heaven proceeding,
Gladden'd all the gloomy west :
"Come, ye weary!

Come, and I will give you rest!"

The slave trade between Africa and the West Indies began in the reign of Charles V. who granted to Chievres, one of his Flemish favourites, the exclusive right to import 4000 negroes into America.

Tidings, tidings of salvation!

Britons rose with one accord,

Purg'd the plague-spot from our nation,
Negroes to their rights restor❜d;

Slaves no longer,

Freemen,

freemen of the Lord.

J. MONTGOMERY.

THE WATERFALL.

I LOVE the roaring waterfall,
Within some deep, romantic glen :
'Mid desert wilds, remote from all
The
gay and busy haunts of men;
For its loud thunders sound to me
Like voices from eternity.

They tell of ages long gone by,

And beings that have pass'd away,
Who sought, perhaps, with curious eye,
These rocks where now I love to stray;
And thus its thunders sound to me

Like voices from eternity.

And, from the past, they seem to call

My spirit to the realms beyond

The ruin that must soon befal

These scenes, where grandeur sits enthron'd: And thus its thunders sound to me

Like voices from eternity.

For I am on a torrent borne,

That whirls me rapidly away,

From morn to eve from eve to morn

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From month to month. from day to day:
And all that live and breathe with me,
Are hurrying to eternity!

This mighty cataract's thundering sound
In louder thunders soon must die:
And all these rugged mountains round,
Uprooted must in ruin lie:

But that dread hour will prove to me
The dawning of eternity!

Eternity! that vast unknown!

Who can that deep abyss explore,
Which swallows up the ages gone,
And rolls its billows evermore?
O, may I find that boundless sea,
A bright, a blest eternity!

RAFFLES.

A MOONLIGHT NIGHT.

How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:

In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark-blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,

Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!

SOUTHEY.

CHILDHOOD'S TEAR.

THE tear down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose;

When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush, the flower is dry.

SCOTT.

THE EAGLE AND CHILD. '

THERE was an Eagle, that had long acquir'd
Absolute sway, the lord of a domain

Savage, sublime; nor from the hills alone
Gathering large tribute, but from every vale;
Making the ewe, whene'er he deign'd to stoop,
Bleat for the lamb. Great was the recompence
Assur'd to him who laid the tyrant low;
And near his nest, in that eventful hour
Calmly and patiently, a hunter stood,
A hunter, as it chanc'd, of old renown,
And, as it chanc'd, their father.

In the south

A speck appear'd, enlarging; and ere long,
As on his journey to the golden sun,

Upward he came, ascending through the clouds,
That, like a dark and troubled sea, obscur'd

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The world beneath. - "But what is in his grasp?
Ha! 'tis a child - and may it not be ours?
I dare not, cannot; and yet why forbear,
When, if it lives, a cruel death awaits it?-
May He who wing'd the shaft when Tell stood
forth,

And shot the apple from the youngling's head

The Eagle and Child is so favourite a sign in various parts of Europe, that we must suppose that such an event may have happened, although there is no authentic testimony in proof of the fact. The Lammergeyer (lamb vulture) or beaked vulture of the Swiss and German Alps, is the largest European bird of prey, measuring four feet in length and from nine to ten in the expanse of its wings, a size little, if at all, inferior to the condor of the Andes. It unites the audacity and cruelty of the eagle with many of the habits of the vulture-preferring living prey, and boldly seizing the lambs from the fold, at the same time that it will feed upon a dead carcass, which it scents out with all the acuteness of smell of the vulture.

Grant me the strength, the courage!" As he

spoke,

He aim'd, he fir'd; and at his feet they fell,
The Eagle and the Child

Tho', such the grasp, not

the child unhurt

ev'n in death relin

quish'd.

ROGERS.

CEDAR OF LEBANON.1

WHERE are the goodly cedars now,
That from the stately mountain's brow
Look'd once upon a land of glory?
How thinly scatter'd now they stand,
A small and melancholy band,

Recorders of their own sad story!

They tell us of those pillar'd domes,
Where princes had their costly homes,
With gems, and gold, and ivory,
Wrought by the fam'd artificer;
Alas! they only live to stir

The bitter thought, the fruitless sigh!

For who can look on Lebanon,
Nor sigh to see its glory gone?

Or see unmov'd that front of snow,
That wont to wear a verdant crown,
Dart through the misty air its frown

Upon the howling scene below?

Whether the cedars of Lebanon were thinned to exhaustion by the "fourscore thousand hewers" (1 Kings, v. 15.) of king Solomon, or whether they have decayed from various natural causes, it is impossible to say; but few now exist, though some are of immense size, about thirty-six feet in circumference. They are held in great veneration, and a holiday is set apart on the mountain for the "Feast of cedars."

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