The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnashed their teeth and howled; the wild birds shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food;
And war, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom; no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails

men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devoured;
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one-
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,

Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead
Lured their lank jaws! himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answered not with a caress

- he died.

The crowd was famished by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies; they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shrieked, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless –
A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay,
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths:

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped

They slept on the abyss without a surge

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished; darkness had no need
Of aid from them - She was the universe.

HIGHLAND MARY.

YE banks and braes and streams around
The castle of Montgomery;

Green be your woods and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie.

BYRON.

There summer first unfolds his robes,
And there they longest tarry;
For there I took my last farewell
Of my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk
How rich the hawthorn's blossom;
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasped her to my bosom.
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary.

With mony a vow and locked embrace,
Our parting was full tender;
And pledging oft to meet again,

We tore ourselves asunder.

But, oh! fell death's untimely frost,

That nipt my flower so early!

Now green's the sod and cold's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary.

Oh! pale, pale now those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed so fondly;

And closed for aye the sparkling glance,
That dwelt on me so kindly.
And mouldering now in silent dust,
That heart that loved me dearly;
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary!

BURNS.

MARY IN HEAVEN.

THOU lingering star, with lessening ray,
That lovest to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

Oh Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,

O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green;

The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twined amorous round the raptured scene.
The flowers sprung wanton to be press'd;
The birds sung love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods, with miser care:
Time but the impression deeper makes
As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy blissful place of rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

BURNS.

THE PREACHER.

I VENERATE the man whose heart is warm,

Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,
Co-incident, exhibit lucid proof

That he is honest in the sacred cause.

To such I render more than mere respect ·
Whose actions say that they respect themselves.
But loose in morals, and in manners vain,
In conversation frivolous, in dress
Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse;
Frequent in park with lady at his side,
Ambling and prattling scandal as he goes;
But rare at home, and never at his books,
Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card;
Constant at routs, familiar with a round

Of lady-ships

-

a stranger to the poor;

Ambitious of preferment for its gold.

And well prepared, by ignorance and sloth,

By infidelity and love of world,

To make God's work a sinecure; a slave

To his own pleasures and his patron's pride :
From such apostles, oh, ye mitred heads,
Preserve the church! and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach, and will not learn.

Would I describe a preacher such as Paul,
Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own —