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For on this morn three potent nations meet,

To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most

sweet.

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, victory!
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally,

That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
Are met as if at home they could not die—
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

There shall they rot-ambition's honoured fools! Yes! honour decks the turf that wraps their clay! Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools, The broken tools, that tyrants cast away By myriads, where they dare to pave their way With human hearts-to what ?-a dream alone. Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?

Byron.

TO LAURA.

I did not weep, when I was told
Thy bridal-day was near;

But ah! the words dropped icy cold
Upon my anguished ear.

Like dust to dust' upon a bier,

The sounds sepulchral fell,

That came my throbbing heart to sear,
And rung my hopes' sad knell.

I met thee-on my marble brow
There wrinkled no fierce ire ;

I touched thee-thou was changed, and now,
The thrill had nought of fire.

I smiled my pride did that require;

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And thou hadst shown how well A smile can cloak a passion dire,

-Yea, smiled a cold farewell!

Anon.

THE MARTYRED MISSIONARY.

I saw, upon a foreign shore,

A prisoner in his cell;

His hands were not imbrued in gore,
Nor could I gather well

What was his crime, save crime it be
To think the enslaved should be free-

Free to adore the God of heaven

To know the Saviour-Christ;
To love and be beloved, nor riven
From home, as brutes, and priced
By monsters savage as the howl
Of warring winter at the pole.

His native land he left in youth-
No charm could tempt his stay;
With the words of everlasting truth

He hied him on his way—

To the darkest spot of earth's domain-
The land of the whip and clanking chain.

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No home he sought by a river's brink,
In the shadiest spot of all:

When sense was cloyed to rest, and think
What joy he next could call,

For the dark-hued damsels and the wineThe burning pleasures of the line.

His hand it bore the word of God-
It spread his only view;

The scorching soil unmoved he trod,

And drank the unwholesome dew, Peace from its living page to fling, Balm in the cup of woe to wring.

O, 'twas enough to rouse all hell
To see that blessed book!
To mark beneath its magic spell,

The slave no longer look

Ay, prone on earth, but, rising, scan,

His chartered rights as free-born man!

The tree of liberty was ne'er

Of free spontaneous birth;

Watered with blood and many a tear,

It soars above the earth,

Till, lost in depths of heaven on high,
It builds a path-way to the sky.

Then springs the wild hut, bosomed lone,
In glens and mountain wood;

Gay peace, with justice, build their throne

Amid the solitude

Heaven showers its dewiest influence bland

As if with more unsparing hand.

*

I saw the prisoner in his cell
Again before we parted;
And as I took a last farewell,

With grief nigh broken-hearted,

He bade me sing, far o'er the sea,
This hymn to truth and liberty.

Anon.

LINES WRITTEN IN A HERMITAGE ON THE SEA-SHORE.

O, wanderer! would thy heart forget

Each earthly passion and regret,.

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