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The war-steed neighs-but not from 'Twas a glorious, glowing September

stall

Caparison'd by the gate;

The cuirass hangs not on the wall,
As it hath hung of late:

His own keen hands have wiped
away

The red rust from his sword, Which again sends out a silvery gleam,

As if it knew its lord.

19.

eve,

As the knight rode down the dale ; The broad low sun shone along the land,

And kiss'd his burnish'd mail : Hawk, hound, and horse roam masterless

His serving-men grow grey-
His roofs are moss'd;-'tistwenty years
Since the warrior went away!

A thousand friends had Sir Eliduc-
The brave, the noble, and the wise;
And each asks each-but of his fate
No answering tongue replies.
Arm'd cap-a-pie went Eliduc,

From his proud ancestral towers alone;
But whither he went, or where he died,
By man was never known!

THE BRAMIN ANGEL.

AN ORIENTAL TALE.

TRADITIONS in the East are imperishable, and the singularly romantic genius of the country often invests them with the mingled force of superstition and fancy. Among the most frequent and favourite of these traditions, is the descent of angels enamoured of earthly beauty-a tale evidently formed on the language of the Pentateuch, alluding to the first defection of the patriarchal family-the "sons of God," the Sethites, allying themselves with the "daughters of men," the descendants of Cain. The Loves of the Angels," by the poet Moore, gives the history; the following lines are the mere transcript of the idea:

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"Taste this goblet, lovely maiden, Taste these fruits, and weep no

more:

Let old age be anguish-laden,

Tears of youth should soon be o'er."

Of the purple grape she tasted,
Tasted of the Shiraz wine;
Still she saw the fruits unwasted,

Still the brimming goblet shine!

But what strains are round her flowing? What wild sweets are on the wind? Sudden radiance o'er her glowing,

Sudden spells around her twined.

To the minstrel sounds ascending,

Swift the cottage walls arise; Now its thatch is o'er her bending, Lovely as the sunset skies.

Painted with a thousand glories,
Arching like a rosy cloud,
Passion's high heroic stories

On its golden roof embow'd.

Now the rush of thousand pinions, Mix'd with harps, is heard afar, Stooping from their blue dominions,

Children of the Vesper-star.

Where is gone the ancient stranger?

Whither shall the maiden fly?Yet what heart can dream of danger, In that splendour-flashing eye?

Diamonds on the caftan glitter'd

Rubies on the sandal shone. Can a thought by sin embitter'd To that angel smile be known?

Now, with glorious beauty beaming, Stands the Bramin, wing'd and crown'd;

Spirit, with heaven's lustre gleaming

On his brow the star-drops bound.

"Come," he cries, "earth's loveliest flower;

Come, and be thy lover's bride; Where celestial roses shower,

Where is pour'd joy's richest tide.

"When I came, a pilgrim lowly,

Sent to mark the world's decline; Then I found thee, bright and holy One pure diamond in the mine.

"With no earthly flame I loved thee,

Thine, too, was no earthly flame; Still thro' pain and woe I proved thee, Still thy faith no pang could tame.

"Then to absence long I left thee;

Still thy sigh in secret stole ;
Nay, when time of hope bereft thee,
Still my image fill'd thy soul.

"Sweet one, I was watching o'er thee,
Ever loving, ever nigh,
When the tempest onward bore thee,
When the tiger bounded by.

"Now thy weary way is ended,

Thou hast found mine only tomb; With thy lover's spirit blended, Leave, oh leave this world of gloom !"

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Now is reached the starry portal,

Now her angel wreath is won; Now a spirit, pure, immortal,

Sits she on her lover's throne.

Έως.

THE EMPEROR AND THE RABBI,

THERE are some curious and some interesting reliques of tradition still to be found among the Jewish people. Their dispersion, and the infinite miseries inflicted on them, in every country where they fled from their own, inevitably extinguished their general cultivation of literature; but they still possessed scholars, philosophers, and teachers of the Law, who might have been distinguished in better times, and among a more prosperous people. The Talmud is well known to European scholarship as containing, amid much extraordinary and fantastic matter, some valuable records of the national history and feelings. Its sententious and moral narratives, its Agadetha, are sometimes striking and noble; and the allegories, mysticisms, visions, and parables of the Medras biim are sometimes not less sagacious than sublime.

The subject of the following verses is from a tradition of the wisdom of Rabbi Joshuah. The Jews to this day speak with malediction of Titus, the destroyer of the temple, and of Hadrian, the destroyer of the nation. But Trajan is sometimes spoken of with more respect, probably from the contrast of his character, stern as it was, with that of his fierce and sanguinary successor, Hadrian; and from the comparative security of the Jews under an emperor who was too much engrossed with his incessant wars to have any leisure for persecution.

"OLD Rabbi, what tales

Would'st thou pour in mine ear;

What visions of glory,

What phantoms of fear?"

"Of a God, all the gods Of the Roman above,

A mightier than Mars,

A more ancient than Jove!"

"Let me look on those splendours,

I then shall believe; 'Tis the senses alone

That can never deceive. Nay, show me your idol, If earth is his shrine, And your Israelite God

Shall, old dreamer, be mine."

'Twas Trajan that spoke,
And the stoical sneer
Still play'd on his features
Sublime and severe.
And round the proud hall
As his dark eye was thrown,
He saw but one God,

And himself was that one.

"The God of our forefathers!"
Low bow'd the seer;
"Is unseen by the eye,

Is unheard by the ear.
He is SPIRIT, he knows not
The body's dark chain;
Not the Heaven of the Heavens
Can his glory contain.
"He is seen in his power
When the storm is abroad:
The clouds by the wheels

Of his chariot are rode.
He is seen in his mercy,
When mountain and plain
Rejoice in the sunshine
And smile in the rain.

"He is seen when the lightnings

Are shot through the heaven,
And the crests of the mountains
In embers are riven.

He is heard when the tempest

Has sent up its roar,
And the ocean in thunder
Is flung on the shore."

"Those are dreams," said the mo-
narch,

"Wild fancies of old;
But what God can I worship,

When none I behold?
Can I kneel to the lightning,
The wave, or the wind?
Can I worship the shape

That but lives in the mind?'

"I'll show thee his footstool,

I'll show thee his throne :"
Through the halls of the palace
The Rabbi led on,

Till above them was spread

But the sky's purple dome,
And like surges of splendour
Beneath them was Rome.

Round the marble-crown'd mount
Where the Emperor stood,
Like a silver-scaled snake,

Swept the Tiber's bright flood;
Beyond lay the vales

Of the rich Persian rose,
All glowing with beauty,
All breathing repose;

And flaming o'er all,

In the glow of the hour,
The Capitol shone,

Earth's high altar of power-
A thousand years old,
Yet still in its prime;
A thousand years more
To be conqueror of time!

But the East now was purple,

The eve was begun ; Like a monarch at rest

On the wave, lay the sun; Above him the clouds

Their rich canopy roll'd,
With pillars of diamond,
And curtains of gold.

The Rabbi's proud gesture
Was turn'd to the orb ;

"Great King, let that splendour
Thy worship absorb."

"What! gaze on the sun,

And be blind by the gaze?
No eye but the eagle's

Can look on that blaze!"

"Ho, Emperor of earth,
If thine eyeball is dim,
To see but the rays

Of the sun's sinking limb,"
Cried the Rabbi, “what eyeball
Could dare but to see

The Sovereign of him,

And the Sovereign of thee?"

'Ews.

Mary-le-bone Vestry-Room. May 10.

TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

SIR,-Though folks say you are not one of we Liberals, 'tis allow'd on all hands you are all straight and fair like, and don't begrudge lending a lift to any thing in the poetry line, British or foreign, or what not, when good of the sample. Now, sir, I take liberty to hand you over the case of my nephew Alfred Mulgrave Timms, which I think have been a Scandalous victim of Tory oppression. I don't, for my part, understand Latin or Oxford doings, nor don't want to, neither: hows'ever, the case is as thus. My nephew having been brought up at my expense for seven years as a parlour boarder in the Academy of the Reverend Jubb of Little Pedlington, which I can well afford, which is neither here nor there; well, sir, this youth is an honour to his family, and bids fair to be a Parliament man, and go to court, as the great Mr Owen does, whose ideas, however, I don't go thorough-stitch with, as some of our gents of the board, as keeps ladies, and has whitewashed with their creditors, do,—well sir, I booked his name regular, I mean Mulgrave's, at one of the places in Oxford College, and made it all right to qualify him to walk off with all the prizes, as in course with fair play he ought to; but having some inkling of a Commissionership from a high quarter not one hundred miles from Kilkenny, whom I served in times past, he has not settled his mind as to lodging and vittling with the Collegers, some of which is no better than they should be, and dangerous at times to a timid youth; not as the money is any object, nor not as Mulgrave is anyways timid in the talking way.—Well, sir, the prize gave out this year being about the Great Plague of London, which was plaguy odd when there was so many genteeler topics, and more suiting the late auspi cious nuptials; so what does Mulgrave do, but he gives his concern a neatish twist like of his own, to teach the Big- Wigs what was what, and as he says, says he, to correct their bad taste as to subject." Well, sir, lo and behold! here comes his copy-book returned, costing me eightpence out of my own pocket by post, with a pencil scribble on the back to say, "cannot be admitted to competition, having nothing to do with the subject, and savouring of political bias." This is a burning shame, sir: envy and jealousy is at the bottom of the "tottle of the whole," as my friend above quoted says; and so thinks Mulgrave himself; what's more, he has touched it up again, and stuck a regular stinger in the tail, which will make the doctors and proctors, and suchlike, look about them. The great Mr G., our city member, who was a Cambridge scholar, and counted by the Liberal interest to be an uncommon good judge of foreign tongues, says it reminds him of one Junival, (a Frenchman, I suppose, by the turn of his name.) Mr G. Englished it to me and my friend not one hundred miles from Kilkenny, as before quoted, and we both think the sentiments is quite prime, and nothing else. Whereby, if you would print it in your next, I would stand any loss under a five-pound note; for, as I said before, money's no object, particularly when a man feels his back up under the sense of tyranny.-Yours, Sir, to command,

SOLOMON TIMMS.

PESTIS LONDINUM DEVASTANS.

CARMINIS SÆCULARIS RITU (UT MELIUS) TRACTATA.
EHEU! quàm suave est epulas celebrare, triumphos,
Et tædas Hymenis sponsales, et vice fungi
Versicoloris equi, quem pinguis Hanovria campis
Emisit, pompæ et fastis solennibus aptum!
Pestem alii dicant, queis, vah! plebecula vilis
Strata placet pecudum ritu, queis sputa, tumores,
Proluvies alvi, cava tempora, tussis anhelans,
Ulceraque arrident, et tetri spiritus oris,
Qualia jam cecinit Lucretius omina mortis.
Quid mihi, si Dominus Major-(quo nomine gaudet?
Præsule-prætore, aut urbano consule, si vis)-
Alderomannique, obliti testudinis, ultro

Protulerint rhombum ægrotis, carnemque ferinam,
Impasti, insolito donantes otia ventri?

Me majora vocant; tales utinam improba pestis
Occupet, et scabies, et quos dementia eorum
Eripuit letho immeritos.-Respublica egenos,
Aptior, ut nune est, naturæ exquirere leges,
Pulmento tenui domat, invitosque coercet.
Me majora vocant, quamvis virtutibus obsit
Res angusta domi; me docta exempla Terentî,
Et prudens flexit Gnatho juvenilibus annis,
Me Pepys, et quorum melior sententia menti
Stat,-nucis emptores, et olentem spernere plebem.
Ergo patrem patriæ Carolum, formidine pestis
Profugum, et injucunda viæ fastidia passum,
Inque tuo gremio, felix Rhedycina, receptum,
Jam celebrare erat in votis,-sed funere mersus
Jampridem, haud votis respondes, optime princeps.
Durum-sed tentanda via est quocunque modo. Vos,
Vos, O Pimlicolæ sedes, et regia turris

O ubi vitæ

Firma solo, mirâque erepta paludibus arte,
Vos, nebulis cinctas fluvialibus, ebria amore
Heu! nondum expleto, mens arripit.
Integer, et vitii purus, Melburnius almo
Indulget somno, bene pastus, ubi ore superbus
Purpureo, renovatâ effulgens usque juventâ,
Sæva per imbelles hostes dat jura Cupido,
Cautus in adversos, et magno gratus Evanti,†
Exiguâque et voce et mole et mente Joannes
Unâ omnes regit, et per totum fulminat orbem!
O si forte mihi, si forte accumbere detur
Quâ domus ad cœlum muris Hollandica surgit
Coctilibus! non me festivo carmine Morus
Vinceret, Allenusve jocis,-modo præmia rhombi
Lauta podagrosus proponat rite patronus.

*

*

*

*

Nec saltem vomerem in mensas ego potus, ut olim
Perscrutatoris
Quis me virginibus felicem insignibus octo
Commendet, longo quæ syrmata regia tractu
Sustinuere alacres, quarum manus uvida vulgi
Insudat pictis formis, Findenicâ ut arte
Prostant venales triviis!-ut quot generosæ
Edocuit Britonum pubi Germania saltus
Unâ illis peragam, musarum qualis Apollo
Stipatus cœtu et studiis, deturque trochæum

Aut galloppatum, aut mollem celebrare mazurkam.

O quis me vatem regali sistet in aulâ?

* "Eheu! quàm suave est," &c.-Ita Lathamus in Corintho. 1809. Sir De L. Evans.

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