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164

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Hath hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat;

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass:
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled?
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled :-
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develope, if that withered tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left it green !—
Or was it then so old that History's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent! Incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But, prythee, tell us something of thyself,— Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended, We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;

The Roman Empire has begun and ended;

New worlds have risen,-we have lost old nations; And countless kings have into dust been humbled, While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

165

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head
When the great Persian Conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb, with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:-

A heart hath throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that
face?

What was thy name, and station, age, and race?

Statue of flesh !-Immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence !

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its
warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

BY PERCY BYSHE SHELLEY.

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the river with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a strange emotion:
Nothing in the world is single;
All things, by a law divine,
In one another's being mingle,-
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another!
No leaf or flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained to kiss its brother.
And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:-
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

STANZAS.

BY T. HOOD.

I REMEMBER, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window, where the sun
Came peeping in, at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

STANZAS.

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily cups-
Those flowers made of light:

The lilacs, where the robins built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum, on his birth-day,-
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air would rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;

-My spirit flew in feathers, then,

That is so heavy now,

And the summer pool could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember

The fir trees, dark and high;

I used to think their slender spires
Were close against the sky!

It was a childish ignorance,

But now, 'tis little joy

To know I'm further off from heaven,
Than when I was a boy!

167

THE EAST INDIAMAN.

BY THE AUTHOR OF ROUGE ET NOIR.

How like a younker, or a prodigal,

The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugged and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return;
With over-weathered ribs, and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggared by the strumpet wind!
MERCHANT OF VENICE.

AN anxious, lingering, perilous voyage past,
An Indian ship hailed Albion's land at last!
Moored in the Downs, her mighty pinions close
Like some far-flying bird that seeks repose;
While, crowding on the deck, a hundred eyes
Turned shoreward-flashed with pleasure and surprise.
That eve they anchored, from the horizon's hem
The virgin Moon, as if to welcome them,

Rose from her rest-but would no more reveal
Than the faint outline of her pale profile :

Though soon (as maids forget their fears) she gave
Her orbed brow to kiss the wanton wave:
Till-like a scornful lover, swoll'n with pride,
Because too fondly loved to be denied,

The rude wave spurned her off, and raised that loud
And angry blast that screamed through sail and shroud,
The livelong night on which my harp is dwelling.
Meanwhile, the swarthy crew, each care dispelling,
Had sported thrice three summer suns away
Since they had cast their anchor in that bay.
O, none save Fortune's step-sons, doomed to roam
The deep, can prize a harbour and a home!

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