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greaves and cuisses dashed with drops of onset; and the light and lustrous curls-that made his forehead like a rising sun high from the dais-throne-were parched with dust; or, clotted into points and hanging loose, mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips: so like a shattered column lay the king; not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, from spur to plume a star of tournament, shot through the lists of Camelot, and charged before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:-"Ah! my lord Arthur, whither shall I go? where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? for now I see the true old times are dead, when every morning brought a noble chance, and every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led the holy elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole Round Table is dissolved, which was an image of the mighty world; and I, the last, go forth companionless; and the days darken round me, and the years, among new men, strange faces, other minds."

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:-“ The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfils himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done, may He within himself make pure! but thou, if thou shouldst never see my face again, pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me, night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, both for themselves and those who call them friend? for so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now, farewell!-I am going a long way with these thou seestif indeed I go-(for all my mind is clouded with a doubt) to the island valley of Avilion; where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, nor ever wind blows loudly: but it lies deepmeadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns and bowery hollows crowned with summer sea- -where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail moved from the brink like some full-breasted swan, that, fluting a wild carol ere her death, ruffles her pure cold plume and takes the flood with swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere revolving many memories, till the hull looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, and on the meer the wailing died away.

XLII.-RETREAT OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM MOSCOW.-Dr. Croly.

MAGNIFICENCE of ruin! What has time,
In all it ever gazed upon of war,

Of the wild rage of storm, or deadly clime,
Seen, with that battle's vengeance to compare?
How glorious shone the invaders' pomp afar!
Like pampered lions from the spoil they came;
The land before them, silence and despair,
The land behind them, massacre and flame :

Blood will have tenfold blood:-What are they now? A name.

Homeward by hundred thousands,-column deep,
Broad square, loose squadron,-rolling like the flood
When mighty torrents from their channels leap,
Rushed through the land the haughty multitude,
Billow on endless billow: on, through wood,
O'er rugged hill, down sunless marshy vale,
The death-devoted moved; to clangour rude
Of drum, and horn, and dissonant clash of mail,
Glancing disastrous light before that sunbeam pale.
Again they reached thee, Borodino! Still
Upon the loaded soil the carnage lay;

The human harvest, now stark, stiff, and chill—
Friend, foe, stretched thick together, clay to clay!
In vain the startled legions burst away;
The land was all one naked sepulchre:

The shrinking eye still glanced on grim decay-
Still did the hoof and wheel their passage tear,

Through cloven helms, and arms, and corpses mouldering drear.

The field was as they left it: fosse and fort
Streaming with slaughter still, but desolate;
The cannon flung dismantled by its port:

Each knew the mound, the black ravine, whose strait
Was won, and lost, and thronged with dead; till Fate
Had fixed upon the victor, half undone.

There was the hill, from which their eyes elate
Had seen the burst of Moscow's golden zone;-

But Death was at their heels!—they shuddered and rushed on.
The hour of vengeance strikes! Hark to the gale,
As it bursts hollow through the rolling clouds,
That from the north in sullen grandeur sail,
Like floating Alps! Advancing darkness broods

Upon the wild horizon; and the woods,
Now sinking into brambles, echo shrill,

As the gust sweeps them; and those upper floods
Shoot on the leafless boughs the sleet-drops chill,
That, on the hurrying crowds, in freezing showers distil.
They reach the wilderness! The majesty
Of solitude is spread before their gaze-
Stern nakedness, dark earth, and wrathful sky!
If ruins were there, they had ceased to blaze;
If blood were shed, the ground no more betrays,
E'en by a skeleton, the crime of man:

Behind them rolls the deep and drenching haze, Wrapping their rear in night; before their van, The struggling daylight shows the unmeasured desert wan. Still on they sweep, as if the hurrying march Could bear them from the rushing of His wheel, Whose chariot is the whirlwind.

Heaven's clear arch

At once is covered with a livid veil;

In mixed and fighting heaps the deep clouds reel :
Upon the dense horizon hangs the sun

In sanguine light, an orb of burning steel;

The snows wheel down through twilight thick and dun:

Now tremble, men of blood!—the Judgment has begun!

The trumpet of the northern winds has blown,
And it is answered by the dying roar

Of armies, on that boundless field o'erthrown:
Now, in the awful gusts, the desert hoar
Is tempested a sea without a shore,
Lifting its feathery waves. The legions fly!
Volley on volley down the hailstones pour!
Blind, famished, frozen, mad, the wanderers die,
And, dying, hear the storm more wildly thunder by.

Such is the hand of Heaven!-A human blow
Had crushed them in the fight, or flung the chain
Round them, where Moscow's stately towers were low
And all be stilled. Napoleon! thy war plain
Was a whole empire: thy devoted train

Must war, from day to day, with storm and gloom;
(Man following, like the wolves, to rend the slain ;)
Must lie, from night to night, as in a tomb;

Must fly, toil, bleed for home-yet never see that home!

XLIII-HUMAN LIFE.-Rogers.

THE lark has sung his carol in the sky,
The bees have hummed their noontide lullaby:
Still, in the vale, the village bells ring round,
Still, in Llewellyn-hall, the jests resound:
For, now, the caudle-cup is circling there;
Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer,
And, crowding, stop the cradle, to admire
The babe, the sleeping image of his sire!

A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail
The day again, and gladness fill the vale;
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran:

Then, the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin;
The ale (now brewed) in floods of amber shine;
And, basking in the chimney's ample blaze,
'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days,
The Nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled,
""Twas on these knees he sat so oft and smiled!"
And soon, again, shall music swell the breeze:
Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees
Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung,
And violets scattered round; and old and young,
In every cottage porch, with garlands green,
Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene;
While, her dark eyes declining, by his side,
Moves, in her virgin veil, the gentle bride.

And once, alas! nor in a distant hour,
Another voice shall come from yonder tower;
When, in dim chambers, long black weeds are seen,
And weepings heard, where only joy hath been;
When, by his children borne, and from his door
Slowly departing to return no more,

He rests in holy earth, with them who went before. And such is Human Life! So gliding on,

It glimmers, like a meteor-and is gone!

XLIV.-ON SLAVERY.-Cowper.

OH! for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more! My ear is pained,

My soul is sick, with every day's report

Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart:
It does not feel for man. That natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed, as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty-of a skin

?

Not coloured like his own; and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause,
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith,
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then, what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head, to think himself a man
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home-then why abroad?
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall!
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that, where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.

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