THESE verses were written for a Benefit at the Dublin Theatre, and were spoken by Miss Smith, with a degree of success which they owed solely to her admirable manner of reciting them. I wrote them in haste, and it very rarely happens that poetry, which has cost but little labour to the writer, is productive of any great pleasure to the reader. Under this impression, I should not have published them, if they had not found their way into some of the newspapers, with such an addition of errors to their own original stock that I thought it but fair to limit their responsibility to those faults alone which really belong to them.

With respect to the title which I have invented for this Poem, I feel even more than the scruples of the Emperor Tiberius, when he humbly asked pardon of the Roman Senate for using "the outlandish term Monopoly.". But the truth is, having written the Poem with the sole view of serving a Benefit, I thought that an unintelligible word of this kind would not be without its attraction for the multitude; with whom, "If 'tis not sense, at least 'tis Greek." To some of my readers, however, it may not be superfluous to say, that by "Melologue" I mean that mixture of recitation and music which is frequently adopted in the performance of Collins's Ode on the Passions, and of which the most striking example I can 1emember is the prophetic speech of Joad, in the Athalie of Racine.

T. M.

INTRODUCTORY MUSIC-Haydn.

There breathes the language, known and felt
Far as the pure air spreads its living zone;
Wherever rage can rouse, or pity melt,

That language of the soul is felt and known :

From those meridian plains

Where oft, of old, on some high tower,

The soft Peruvian poured his midnight strains,

And called his distant love (with such sweet power
That when she heard the lonely lay,

Not worlds could keep her from his arms away*)
To the bleak climes of polar night,

Where, beneath a sunless sky,

The Lapland lover bids his reindeer fly,
And sings along the lengthening waste of snow,
As blithe as if the blessed light

Of vernal Phoebus burned upon his brow.
O Music! thy celestial claim

Is still resistless, still the same!

And faithful as the mighty sea,

To the pale star that o'er its realm presides,
The spell-bound tides

Of human passion rise and fall for thee!

GREEK AIR.

LIST! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
While from Illissus' silvery springs
She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn;
And by her side, in music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
Dreams of bright days that never can return;
When Athens nursed her olive bough
With hands by tyrant power unchained,
And braided for the Muse's brow
A wreath by tyrant touch unstained :-
When heroes trod each classic field,
Where coward feet now faintly falter;

When every arm was Freedom's shield,
And every heart was Freedom's altar.

FLOURISH OF TRUMPET.

HARK! 'tis the sound that charms
The war-steed's wakening ears!—

Oh! many a mother folds her arms
Round her boy-soldier, when that call she hears,
And though her fond heart sink with fears,
Is proud to feel his young pulse bound
With valour's fervour at the sound!

A certain Spaniard, one night late, met an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, and would have taken her to his home, but she cried "For God's sake, sir, let me go; for that pipe which you hear in yonder tower calls me with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons; for love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife and he my husband."-Garcilasso de la Vega, in Sir Paul Rycaut's translation.

See! from his native hills afar,
The rude Helvetian flies to war,
Careless for what, for whom he fights,
For slave or despot, wrongs or rights;
A conqueror oft-a hero never-
Yet lavish of his life-blood still,

As if 'twere like his mountain rill,
And gushed for ever!

O Music! here, even here,

Amid this thoughtless wild career,

Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power. There is an air which oft among the rocks

Of his own lovèd land, at evening hour,

Is heard when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks:
Oh! every note of it would thrill his mind

With tenderest thoughts-would bring around his knees
The rosy children whom he left behind,
And fill each little angel eye

With speaking tears that ask him why
He wandered from his hut for scenes like these.
Vain, vain is then the trumpet's brazen roar ;
Sweet notes of home-of love-are all he hears,

And the stern eyes, that looked for blood before, Now melting mournful lose themselves in tears!

SWISS AIR.

BUT wake the trumpet's blast again,
And rouse the ranks of warrior men!

O War! when Truth thy arm employs,
And Freedom's spirit guides the labouring storm,
'Tis then thy vengeance takes a hallowed form,
And like heaven's lightning sacredly destroys!
Nor, Music! through thy breathing sphere
Lives there a sound more grateful to the ear
Of him who made all harmony

Than the blest sound of fetters breaking,
And the first hymn that man, awaking

From Slavery's slumber, breathes to Liberty!

SPANISH AIR.

HARK! from Spain, indignant Spain,
Bursts the bold enthusiast strain,
Like morning's music on the air,
And seems in every note to swear,

By Saragossa's ruined streets,

By brave Gerona's deathful story,

That while one Spaniard's life-blood beats,

That blood shall stain the Conqueror's glory!

But ah! if vain the patriot's zeal,

If neither valour's force nor wisdom's light

Can break or melt that blood-cemented seal Which shuts so close the book of Europe's rightWhat song shall then in sadness tell Of broken pride, of prospects shaded; Of buried hopes, remembered well, Of ardour quenched and honour faded? What muse shall mourn the breathless brave, In sweetest dirge at memory's shrine?

What harp shall sigh o'er Freedom's grave? O Erin! thine!

"The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer

the sun.

and winter."-Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17.

I.

THOU art, O God! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,

Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine.

II.

When day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of even,
And we can almost think we gaze

Through golden vistas into heaven;

Those hues that make the sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, Lord! are thine.

III.

When night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes ;-
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are thine.

* I have heard that this air is by the late Mrs. Sheridan. It is sung to the Leautiful old words, "I do confess thou'rt smooth and fair."