And since those trappings first were new, How many a cloudless day, Has come and pass'd away! Crumbled beneath the hillock green, The cunning hand must be, Acorn, and fleur-de-lis; In days of yore (as now we call), When the first James was king, His train did hither bring; On damask cushions deck'd with fringe, All reverently they knelt: In ancient English spelt, The sunbeam long and lone, Of their inscription stone: Outstretch'd together are express'd He and my lady fair; In attitude of prayer; Set forth in order, as they died, Their numerous offspring bend, As if they did intend But generations new, Have fill'd the stately pew; And his gay train appear; A season every year: The hollow-sounding floor Which shall, as heretofore, The feather'd hearse and sable train, In all their wonted state, And stand before the gate; All to their dusty beds, Shine gaily o’er their heads : Miss June Taylor. A THUNDER STORM. A THUNDER-STORM !-the eloquence of heaven, To mark the caverns of the sky disclose R. Montgomery. THE HEAD OF MEMNON. In Egypt's centre, when the world was young, My statue soar'd aloft,-a man-shap'd tower, O'er hundred-gated Thebes, by Homer sung, And built by Apis' and Osiris' power. When the sun's infant eye more brightly blaz’d, I mark’d the labours of unwearied Time; And saw, by patient centuries up-rais’d, Stupendous temples, obelisks sublime ! Hewn from the rooted rock, some mightier mound, Some new Colossus more enormous springs, So vast, so firm, that, as I gazed around, I thought them, like myself, eternal things. Than did I mark in sacerdotal state, Psammis the king, whose alabaster tomb (Such the inscrutable decrees of fate) Now floats athwart the sea to share my doom. O Thebes, I cried, thou wonder of the world! Still shalt thou soar, its everlasting boast : When lo! the Persian standards were unfurl'd, And fierce Cambyses led the invading host. Where from the East a cloud of dust proceeds, A thousand banner'd suns at once appear; Nought else was seen :—but sound of neighing steeds, And faint barbaric music met mine ear. Onward they march, and foremost I descried, A cuirass'd Grecian band, in phalanx dense, Commingled tribes--a wild magnificence. Which Egypt's children worship and obey; And fall—a pious, unresisting prey. Then, havoc leaguing with infuriate zeal, Palaces, temples, cities are o'erthrown; Apis is stabb’d! Cambyses thrusts the steel, And shuddering Egypt heav'd a general groan !. The firm Memnonium mock'd their feeble power, Flames round its granite columns hiss'd in vain,-The head of Isis frowning o'er each tower, Look'd down with indestructible disdain. Mine was a deeper and more quick disgrace: Beneath my shade a wondering army flock'd, With force combin'd, they wrench'd me from my base, And earth beneath the dread concussion rock'd. Nile from his banks receded with affright, The startled Sphinx long trembled at the sound While from each pyramid's astounding height, The loosen'd stones slid rattling to the ground. |