What Shirene was to Greek Ferhaud,
Zelmaine would prove to thee,

-A handmaid,—blest, in thy abode,
A Christian bride to be!'

With the last strain, the page vanished from the chamber. But, ere the moon, that then shone bright in at the young envoy's window, again appeared there in full orb, it lit the nuptial chamber of the English knight and the Persian princess. And, in after days, when many suns and moons had revolved their course, the portraits of Sir Robert Shirley and his beautiful bride, the Lady Zelmaine, were seen, by future travellers, in the very same picture-saloon of the Ali Copi,-side by side with those of the lamented Shirene and her incomparable Ferhaud.

STANZAS,

Composed during a Tempest.

BY BERNARD BARTON.

DAZZLING may seem the noontide sky,
Its arch of azure shewing;

And lovely to the gazer's eye
The west, at sunset glowing.

Splendid the east-at morning bright,
Soft moonlight on the ocean ;-
But glorious is the hushed delight
Born in the storm's commotion !

To see the dark and lowering cloud
By vivid lightning riven,—
To hear the answer, stern and proud,
By echoing thunders given ;-

To feel, in such a scene and hour,
-'Mid all that each discloses-

The presence of that viewless power
On whom the world reposes ;-

This, to the heart, is more than all

Mere beauty can bring o'er it;
Thought-feeling-fancy own its thrall,
And joy is hushed before it!

FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING.

Written in an Annual Publication, presented to a Lady, who had suffered much and long Affliction.

REVIEWING time's perennial flight,
We mark some lovely hours,
Like stars amidst a stormy night,
Or winter-blooming flowers.

Such as among the gloomy past
Your happiest days appear,
Such-but improving to the last,
Be all in this new year!

Sheffield.

J. M.

SPAIN.

AN INVOCATION.

BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD DILLON.

OH, that the SPIRIT of my votive song

Would pour her sybil oracles along ;

Go forth where despots sway, and dastards yield,

And rouse a tented Israel to the field!

-Oh! for the mystic harp of Kedron's vale,
To fling its music on the tameless gale!
As erst, in Israel, when-at God's command-
Saul was sent forth to blight the chartered land,
When Siloa's brook was gathered to a flood,
And Sion wept-till every tear was blood!

Oh! for a spell-like her's who called the dead, And brought the prophet from his dreamless bed,

To wake the spirit of the martyred brave,

And break the slumber of Riego's grave!
-Oh! for the warrior-youth of Judah's line,
Divinely missioned to a work divine,—
A David to "go up"-with staff and sling,
And pebbles for the forehead of a king,-

And, in the spirit of a holy wrath,

Smite the Goliath of a sceptered Gath!

Alas! the lovely land!-where fetters bind
All but the sighs their captives give the wind!
Where life is stagnant-but when stirred by fears,
And patriots have no weapon-but their tears!
Where the free breezes and the dancing waves
Utter vain language to a world of slaves;
And hope-a" fitful fever"-wakes and dies,
Like clouds that form-to melt-in Spanish skies!

It comes-it comes!-like a far trumpet blast,
I hear the tumult and the stir, at last!—
Through the dull distance of a few short years,
The gathering-cry is borne to prophet ears,
When nations shall go forth, like water poured,
To see an Agag hewn before the Lord,
And freedom lift, again, her starry crest,
High o'er the new-born Hebron of the west!