And priest and peer their vows preferred
With quick and courtier care,

But whose on high was soonest heard?
Lone woman's trembling prayer!

Wild war was raging-proudly rose
The chieftains of the realm;
And thousands met their country's foes,
With spear and crested helm;
And thousands fell—and wrathful men
Raged in their mad despair;

What heard the God of battles then?
Meek woman's secret prayer!

O strong is woman in the power
Of loveliness and youth;

And rich in her heart's sacred dower
Of strong, unchanging truth :
But who may tell her spirit's might
Above what strength may dare,
When in life's troubles and its night,
Her heart is bowed in prayer!

Literary Chronicle.

DIRGE.

SWEET be thy slumbers, child of woe!

At the yew-tree's foot, by the fountain's flow!— May the firstling primrose blow,

Pallid snow-drop bloom; And the blue-eyed violet grow, By thy lonely tomb!

Duly there, at close of day,

Let woman's tears bedew the clay!
There let wren and ruddock stray,

And dark ivy creep

Mixed with fern and mosses grey,

O'er thy last long sleep!

C. D. M.

THE FLIGHT OF XERXES.

I saw him on the battle eve,

When like a king he bore him! Proud hosts in glittering helm and greave, And prouder chiefs before him : The warrior, and the warrior's deeds, The morrow, and the morrow's meeds,

No daunting thoughts came o'er him ;He looked around him, and his eye Defiance flashed to earth and sky!

He looked on ocean,-its broad breast
Was covered with his fleet;

On earth, and saw from east to west
His bannered millions meet:

While rock and glen, and cave and coast,
Shook with the war-cry of that host,
The thunder of their feet!
He heard the imperial echoes ring-
He heard, and felt himself a king!

I saw him next alone;- -nor camp,
Nor chief his steps attended,

Nor banners blaze, nor coursers' tramp,
With war-cries proudly blended:-
He stood alone, whom Fortune high
So lately seemed to deify,

He, who with Heaven contended,
Fled, like a fugitive and slave;
Behind, the foe,-before, the wave!

He stood,-fleet, army, treasure gone,
Alone, and in despair!

While wave and wind swept ruthless on,
For they were monarchs there;

And XERXES in a single bark,

Where late his thousand ships were dark,

Must all their fury dare;-
Thy glorious revenge was this,
Thy trophy, deathless SALAMIS!

STANZAS.

M. J. J.

BY T. K. HERVEY, ESQ.

SLUMBER lie soft on thy beautiful eye!

Spirits whose smiles are-like thine-of the sky,
Play thee to sleep with their visionless strings,
Brighter than thou—but because they have wings!
-Fair as a being of heavenly birth,

But loving and loved as a child of the earth!

Why is that tear? Art thou gone, in thy dream,

To the valley far off, and the moon-lighted stream,

Where the sighing of flowers, and the nightingale's song,

Fling sweets on the wave, as it wanders along?
Blest be the dreams that restores them to thee,
But thou art the bird and the roses to me!

And now, as I watch o'er thy.slumbers, alone,
And hear thy low breathing, and know thee mine own,
And muse on the wishes that grew in that vale,
And the fancies we shaped from the river's low tale,

I blame not the fate that has taken the rest,
While it left to my bosom its dearest and best.

Slumber lie soft on thy beautiful eye!
Love be a rainbow to brighten thy sky!
Oh! not for sunshine and hope would I part

With the shade time has flung over all—but thy heart!
Still art thou all which thou wert when a child,
Only more holy-and only less wild!

Friendship's Offering.

TO AN EAGLE.

BY J. PERCIVAL.

BIRD of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,

Where wide the storms their banners fling,
And the tempest-clouds are driven !
Thy throne is on the mountain top,
Thy fields, the boundless air;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.

Thou sittest, like a thing of light,
Amid the noontide blaze:

The midway sun is clear and bright—
It cannot dim thy gaze.

Thy pinions to the rushing blast

O'er the bursting billow spread,

Where the vessel plunges, hurry past,

Like an angel of the dead.

Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag,

And the waves are white below,

And on, with a haste that cannot lag,

They rush in an endless flow.

Again, thou hast plumed thy wing for flight To lands beyond the sea,

And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,

Art hurrying wild and free.

Thou hurriest over the myriad waves,

And thou leavest them all behind;

Thou sweepest that place of unknown graves, Fleet as the tempest wind.

When the night-storm gathers dim and dark,

With a shrill and a boding scream,

Thou rushest by the foundering bark,
Quick as a passing dream.

Lord of the boundless realm of air,
In thy imperial name,

The hearts of the bold and ardent dare
The dangerous path of fame.
Beneath the shade of thy golden wings
The Roman legions bore,

From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs,
Their pride to the polar shore.

For thee they fought, for thee they fell,
And their oath was on thee laid;
To thee the clarions raised their swell,
And the dying warrior prayed.

Thou wert, through an age of death and fears,
The image of pride and power,

Till the gathered rage of a thousand years
Burst forth in one awful hour.

And then, a deluge of wrath it came,
And the nations shook with dread;

And it swept the earth, till its fields were flame,
And piled with the mingled dead.
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood,
With the low and crouching slave;
And together lay, in a shroud of blood,
The coward and the brave!

And where was then thy fearless flight?-
"O'er the dark mysterious sea,

To the lands that caught the setting light,
The cradle of Liberty.

There, on the silent and lonely shore,

For ages,

I watched alone,

And the world, in its darkness, asked no more, Where the glorious bird had flown.

"But then came a bold and hardy few, And they breasted the unknown wave;

I caught afar the wandering crew,

And I knew they were high and brave.