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Perchance that very hand, now pinion'd flat,
Hath hob-a-nobb'd with Pharaoh,glass to glass,-
Or dropp'd a halfpenny in Homer's hat,—

Or doff'd thine own, to let Queen Dido pass,-
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch, at the great temple's dedication!

I need not ask thee if that hand, when arm'd,
Has any Roman soldier maul'd and knuckled?
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalm'd,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:-
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develope, if that wither'd tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, How the world look'd when it was fresh and young, And the great deluge still had left it green!Or was it then so old that history's pages Contain'd no record of its early ages?

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Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations;

The Roman empire has begun and ended,— New worlds have risen,-we have lost old nations,

And countless kings have into dust been humbled, While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
March'd armies o'er thy tomb, with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,—
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confess'd,
The nature of thy private life unfold!

A heart hath throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have roll'd:-
Have children climb'd those knees, and kiss'd that
face?

What was thy name and station, age and race? Statue of flesh!-Immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man,-who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecay'd within our presence!
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its
warning!

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh! let us keep the soul embalm'd and pure
In living virtue,-that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS,

DEPOSITED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

THOU alabaster relic! while I hold

My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown, Let me recall the scenes thou couldst unfold,

Might'st thou relate the changes thou hast known; For thou wert primitive in thy formation, Launch'd from the Almighty's hand at the creation.

Yes-thou wert present when the stars and skies And worlds unnumber'd roll'd into their places; When God from chaos bade the spheres arise,

And fix'd the blazing sun upon its basis, And with his finger on the bounds of space Mark'd out each planet's everlasting race.

How many thousand ages from thy birth
Thou slept'st in darkness it were vain to ask,
Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth,
And year by year pursued their patient task,
Till thou wert carved and decorated thus,
Worthy to be a king's sarcophagus!

What time Elijah to the skies ascended,

Or David reign'd in holy Palestine, Some ancient Theban monarch was extended Beneath the lid of this emblazon'd shrine, And to that subterraneous palace borne, Which toiling ages in the rock had worn.

Thebes, from her hundred portals, fill'd the plain, To see the car on which thou wert upheld; What funeral pomps extended in thy train,

What banners waved, what mighty music swell'd, As armies, priests, and crowds bewail'd in chorus, Their King-their God-their Serapis-their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they trust

Thee, and the lord of all the nations round, Grim king of silence! monarch of the dust!

Embalm'd, anointed, jewel'd, scepter'd, crown'd,
Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark,
A leathern Pharaoh grinning in the dark.
Thus ages roll'd; but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprison'd thing,
Which wore a ghastly royalty in death,

As if it struggled still to be a king;
And each dissolving century, like the last,
Just dropp'd its dust upon thy lid, and pass'd.

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt pour'd

His devastating host-a motley crew; The steel-clad horseman,-the barbarian horde,Music and men of every sound and hue,Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines, and brutes,— Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers, and lutes.

Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away

The ponderous rock that seal'd the sacred tomb; Then did the slowly penetrating ray

Redeem thee from long centuries of gloom, And lower'd torches flash'd against thy side, As Asia's king thy blazon'd trophies eyed.

Pluck'd from his grave, with sacrilegious taunt, The features of the royal corse they scann'd; Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt,

They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand; And on those fields, where once his will was law, Left him for winds to waste and beasts to gnaw.

Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past, Upclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill, And nature, aiding their devotion, cast

Over its entrance a concealing rill;
Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep
Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

But he from whom nor pyramids nor sphynx
Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni came;
From the tomb's mouth unlink'd the granite links,
Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame,
And brought thee from the sands and deserts forth,
To charm the pallid children of the north!

Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new,
Was what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste,
Where savage beast more savage men pursue;

A scene by nature cursed, by man disgraced. Now 'tis the world's metropolis! The high Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury!

Here, where I hold my hand, 'tis strange to think What other hands, perchance, preceded mine; Others have also stood beside thy brink,

And vainly conn'd the moralizing line! Kings, sages, chiefs, that touch'd this stone, like me, Where are ye now ?-Where all must shortly be.

All is mutation;-he within this stone

Was once the greatest monarch of the hour. His bones are dust, his very name unknown!

Go, learn from him the vanity of power; Seek not the frame's corruption to control, But build a lasting mansion for thy soul.

MORAL ALCHEMY.

Tas toils of alchemists, whose vain pursuit
Sought to transmute

Dross into gold, their secrets and their store
Of mystic lore,

What to the jibing modern do they seem?
An ignis fatuus chace, a fantasy, a dream!
Yet for enlighten'd moral alchemists,
There still exists

A philosophic stone, whose magic spell
No tongue may tell,

Which renovates the soul's decaying health,

And what it touches turns to purest mental wealth.

This secret is reveal'd in every trace

Of nature's face,

Whose seeming frown invariably tends
To smiling ends

Transmuting ills into their opposite,

And all that shocks the sense to subsequent delight.

Seems earth unlovely in her robe of snow?

Then look below,

Where nature in her subterranean ark, Silent and dark,

[world.

Already has each floral germ unfurl'd,
That shall revive and clothe the dead and naked

Behold those perish'd flowers to earth consign'd;
They, like mankind,

Seek in their grave new birth. By nature's power, Each in its hour,

Clothed in new beauty from its tomb shall spring, And from each tube and chalice heavenward incense fling.

Laboratories of a wider fold

I now behold,

Where are prepared the harvests yet unborn,
Of wine, oil, corn.—

In those mute, rayless banquet-halls I see,
Myriads of coming feasts with all their revelry.
Yon teeming and minuter cells enclose
The embryos,

Of fruits and seeds, food of the feather'd race,
Whose chanted grace,

Swelling in choral gratitude on high,
Shall with thanksgiving anthems melodize the sky.

And what materials, mystic alchemist!
Dost thou enlist

To fabricate this ever varied feast,
For man, bird, beast!

Whence the life, plenty, music, beauty, bloom? From silence, languor, death, unsightliness, and gloom!

From nature's magic hand whose touch makes sadEventual gladness,

The reverent moral alchemist may learn

The art to turn

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Fate's roughest, hardest, most forbidding dross, Into the mental gold that knows not change or loss.

Lose we a valued friend? To soothe our wo

Let us bestow

On those who still survive an added love, So shall we prove,

[store.

Howe'er the dear departed we deplore,
In friendship's sum and substance no diminish'd
Lose we our health? Now may we fully know
What thanks we owe

For our sane years, perchance of lengthen❜d scope;
Now does our hope

Point to the day when sickness taking flight,
Shall make us better feel health's exquisite delight.

In losing fortune many a lucky elf
Has found himself.-

As all our moral bitters are design'd
To brace the mind,

And renovate its healthy tone, the wise
Their sorest trials hail as blessings in disguise.

There is no gloom on earth, for God above
Chastens in love;

Transmuting sorrows into golden joy

Free from alloy,

His dearest attribute is still to bless,

[fulness.

And man's most welcome hymn is grateful cheer

THOMAS MOORE.

THOMAS MOORE, who has unquestionably attained to the highest reputation as a lyric poet of all contemporaries, was born in Dublin, on the twenty-eighth of May, 1780, and at the early age of fourteen years, became a student of Trinity College in his native city, where he took his degree in 1799. He then went to London, entered the Middle Temple, and in due time was admitted to the bar.

In 1800 he published his translation of "Anacreon," which at once made him famous among the gay and the witty spirits who thronged the court of the Regent. Of this translation it may be said, that while it equals the original in grace and harmony, it unhappily surpasses it in seductiveness and voluptuous license. In the next year it was followed by a volume of amatory poems, under the name of LITTLE, which has been no less celebrated for its lubricity and licentiousness.

In 1803 he was appointed Registrar to the Admiralty in Bermuda, and during his absence from England he made a flying visit to the United States, which gave rise to a series of satirical and somewhat bitter Odes and Epistles on society and manners in this country, published on his return to London, in 1806. These were attacked in an article by JEFFREY, and the poet sent the critic a challenge. The parties met, but the police prevented a duel, and the pistols, on examination, were found to contain paper pellets, which the seconds had cautiously substituted for bullets, a circumstance alluded to by BYRON in his " English Bards," in a manner which provoked a remonstrance from Mr. MOORE.

The poets however, soon became intimate friends, and continued so till the death of BYRON.

In 1811 appeared Mr. MOORE's "M. P., or the Blue Stocking;" in 1812, "The Twopenny Post Bag, by Thomas Browne the Younger;" in 1813, his "Irish Melodies;" in 1816, his "Sacred Songs," and in the following year, his celebrated oriental romance of "Lalla Rookh," the four tales in which, and the framework which unites them, were compared in the "Edinburgh Review" to four beautiful pearls, joined together by a

thread of silk and gold. Much the best of these tales, and the best of all Mr. MOORE'S longer poems, is "The Fire-Worshippers," which is quoted entire in the following pages.

Another volume of humorous sarcasm, entitled "The Fudge Family in Paris," appeared in 1818, and in 1823 his “Loves of the Angels," a poem containing some beautiful passages, but altogether inferior to his earlier productions, and undeserving of comparison with BYRON'S "Heaven and Earth," or CROLY'S "Angel of the World,” which are founded on the same subject. Beside these poems, he has written "Fables for the Holy Alliance," "Corruption and Intolerance," "The Skeptic," "The Summer Fete," and others, all of which are included in the edition of his poetical works published by Carey and Hart, in the present year.

Mr. MOORE we believe commenced his career as an author with some brilliant but not very powerful political tracts, and he has since produced several prose works, none of which, excepting "The Epicurean," have added to his good reputation. The Life of SHERIDAN is an amusing book; and with such materials as were placed in the hands of his biographer it could not well have been made otherwise. When GEORGE IV. was told that MOORE had murdered SHERIDAN, he exclaimed, "Not so: he only attempted his life." His memoirs of BYRON, which appeared in two quarto volumes in 1830, are alike unworthy the subject and the author; and the burning of some of BYRON's papers, at the request of interested parties, was an act of dishonour toward the great poet, which nothing can justify. The Life of Captain Rock," and "The Irish Gentleman in Search of Religion," and the "History of Ireland," of which several volumes have been published, would hardly be attributed to the author of "Lalla Rookh," and the "Irish Melodies," were his name not on their title pages.

The history of Mr. MOORE is little more than the history of his writings. He is deservedly popular in society for his amiable qualities and fascinating manners; he has

shared the intimacy of all the greatest men and writers of an era more prolific in great men and great geniuses than any since that of SHAKSPEARE, and RALEIGH, and SIDNEY; and dividing his time between the quiet charms of domestic ease and the smiles of the most elevated society, he may be pronounced a happy and a fortunate man. As a song writer, he doubtless stands unrivalled. His versification is exquisitely finished, harmonious, and musically toned. The sense is never obviously sacrificed to the sound; on the contrary, he delights in that species of antithetical and

epigrammatic turn, which is generally held to excuse some roughness, and to be scarcely compatible with perfect melody of rhythm.

In grace, both of thought and diction, in easy fluent wit, in melody, in brilliancy of fancy, in warmth and depth of sentiment, and even in purity and simplicity, when he chooses to be pure and simple, no one is superior to MOORE: but in grandeur of conception, power of thought, and, above all, unity of purpose, and a great aim, he is singularly deficient, and these are necessary to the character, not of a sweet minstrel, but of a great poet.

THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.

Tis moonlight over Oman's sea;
Her banks of pearl and palmy isles
Bask in the night-beam beauteously,

And her blue waters sleep in smiles.
Tis moonlight in Harmozia's walls,
And through her emir's porphyry halls,

Where, some hours since, was heard the swell

Of trumpet and the clash of zel,

Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell;—
The peaceful sun, whom better suits

The music of the bulbul's nest,

Or the light touch of lover's lutes,

To sing him to his golden rest!

All hush'd-there's not a breeze in motion,
The shore is silent as the ocean.
If zephyrs come, so light they come,

Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven ;—
The wind-tower on the emir's dome

Can hardly win a breath from heaven.
E'en he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps;
While curses load the air he breathes,
And falchions from unnumber'd sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame
His race had brought on Iran's name.
Hard, heartless chief, unmoved alike
Mid eyes that weep, and swords that strike
One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think through unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven:
One, who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath pour'd,
To mutter o'er some text of God

Engraven on his reeking sword ;-
Nay, who can coolly note the line,
The letter of those words divine,
To which his blade, with searching art,
Had sunk into its victim's heart!
Just Alla! what must be thy look,

When such a wretch before thee stands
Unblushing, with thy sacred book,

;

Turning the leaves with blood-stain'd hands, And wresting from its page sublime His creed of lust and hate and crime?

E'en as those bees of Trebizond,

Which, from the sunniest hours that glad With their pure smile the gardens round, Draw venom forth that drives men mad! Never did fierce Arabia send

A satrap forth more direly great; Never was Iran doom'd to bend

Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.

Her throne had fallen-her pride was crush'd-
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blush'd
In their own land-no more their own-
To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.
Her towers, where Mithra once had burn'd,
To Moslem shrines-oh shame! were turn'd,
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship pour'd,
And cursed the faith their sires adored.
Yet has she hearts, mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance:-hearts that yet,
Like gems, in darkness issuing rays
They've treasured from the sun that's set,
Beam all the light of long-lost days!—
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay

Becalm'd in heaven's approving ray!
Sleep on-for purer eyes than thine

Those waves are hush'd, those planets shine.
Sleep on, and be thy rest unmoved

By the white moonbeam's dazzling power: None but the loving and the loved

Should be awake at this sweet hour.

And see-where, high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling,
Yon turret stands; where ebon locks,
As glossy as a heron's wing
Upon the turban of a king,
Hang from the lattice, long and wild.
"Tis she, that emir's blooming child,
All truth, and tenderness, and grace,
Though born of such ungentle race;
An image of youth's radiant fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain!

Oh what a pure and sacred thing

Is beauty, curtain'd from the sight Of the gross world, illumining

One only mansion with her light! Unseen by man's disturbing eye,—

The flower, that blooms beneath the sea
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity!
So, Hinda, have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrined.
And oh what transport for a lover

To lift the veil that shades them o'er!-
Like those, who, all at once, discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore,
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breath'd but theirs!
Beautiful are the maids that glide

On summer eves, through Yemen's dales;
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils ;-
And brides, as delicate and fair
As the white jassamined flowers they wear,
Hath Yemen in her blissful clime,

Who, lull'd in cool kiosk or bower,
Before their mirrors count the time,

And grow still lovelier every hour.
But never yet hath bride or maid
In Araby's gay harams smiled,
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before Al Hassan's blooming child.

Light as the angel-shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness:-
With eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark vice would turn abash'd away,
Blinded, like serpents when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze!--
Yet, fill'd with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this!
A soul, too, more than half divine,

Where, through some shades of earthly feeling, Religion's soften'd glories shine,

Like light through summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm, and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere!
Such is the maid, who, at this hour,

Hath risen from her restless sleep,
And sits alone in that high bower,

Watching the still and shining deep.
Ah! 'twas not thus,-with tearful eyes
And beating heart,-she used to gaze
On the magnificent earth and skies,

In her own land, in happier days.
Why looks she now so anxious down
Among those rocks, whose rugged frown
Blackens the mirror of the deep?
Whom waits she all this lonely night?
Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep,
For man to scale that turret's height !—

So deem'd at least her thoughtful sire,
When high, to catch the cool night air
After the day-beam's withering fire,

He built her bower of freshness there,
And had it deck'd with costliest skill,

And fondly thought it safe as fair :—
Think, reverend dreamer! think so still,

Nor wake to learn what love can dare→→
Love, all-defying love, who sees
No charm in trophies won with ease;-
Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss
Are pluck'd on danger's precipice!
Bolder than they, who dare not dive
For pearls, but when the sea's at rest,
Love, in the tempest most alive,

Hath ever held that pearl the best
He finds beneath the stormiest water!
Yes-Araby's unrivall'd daughter,

Though high that tower, that rock-way rude, There's one who, but to kiss thy cheek, Would climb th' untrodden solitude

Of Ararat's tremendous peak,

And think its steeps, though dark and dread,
Heav'n's path-ways, if to thee they led!
E'en now thou seest the flashing spray,
That lights his oar's impatient way:
E'en now thou hear'st the sudden shock
Of his swift bark against the rock,
And stretchest down thy arms of snow,
As if to lift him from below!
Like her to whom, at dead of night,
The bridegroom, with his locks of light,
Came, in the flush of love and pride,
And scaled the terrace of his bride;-
When, as she saw him rashly spring,
And midway up in danger cling,
She flung him down her long black hair,
Exclaiming, breathless, "There, love there!"
And scarce did manlier nerve uphold

The hero Zal in that fond hour,
Than wings the youth, who, fleet and bold
Now climbs the rocks to Hinda's bower.
See-light as up their granite steeps

The rock-goats of Arabia clamber,
Fearless from crag to crag he leaps,
And now is in the maiden's chamber.

She loves-but knows not whom she loves,
Nor what his race, nor whence he came ;-
Like one who meets, in Indian groves,
Some beauteous bird, without a name,
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze,
From isles in the undiscover'd seas,
To show his plumage for a day
To wondering eyes, and wing away!
Will he thus fly-her nameless lover?
Alla forbid! 'twas by a moon
As fair as this, while singing over

Some ditty to her soft Kanoon,
Alone, at this same watching hour,

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She first beheld his radiant eyes Gleam through the lattice of the bower, Where nightly now they mix their sighs; And thought some spirit of the air (For what could waft a mortal there?)

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