Didst thou not hear the "pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched 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 confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees and kissed 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 undecayed 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 embalmed and pure
In living virtue; and when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

HORACE SMITH.

CLVII. THE LADY LISLE AND ELIZABETH GAUNT.

LADY LISLE. MADAM, I am confident you will pardon me, for affliction teaches forgiveness.

ELIZ. GAUNT. From the cell of the condemned we are going, unless my hopes mislead me, where alone we can receive it.

Tell me, I beseech you, lady! in what matter or manner do you think you can have offended à poor sinner such as I am? Surely we came into this dismal place for our offences; and it is not here that any can be given or taken.

LADY L. Just now, when I entered the prison, I saw your countenance serene and cheerful; you looked upon me for a time with an unaltered eye: you turned away from me, as I fancied, only to utter some expressions of devotion; and again you looked upon me; and

tears rolled down your face. Alas! that I should, by any circumstance, any action or recollection, make another unhappy. Alas! that I should deepen the gloom in the very shadow of death.

ELIZ. G. Be comforted; you have not done it. Grief softens and melts, and flows away with tears.

I wept because another was so greatly more wretched than myself: I wept at that black attire; at that attire of modesty and widowhood. LADY L. It covers a wounded, almost broken heart; an unworthy offering to our blessèd Redeemer.

ELIZ. G. In his name let us now rejoice! let us offer our prayers and our thanks at once together! we may yield up our souls perhaps at the same time.

LADY L. Is mine so pure? have I bemoaned, as I should have done, the faults I have committed? have my sighs arisen for the unmerited mercies of my God? and not for him, the beloved of my heart, the adviser and sustainer, I have lost?

Open, O gates of death!

Sinile on me, approve my last action in this world! O virtuous husband! O saint and martyr! my brave, compassionate, and loving Lisle.

ELIZ. G. And cannot you, too, smile, sweet lady? Are not you with him even now? Dóth body, doth clay, doth air, separate and estrange free spirits? Bethink you of his gladness, of his glory; and begin to partake them.

Oh! how could an Englishman, how could twelve, condemn to death, condemn to so great an evil, as they thought it, and may find it, this innocent and helpless widow!

LADY L. Blame not that jury! blame not the jury which brought against me the verdict of guilty. I was so: I received in my house a wanderer, who had fought under the rash and giddy Monmouth. He was hungry and thirsty, and I took him in. My Saviour had commanded, my king had forbidden it. We must bow to the authority of both; but first to the earlier, and most willingly to the latter.

Yet the twelve would not have delivered me over to death, unless the judge had threatened them with an accusation of treason in default of it. Terror made them unanimous; they redeemed their properties and lives at the stated price.

ELIZ. G. I hope at least the unfortunate man, whom you received in the hour of danger, may avoid his penalty.

LADY L. Let us hope it.

ELIZ. G. I, too, am imprisoned for the same offence; and I have little expectation that he who was concealed by me hath any chance of happiness, although he hath escaped. Could I find the means of

conveying to him a small pittance, I should leave the world more comfortably.

LADY L. Trust in God; not in one thing, or another, but in all. Resign the care of this wanderer to His guidance.

ELIZ. G. He abandoned that guidance.

LADY L. Unfortunate! how can money then avail him?

ELIZ. G. It might save him from distress, and from despair, from the taunts of the hard-hearted, and from the inclemency of the godly. LADY L. In godliness, O my friend! there cannot be inclemency. ELIZ. G. You are thinking of perfection, my dear lady; and I marvěl not at it; for what else hath ever occupied your thoughts! But godliness, in almost the best of us, often is austere, often uncompliant and rigid, proner to reprove than pardon, to drag back or thrust aside, than to invite or help onward.

Poor man! I never knew him before; I cannot tell how he shall endure his self-reproach, or whether it will bring him to calmer thoughts hereafter.

LADY L. I am not a busy idler in curiosity; nor, if I were, is there time enough left me for indulging in it; yet gladly would I learn the history of events, at first appearance so resembling those of mine.

ELIZ. G. The person's name I never may disclose; which would be the worst thing I could betray of the trust he placed in me. He took refuge in my humble dwelling, imploring me in the name of Christ to harbor him for a season. Food and raiment were afforded him unsparingly; yet his fears made him shiver through them. Whatever I could urge of prayer and exhortation was not wanting; still, although he prayed, he was disquieted. Soon came to my ears the declaration of the king, that his majesty would rather pardon a rebel than the concealer of a rebel. The hope was a faint one, but it was a hope, and I gave it him. His thanksgivings were now more ardent, his prayers more humble, and oftener repeated. They did not strengthen his heart; it was unpurified and unprepared for them. Poor creature! he consented with it to betray me, and I am condemned to be burnt alive. Can we believe, can we encourage the hope, that in his weary way through life he will find those only who will conceal from him the knowledge of this execution? Heavily, too heavily, must it weigh on so irresolute and infirm a breast. Let it not move you to weeping.

LADY L. It does not: oh! it does not.

LADY L. Your saintly tenderness, your heavenly, godlike calm

ness.

ELIZ. G. No, no; abstain! abstain ! it was I who grieved: it was

I who doubted. Let us now be firmer-we have both the same Rock to rest upon. See! I shed no tears.

I saved his life, an unprofitable and (I fear) a joyless one: he, by God's grace, has thrown open to me, and at an earlier hour than ever I ventured to expect it, the avenue of eternal bliss.

LADY L. O my angel! that strewest with fresh flowers a path already smooth and pleasant to me, may those timorous men who have betrayed, and those misguided ones who have persecuted us, be conscious on their death-beds that we have entered it! And they, too, will at last find rest. W. S. LANDor.

CLVIII.-THE FOUNDING OF THE BELL.

HARK! how the furnace pants and roars,
Hark! how the molten metal pours,

As, bursting from its iron doors,
It glitters in the sun.

Now through the ready mould it flows,
"Seething and hissing as it goes,
And filling every crevice up,

As the red vintage fills the cup-
Hurra! the work is done!

Unswathe him now. Take off each stay
That binds him to his couch of clay,
And let him struggle into day!
Let chain and pulley run,

With yielding crank and steady rope,
Until he rise from rim to cope,
In rounded beauty, ribbed in strength,
Without a flaw in all his length-
Hurra! the work is done!

The clapper on his giant side,

Shall ring no peal for blushing bride,
For birth, or death, or new year tide,
Or festival begun!

A nation's joy alone shall be
A signal for his revelry;

And for a nation's woes alone

His melancholy tongue shall moan-
Hurra! the work is done!

Borne on the gale, deep-toned and clear,
His long loud summons shall we hear,
When statesmen to their country dear
Their mortal race have run;
When mighty monarchs yield their breath,
And patriots sleep the sleep of death,
Then shall he raise his voice of gloom,
And peal a requiem o'er their tomb-
Hurra! the work is done!

Should foemen lift their haughty hand,
And dare invade us whêre we stand,
Fast by the altars of our land

We'll gather every one;

And he shall ring that loud alarm,
To call the multitudes to arm,
From distant field and forest brown,
And teeming alleys of the town-
Hurra! the work is done!

And as the solemn boom they hear,
Old men shall grasp the idle spear,
Laid by to rust for many a year,

And to the struggle run:

Young men shall leave their toils or books, Or turn to swords their pruning-hooks; And maids have sweetest smiles for those Who battle with their country's foesHurra! the work is done!

And when the cannon's iron throat
Shall bear the news to dells remote,
And trumpet blast resound the note-
That victory is won ;

When down the wind the banner drops,
And bonfires blaze on mountain tops,
His sides shall glow with fierce delight,
And ring glad peals from morn till night-
Hurra! the work is done!

But of such themes forbear to tell

May never war awake this bell

To sound the tocsin or the knell-
Hushed be the alarum gun.

Sheathed be the sword! and may his voice
But call the nations to rejoice,