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And gushing oceans every barrier rend,
Until the very deserts know no thirst?
Accurst

Be he, who made thee and thy sire!

We deem our curses vain; we must expire;

But as we know the worst,

Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent,

Since we must fall the same?

If he hath made earth, let it be his shame,
To make a world for torture:-Lo! they come
The loathsome waters in their rage!

And with their roar make wholesome nature dumb!
The forest's trees (coeval with the hour

When Paradise upsprung,

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower,

Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung,)

So massy, vast, yet green in their old age,
Are overtopt,

Their summer blossoms by the surges lopt,
Which rise, and rise, and rise.

Vainly we look up to the lowering skies—
They meet the seas,

And shut out God from our beseeching eyes.
Fly, son of Noah, fly, and take thine ease
In thine allotted Ocean-tent;

And view, all floating o'er the Element,
The corpses of the world of thy young days:
Then to Jehovah raise

Thy song of praise!

A Mortal. Blessed are the dead

Who die in the Lord!

And though the waters be o'er earth outspread,

Yet, as his word,

Be the decree adored!

He gave me life-he taketh but

The breath which is his own:

And though these eyes should be forever shut, Nor longer this weak voice before his throne Be heard in supplicating tone,

Still blessed be the Lord,

For what is past,

For that which is:

For all are his,

From first to last

Time-space-eternity-life-death

• The vast known and immeasurable unknown. He made, and can unmake;

And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, Blaspheme and groan?

No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake!

Chorus of Mortals.

Where shall we fly?

Not to the mountains high;*

For now their torrents rush with double roar,
To meet the ocean, which, advancing still,
Already grasps each drowning hill,

Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave.

Enter a Woman.

Woman, Oh, save me, save!

Our valley is no more:

My father and my father's tent,

My brethren and my brethren's herds,

The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent

And sent forth evening songs from sweetest birds, The little rivulet which freshen'd all

Our pastures green,

No more are to be seen.

When to the mountain cliff I climb'd this morn,

1 turn'd to bless the spot,

And not a leaf appear'd about to fall;

And now they are not!

Why was I born?

Japh.

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To die! in youth to die;

And happier in that doom,

Than to behold the universal tomb

Which I

Am thus condemn'd to weep above in vain.
Why, when all perish, why must I remain?

[The Waters rise: Men fly in every direction; many are
overtaken by the waves; the Chorus of Mortals disperses
in search of safety up the Mountains; Japhet remainsTM
upon a rock, while the Ark floats towards him in the
distance.

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;

Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;

O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Ægina's rock and Idra's isle,

The God of gladness sheds his parting smile.
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches, through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints along their summits driven
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven!
Till darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.
On such an eve, his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last!
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray
That clos'd their murder'd sage's latest day!
Not yet not yet-Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,

And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes.
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown'd before;

But ere he sunk beneath Citharon's head,
The cup of wo was quaff'd-the spirit fled;
The soul of him who scorn'd to fear or fly,
Who liv'd and died as none can live or die.

But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign;*
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,

Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form:
With cornice glimmering as the moon beams play-
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret.

The groves of olive, scatter'd dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque;}
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,†
And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm;
All ting'd with varied hues arrest the eye,
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.
Again the Egean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war?
Again his waves in milder tints unfold

Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

As thus within the walls of Pattas' fane

I mark'd the beauties of the land and main,

*The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country. The days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

+ The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house-the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes-Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Illi ssus has no stream at all.

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