With shreds of papal vesture tied
To flaunting robes of princely pride,
In formal state, on sumptuous throne,
Daughter of her of Babylon,

Sat bigotry. Her chilling breath
To fires of heavenly warmth was death;
Her iron sceptre England swayed,
Religion withering in its shade.

The shepherd might not kneel to call.
On Him, the common sire of all,
Unless his lips, with harsh constraint,
Were tuned to accents cold and faint:
For man's devices had o'erwrought
The volume by a Saviour bought;
And clogged devotion's soaring wing
That up to heaven should instant spring,
With phrases set, that bore no part
In the warm service of the heart.
But why recount their sorrows past,
From the first martyr to the last?
Or pope's or bishop's bigot zeal,
Alike their hate of Christian weal;
Or torture's pangs and faggot's flame,
Or fines and exile, 'twas the same,
Same Antichrist, whom prophets old
With sad announcing voice foretold!

"Such were the wrongs that cried to heaven—
What time shall see those wrong's forgiven!
O ENGLAND ! from thine earliest age,
Land of the warrior and the sage!

*

*

*

Parent of bards whose harps rehearse
Immortal deeds in deathless verse!
O ENGLAND! can thy pride forget
Thy soil with martyr's blood is wet?
Bethink thee,-like the plagues which sleep
In earth's dark bosom buried deep,
As the poor savage deems,—that o'er
Thine head, the vials yet in store,
Vials of righteous wrath must pour!
"Strong was the love to heaven which bare
From their dear homes and altars far,
The old, the young, the wise, the brave,
The rich, the noble and the fair,

And led them, o'er the mighty wave,
Uncertain peril's front to dare.

Strong was their love; and strong the Power
Whose red right arm, in danger's hour,
Was bared on high their path to show,
Through changeful scenes of weal and wo;
By signs and wonders, as of old,

When Israel journeyed through the waste,
Was its mysterious guidance told;

Though lightnings flashed, and thunders rolled,
The sunbeam glorious smiled at last.'

The passage is too long for us to venture upon extracting the whole of it; but the succeeding part of it is scarcely inferior in force to the part selected.

The intenseness of interest, with which Ahauton watches the countenance of Nora, as she is recovering her lost senses, after her child had been torn from her by a party of Philip's, is finely illustrated. p. 82.

The Fourth Canto is chiefly occupied with a vivid picture of Indian superstition. We believe it to be substantially faithful; and the management of this part of the poem furnishes one of its strongest claims to general admiration. Although it is not to be denied, that the invocation is extended to a length rather incompatible with the continuance of interest, which it is generally possible to sustain in passages of the same sublimity of character, yet the variations of measure, in which great skill is displayed, tend considerably to relieve it. We cannot allow ourselves more than a very short extract from this part; quite insufficient to display the general strength of the passage. pp. 143-147.

1.

"SPIRIT! THOU SPIRIT of subtlest air,
Whose power is upon the brain,

When wonderous shapes, and dread and fair,
As the film from the eyes at thy bidding flies,
To sight and sense are plain!

2.

"Thy whisper creeps where leaves are stirred;
Thou sighest in woodland gale;

Where waters are gushing thy voice is heard;
And when stars are bright, at still midnight,
Thy symphonies prevail !

3.

"Where the forest ocean, in quick commotion,
Is waving to and fro,

Thy form is seen, in the masses green,
Dimly to come and go.

From thy covert peeping, where thou layest sleeping,
Beside the brawling brook,

Thou art seen to wake, and thy flight to take
Fleet from thy lonely nook.

4.

Where the moonbeam has kist the sparkling tide,
In thy mantle of mist thou art seen to glide.
Far o'er the blue waters melting away,

On the distant billow, as on a pillow,

Thy form to lay.

5.

"Where the small clouds of even are wreathing in heaven

Their garland of roses

O'er the purple and gold, whose hangings enfold

The hall that encloses

The couch of the sun, whose empire is done,-
There thou art smiling,

For thy sway is begun,-thy shadowy sway,
The senses beguiling,

When the light fades away;

And thy vapour of mystery o'er nature ascending,
The heaven and the earth,

The things that have birth,

And the embryos that float in the future, is blending.

II.-1.

"From the land on whose shores the billows break,

The sounding waves of the mighty lake;

From the land where boundless meadows be,
Where the buffalo ranges wild and free;
With silvery coat in his little isle,
Where the beaver plies his ceaseless toil;
The land where pigmy forms abide,
Thou leadest thy train at the even tide;
And the wings of the wind are left behind,
So swift through the pathless air they glide.

2.

Then to the chief who has fasted long,

When the chains of his slumber are heavy and strong, VOL. II.

9

SPIRIT! thou comest; he lies as dead,
His weary lids are with heaviness weighed;
But his soul is abroad on the hurricane's pinion,
Where foes are met in the rush of fight.
In the shadowy world of thy dominion
Conquering and slaying, till morning light!

3.

Then shall the hunter who waits for thee,
The land of the game rejoicing see;

Through the leafless wood, o'er the frozen flood,
And the trackless snows his spirit goes,

Along the sheeted plain,

Where the hermit bear, in his sullen lair,
Keeps his long fast, till the winter hath past,
And the boughs have budded again.

SPIRIT OF DREAMS! all thy visions are true,

Who the shadow hath seen, he the substance shall view.*

The apostrophe of Yamoyden in the Fifth Canto is eloquent. p.

189.

"Roar on ye winds! your voice must be

Sweet as the bridal chant to me.

Widowed in love, with hate I wed,
Espoused within her gory bed.

The storm of heaven will soon be past,

And all be bright and calm at last;
But man in cruelty and wrong
The tempest's fury will prolong,
And pause not in his fell career
Save o'er my brethren's general bier.
Then come my foes! your work is done!
I cannot weep, I will not groan.
My fathers winced not at the stake,
Nor gave revenge, with torture rife,
One drop its burning thirst to slake,
To the last ebbing drop of life.
My heart is cold and desolate ;-
I shall not struggle long with fate.
Had I a mortal foe, and were
His form to rise upon me here,
There is no power within my soul,
My arm or weapon to control ;-
Sunken and cold! but it will rise,
With my lost tribe's last battle cries ;-
And death will come, like the last play
Of lightning on a stormy day!"

The introductory stanzas-impressively descriptive of the departing voice of the Indian race-lead the imagination to extend the catastrophe of their destruction and expulsion from our original colonies, to their entire extermination, in the course of ages, from the whole Continent.

'Hark to that shriek upon the summer blast!
Wildly it swells the fitful gusts between,
And as its dying echoes faint have past,

Sad moans the night-wind o'er the troubled scene.
Sunk is the day, obscured the valleys green;
Nor moon, nor stars are glimmering in the sky,
Thick veiled behind their tempest-gathered screen;
Lost in deep shades the hills and waters lie;
Whence rose that boding scream, that agonizing cry?
Spirit of Eld! who, on thy moss-clad throne,
Record'st the actions of the mighty dead;
By whom the secrets of the past are known,
And all oblivion's spell-bound volume read ;-
Sleep wo and crime beneath thine awful tread?
Or is't but idle fancy's mockery vain,

Who loves the mists of wonder round to spread?

No! 'tis a sound of sadder, sterner strain,

Spirit of by-gone years, that haunts thine ancient reign!

"Tis the death wail of a departed race,

Long vanished hence, unhonoured in their grave;

Their story lost to memory, like the trace

That to the greensward erst their sandals gave;
-Wail for the feather-cinctured warriors brave,
Who, battling for their fathers' empire well,
Perished, when valour could no longer save
From soulless bigotry, and avarice fell,

That tracked them to the death, with mad, infuriate yell.

Spirit of Eld! inspire one generous verse,
The unpractised minstrel's tributary song;
Mid these thine ancient groves he would rehearse
The closing story of their Sachem's wrong.

On that rude column, shrined thy wrecks among,
Tradition! names there are, which time hath worn,
Nor yet effaced; proud names, to which belong
A dismal tale of foul oppressions, borne,

Which man can ne'er recall, but which the muse may mourn.' We cannot swell this article with any further extracts from this interesting poem. We have reason to be proud of it; and although we are not unfrequently reminded of Campbell and Byron, of