Long the remaind-th' enamour'd Knight,

Impatient at her stay,
And all unfit to tafte delight

When BIRTHA was away. .

Betakes him to the secret Bower ;

His footsteps softly move ; Impellid by every tender power, He steals upon his love.

0, horror ! horror ! blafting fight !

He sees his BIRTHA's charms, Reclin'd with melting fond delight,

Within a stranger's arms.

Wild frenzy fires bis frantic hand,

Distracted at the fight,
He flies to where the lovers ftand,

And tabs the stranger Knight.

“ Die traitor, die, thy guilty flames

“ Demand th' avenging steel”. “ It is my brother, the exclaims,

“ 'Tis EdwY_Oh farewell !

aged peasant, Edwy's guide, The good old ARDOLPH fought ; He told him that his bosom's pride,

His Epwy, he had brought.

O how the father's feelings melt!

How faint and how revive !
Just so the Hebrew Patriarch felt,

To find his son alive,

“ Let me behold my darling's face,

« And bless him ere I die! Then with a swift and vigorous pace,

He to the the Bower did hie.

O'fad reverse !-funk on the ground

His Naughter'd son he view'd, And dying BIRTHA close he found

In brother's blood imbru'd.

Cold, speechless, senseless ELDRED near

Gaz'd on the deed he'd done : Like the blank statue of Despair,

Or Madness gravid in ftone.

The father law-so Jepthah stood,

So turn'd his woe-fraught eye, When the dear, destin'd child he view'd,

His zeal had doom'd to die.

He look'd the woe he could not speak,

And on the pale corse prest
His wan, discolour'd, dying cheek,

,
And filent, sunk to reft.

Then Birtha faintly rais'd her eye,

, Which long had ceas'd to stream, On Eldred fix'd with many a figh

Its dim, departing beam.

The cold, cold dews of haftening death

Upon her pale face stand; And quick and short her failing breath,

And tremulous her hand.

The cold, cold dews of haftening death,

The dim, departing eye,
The quivering hand, the short quick breath

He view'd-and did not die.

He saw her spirit mount in air,

Its kindred skies to seek !
His heart its anguish could not bear,

And yet it would not break.

The mournful Muse forbears to tell

How wretched Eldred died :
She draws the Grecian * Painter's veil,

The raft diftress to hide.

Yet Heaven's decrees are just and wise,

And man is born to bear, Joy is the portion of the skies,

Beneath them, all is care.

* In the celebrated Pi&ure of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Timanthes having exhausted every image of grief in the by-standers, threw a veil over the face of the father, whose forrow he was utterly unable to express. Plin. Book xxxv.

Τ Η Ε Ε Ν D.

'The annual wound allur'd
The Syrien damfels to lament his fate,
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native Rock
Ran purple to the sea suppos'd with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded.

MILTON

Tiirry: pipiripiri

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