Which answered not with a caress-he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and make a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects-saw, and shrieked, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay,

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths:

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon their mistress had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished; darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the universe.

WAR.

Prostrate in the dust

Those walls were laid, and towns and temples stood

Tottering in frightful ruins, as the flame

Had left them, black and bare; and through the streets,

All with the recent wreck of war bestrewn,

Helmet and turban, scymitar and sword,

Christian and Moor in death promiscuous lay,

Each where they fell; and blood flakes, parched and

cracked,

Like the dry slime of some receding flood;

And half-burnt bodies, which allured from far

The wolf and raven, and to impious food
Tempted the houseless dog.

A thrilling pang,

A sweat like death, a sickness of the soul

Came over Roderick. Soon they past away,

And admiration in their stead arose,

Byron.

Stern joy, and inextinguishable hope,

With wrath, and hate, and sacred vengeance now
Indissolubly linked. O valiant race,
O people excellently brave, he cried,

True Goths ye fell, and faithful to the last;
Though overpowered, triumphant, and in death
Unconquered! Holy be your memories!
Blessed and glorious now and evermore
Be your heroic names !-Led by the sound,
As thus he cried aloud, a woman came
Toward him from the ruins. For the love
Of Christ, she said, lend me a little while
Thy charitable help!-Her words, her voice,
Her look, more horror to his heart conveyed
Than all the havoc round; for though she spake
With the calm utterance of despair, in tones
Deep-breathed and low, yet never sweeter voice
Poured forth its hymns in ecstacy to heaven.
Her hands were bloody, and her garments stained
With blood, her face with blood and dust defiled.
Beauty and youth, and grace and majesty,
Had every charm of form and feature given;
But now upon her rigid countenance

Severest anguish set a fixedness:

Ghastlier than death.

She led him through the streets

A little way along, where four low walls,
Heapt rudely from the ruins round, inclosed
A narrow space; and there upon the ground
Four bodies, decently composed, were laid,
Though horrid all with wounds and clotted gore:
A venerable ancient; by his side

A comely matron, for whose middle age
(If ruthless slaughter had not intervened)
Nature it seemed, and gentle time, might well
Have many a calm declining year in store;
The third an armed warrior, on his breast
An infant, over whom his arms were crost.
There with firm eye and steady countenance,
Unfaultering, she addressed him-there they lie,
Child, husband, parents-Adosinda's all !
I could not break the earth with these poor hands,
Nor other tombs provide-but let that pass-
Auria itself is now but one wide tomb

For all its inhabitants-what better grave?
What worthier monument ?-Oh cover not

Their blood, thou earth! nor ye, ye blessed souls

Of heroes and of murdered innocents,

O never let your everlasting cries

Cease round the eternal throne, till the Most High, For all these unexampled wrongs, hath given

Full, overflowing vengeance.

Southey

THE MESSENGER BIRD.

Some of the native Brazilians pay great veneration to a certain bird that sings mournfully in the night-time. They say it is a messenger which their deceased friends and relations have sent, and that it brings them news from the other world.

See Picart's Ceremonies and Religious Customs,

Thou art come from the spirit's land, thou bird!
Thou art come from the spirit's land!
Through the dark pine-grove let thy voice be heard,
And tell of the shadowy band!

We know that the bowers are green and fair
In the light of the summer shore;

And we know that the friends we have lost are there,
They are there-and they weep no more!

And we know they have quenched their fever's thirst
From the fountain of youth ere now;

For there must the stream in its freshness burst
Which none may find below!