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!

And we know that they will not be lured to earth
From the land of deathless flowers,

By the feast, or the dance, or the song of mirth,
Though their hearts were once with ours;

Though they sat with us by the night-fire's blaze,
And bent with us the bow;

And heard the tales of our father's days,

Which are told to others now!

But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain,
Can those who have loved forget?
We call and they answer not again—
-Do they love-do they love us yet?

Doth the warrior think of his brother there,

And the father of his child?

And the chief of those that were wont to share
His wanderings through the wild?

We call them far through the silent night,
And they speak not from cave or hill,

We know, thou bird! that their land is bright,
But say, do they love there still?

Mrs Hemans.

THE CLOUD.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams ;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,

And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast ;

And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under, is fettered the thunder,

It struggles and howls at fits;