And 'twas as wild and still within the square, This square of luxury! The morn arose, An iron harvest bristled through the air, Bayonet and pike in countless, close-rocked rows, Silent as death, the crowd, the grim repose Before the earthquake ;-none from roof or wall Might look; no hand the casement might unclose. And in their centre, frowning o'er them all, Their idol the sole God before whose name they fall,

The Guillotine!—when hell proposed the feast, Where guilty France was drunk, but not with wine, Till madness sat upon her visioned breast, This was the press that crushed her bloody vine. To this grim altar came the shuddering line, Whose worship was,-beneath its knife to lie; The haggard traitors to the throne and shrine, By traitors crushed, that in their turn must die; Till massacre engulphed the wreck of liberty.

The Guillotine!-It stood in that pale day
Like a huge spectre, just from earth upsprung,
To summon from the tomb the fierce array
That round its feet in desperate homage clung.
But on the wind a sudden trumpet rung,
All eyes were turned, and far as eye could stray,

Was caught a light, from moving helmets flung,

A banner tossing in the tempest's sway,

A wain that through the throng slow toiled its weary way.

'Tis done, the monarch on the scaffold stands;
The headsmen grasp him of the myriads there,
That hear his voice, that see his fettered hands,
Not one has given a blessing or a tear.
But that old priest who answers him in prayer.
He speaks; his dying thoughts to France are given:
His voice is drowned; for murder has no ear.
The saint unmurmuring to the axe is driven.
If ever spirit rose, that heart is calm in heaven.

*

France was anathema. Her cup before
Was full, but this o'ertopped its burning brim,
And plagues, like serpent-teeth, her entrails tore;
Crime slipped to ravage through a land of crime !
In the sacked sepulchre caroused the mime!
On God's high altar sat idolatry;

Before the harlot knelt the nation's prime,

And sons dragged fathers, fathers sons to die, 'Till judgment girt the bow on its eternal thigh.

Croly.

MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION

For JOHN THORNTON of Clapham, Esq. who died at Bath, November 7. 1791.

Know, solemn visitant of the remains

Of Thornton, what high respect is due
The sacred cemetery that contains
What seen brought every virtue into view.

Say not, ye busy! that your cares exclude
Philanthropy's exertions and its joys:
The eminently active, and the good,
An unremitting industry employs.

Success sooths vanity; but he remains
Modest and pious, while his stores increase :
To generous views he consecrates his gains;
And, when these fail, his riches never cease.

Not by the poet's verse, or sculptor's art,
His name shall live, respected and revered :
He ever lives, upon the feeling heart,
And, as more known, is ever more endeared.

When time shall cease to run, and every bust
Resign its charge, his memory shall endure:
Dear to the Saviour is his servant's dust.
His first renowned, the patron of the poor.
Rev. Dr Martin.

THE SHADOW.

I.

Upon yon dial-stone

Behold the shade of time,

For ever circling on and on,
In silence more sublime

Than if the thunders of the spheres
Pealed forth its march to mortal ears.

A robe of dark-sepulchral green,
The mantle of decay-
The fold of chill oblivion's pall,
That falleth with yon shadow's fall.

IV.

Day is the time for toil;

Night balms the weary breast; Stars have their vigils, seas awhile

Will sink to peaceful rest;

But round and round the shadow creeps Of that which slumbers not-nor sleeps!

V.

Effacing all that's fair—

Hushing the voice of mirth

Into the silence of despair

Around the lonesome hearth,— And training ivy garlands green O'er the once gay and social scene.

VI.

J

In beauty fading fast,

21

Its silent trace appears,

And-where, a phantom of the past

Dim in the mist of years,

Gleams Tadmor o'er oblivion's waves, Like wrecks above their ocean graves.