STILL o'er yon rock-built towers the heavenly foe
Hovers in gloom, and bends the fatal bow ;
Still, as the arrows urge their vengeful speed,
Thy princes, Thebes, thy sons, Amphion, bleed.
Low lie the honours of that boasted race,

Youth's manly bloom and beauty's virgin grace,
And the last victim now, in wild despair,
Flies to her mother's breast-to perish there.
Closely she clings, her throbbing heart beats high,
And fear looks eager from her youthful eye.

Undaunted Art! and could thy magic power

Recall the terrors of that dreadful hour,

Bid the cold stone with life and passion glow,
Pant with affright, and heave with silent woe?
Yes, at thy touch the rugged mass grew warm,
And softening shrunk and melted into form,
O'er ev'ry feature spread the mimic pain,

And the pale parent liv'd and mourn'd again.
Earnest to save, but pow'rless to defend,
Still o'er her child the princess seem'd to bend,
As if she wish'd, ere yet the shaft had flown,
That tender frame might mingle with her own,
Till death no more his shuddering prey could trace,

So lost and buried in the firm embrace.

Stately her form, as when the wond'ring throng
Stood awed and breathless as she mov'd along,

When, maddening in her pride and headlong ire,
Her fair cheek glowing with delirious fire,

Scorn in each glance that spoke her haughty mind, Her long, loose tresses waving on the wind,

A

Sublime in impious majesty she came

To brave Heaven's power, and mock Latona's name. But quench'd in sorrow now that frenzy dies, Sadly they plead, those full, imploring eyes;

E'en such a look some captive wretch would throw, Who ask'd, yet hop'd not mercy from his foe; Where pride, though vanquish'd, lives, and strong desire

That lingers still, if hope itself expire.

Fix'd and unchanging with her latest breath,

Those lines of anguish shall congeal in death,

When, charg'd with two-fold fate, the same bright

dart

Has pierc'd the child, and burst the mother's heart.
With deep and stifling agony opprest,

The pulse of life seems pausing in her breast,
Set is her eye, that speaks its latest prayer,

Her soul, her being, seem suspended there;

No sound, no sign shall mark her dying pains,

No deadening chill creep sluggish through her veins, Her mightier fate shall bear no faint delay,

But, lightning-like, at once be seen and slay.

AMID the wrecks of age, o'er wasted lands,
Fix'd as his fame, the Hero's Temple stands:
Though many a pile, wide mould'ring on the plain,
Mark the dread scene of Desolation's reign;
Though desert fields, and rifted towers declare
The shocks of nature, or the waste of war;
Yet rear'd in monarch state that fane appears,
Proud o'er the lapse of twice ten hundred years,
And seems to live an emblem to the brave,
How Time reveres the Patriot Hero's grave.
Above the pride of Art, and boldly plain,

In simplest grandeur stands the Dorian fane;