THE VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

THE king was on his throne,

The satraps thronged the hall; A thousand bright lamps shone O'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deemed divine,-
Jehovah's vessels,-hold

The godless heathen's wine!
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:

The fingers of a man,

A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice :-
“Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."
Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw, but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth;
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;

He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,

His kingdom passed away;
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud his robe of state,

His canopy the stone;

The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

[Byron.

WAR-SONG OF THE GREEKS, 1822.

AGAIN to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,-
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free ;
For the cross of our faith is replanted,

The pale dying crescent is daunted,

And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves, May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves; Their spirits are hovering o'er us,

And the sword shall to glory restore us.

Ah! what though no succor advances,

Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances

Are stretched in our aid ?—Be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone:

For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,

By the virgins they 've dragged from our altars, By our massacred patriots, our children in chains, By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins, That living, we will be victorious,

Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious.

A breath of submission we breathe not;

The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not;
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.

Earth may hide,-waves engulf,-fire consume us,
But they shall not to slavery doom us:

If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves ;—
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on land are before us.

To the charge!—Heaven's banner is o'er us!

[Campbell.

WHAT IS TIME?

I ASKED an aged man, a man of cares, Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs: "Time is the warp of life," he said, "oh, tell The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!"

I asked the ancient, venerable dead,

Sages who wrote, and warriors who had bled:
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed,
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode !"
I asked a dying sinner, ere the tide

Of life had left his veins: "Time!" he replied;
"I've lost it! Ah, the treasure!"—and he died.
I asked the golden sun and silver spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years:
They answered, Time is but a meteor glare!"
And bade us for eternity prepare.

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I asked the seasons, in their annual round,
Which beautify, or desolate the ground:
And they replied (no oracle more wise),
"'Tis folly's blank, and wisdom's highest prize!"
I asked a spirit lost: but oh, the shriek

That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak!
It cried, "A particle, a speck, a mite
Of endless years, duration infinite!"
Of things inanimate, my dial I

Consulted, and it made me this reply:
"Time is the season fair of living well,
The path of glory, or the path of hell.”
I asked my Bible and methinks it said,
"Time is the present hour,—the past is fled;
Live! live to-day!-to-morrow never yet
On any human being rose or set.”

I asked old father Time himself, at last,
But in a moment he flew swiftly past:

His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.

BOADICEA.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods;

Sage, beneath a spreading oak,
Sat the Druid, hoary chief,
Every burning word he spoke,

Full of rage and full of grief:

"Rome shall perish,-write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

[Marsden.

"Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name,

Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,
Harmony the path to fame.

"Then the progeny that springs

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From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.

Regions Cæsar never knew

Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."

Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire;
Bending as he swept the chords,
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow,—
Rushed to battle, fought and died,-
Dying, hurled them at the foe:

"Ruffians! pitiless as proud!

Heaven awards the vengeance due!

Empire is on us bestowed,-
Shame and ruin wait on you!"

THE GRAVE OF THE GREYHOUND.

THE spearmen heard the bugle sound,
And cheerly smiled the morn,
And many a dog and many a hound
Obeyed Lewellyn's horn.

[Cowper.