Dead bodies, that the kite Scare schoolboys from their play! THE SLAVE SINGING AT MIDNIGHT. LOUD he sang the Psalm of David! He, a Negro and enslaved, Sang of Israel's victory, Sang of Zion, bright and free. In that hour, when night is calmest, Songs of triumph, and ascriptions, And the voice of his devotion Paul and Silas, in their prison, Brings the Slave this glad evangel? THE QUADROON GIRL. THE Slaver in the broad lagoon Under the shore his boat was tied, Odours of orange-flowers, and spice, The Planter, under his roof of thatch, He said, "My ship at anchor rides I only wait the evening tides, And the rising of the moon." Before them, with her face upraised, Like one half curious, half amazed, Her eyes were large, and full of light, No garment she wore save a kirtle bright, And on her lips there played a smile As lights in some cathedral aisle The features of a saint. "The soil is barren, -the farm is old;" The thoughtful Planter said; Then looked upon the Slaver's gold, His heart within him was at strife With such accursed gains; 1 For he knew whose passions gave her life, But the voice of nature was too weak; Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek, The Slaver led her from the door, He led her by the hand, To be his slave and paramour THE WARNING. BEWARE! The Israelite of old, who tore A pander to Philistine revelry,→ Upon the pillars of the temple laid His desperate hands, and in its overthrow Destroyed himself, and with him those who made A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all, Expired, and thousands perished in the fall! There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, And shake the pillars of this Commonweal, Till the vast Temple of our liberties A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. SCENE I.-The COUNT OF LARA's chambers. Night. The COUNT in his dressing-gown, smoking, and conversing with DON CARLOS. Lara. You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos; How happened it? Don C. I had engagements elsewhere. And Doña Serafina, and her cousins. Lara. It was a dull affair; One of those comedies in which you see, As Lope says, the history of the world Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judgment. "La cólera de un Español sentado no se templa, sino le representan en dos horas haeta el final juicio desde el Génesis."-Lope de Vega, Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds, An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan, Don C. Almost beyond the privilege of woman! Her step was royal,-queen-like, - and her face Lara. May not a saint fall from her Paradise, Don C. Why do you ask? Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary Don C. You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong! She is as virtuous as she is fair. Lara. How credulous you are! Why, look you, friend, There's not a virtuous woman in Madrid, In this whole city! And would you persuade me A model for her virtue? The easier. Don C. You forget And therefore won Nay, not to be won at all! The only virtue that a Gipsy prizes Is chastity. That is her only virtue. Dearer than life she holds it. I remember |