"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, The father whom thy faithful heart * His dark eye flash'd, his proud breast heaved, A lowly knee to earth he bent, * That hand was cold-a frozen thing- A plume waved o'er that noble brow- He met at last his father's eyes- Up from the ground he sprung, and gazed! It hush'd their very hearts, who saw They might have chain'd him, as before For the power was stricken from his arm, "Father!" at length he murmur'd low, And wept like childhood then ;— He flung the falchion from his side, And covering with his steel-gloved hands "No more, there is no more," he said, "To lift the sword for now. My King is false, my hope betray'd, The glory and the loveliness, 30 I thought to stand where banners waved, I would that there on Spain's free soil Thou would'st have known my spirit then, But thou hast perish'd in thy chains, As if thou had'st no son." Then, starting from the ground once more, He seized the Monarch's rein, Amid the pale and wilder'd looks And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, "Came I not here upon thy pledge, My father's hand to kiss?— Be still, and gaze thou on, false King! The look, the voice, the heart I sought- "Into these glassy eyes put light,— Give me back him for whom I strove, 12 He loosed the rein; his slack hand fell! He cast one long, deep, troubled look,- Untold in martial strain, His banner led the spears no more Mrs. Hemans. 3 ON WAR. 4 1Low, well modulated voice; very distinct articulation. 2 Soft, tremulous, pathetic tone. Acute grief. Extreme tenderness. 5 Clear and elevated voice; distinct articulation. Melting tenderness. Acute grief. Pity and tenderness; voice variously modulated. Increased tenderness. 10 Tones firm, cheerful, and well modulated. "Tones cheerful; voice commencing low, and gradually increased into a buoyant climax. 12 Relapsing into low voice, and gradually swelling into a bold enthusiastic climax to the conclusion. 1 Of all the curses that afflict humanity, war is the most dreadful. It drives its destructive ploughshare over whole nations. Liberty, Peace, and Prosperity fly from its presence-gaunt Famine stalks after it with destructive strides, and Iron Despotism closes the scene. 2 3 If we cast our eyes over the whole of the picture, what gloomy scenes present themselves. Behold, amid the festal shouts of triumph, that aged matron wringing her hands in speechless agony -with the briny flood furrowing her wan cheek, and the worm of sorrow cankering her soul, and wasting her withered form. 3 Aye! she has drunk the cup of sorrow to its very dregs: her son, the light of her eyes, and her only stay during the last years of her pilgrimage her child, to whom she clung with all the tenderness of a mother's love-is snatched from her embraces for ever, and the last battle has sealed his eyes in death. 5 Amid the flashes and the smoke of artillery-the trampling of horses, and the groans of the dying—® behold that orphan cleaving to the bloody clay of its perishing parent, pale, hopeless, and tearless; and now with tattered garb, and tottering step, shivering amid the pelting of the pitiless storm, and wandering an outcast amongst the abodes of men, a 'prey to famine, and disease, and despair. See the soldier torn away from the smiles of his family, and the cheerful blaze of his fireside enduring the heart-wringing anguish of the parting scene the last embrace-the long-long adieu,-tossing on the stormy billow, and viewing his native home lessening and lessening on his sight, and marking the dim waved signal of some dear relative on the beach; sinking during day under the scorching blaze of the sun, and wasted at night amid damps and dews;-if spared from the general havoc of battle, sent, perhaps, with all his wounds green and fresh upon him, into some wet and suffocating dungeon, and with no kind hand to smooth his lonely pillow, or pour balm into his wounds, or watch over his broken slumbers; and deprived of sweet air, and sweeter liberty,—his imagination wanders among the verdant plains, or fresh mountain breezes of his youth, and amongst those beloved beings, who cheered and brightened his path in later years. But, alas! 10 9 "For him no more the blazing hearth shall burn, No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share." But, notwithstanding this gloomy picture, there are occasions on which war is undertaken, which not only extenuate its guilt, but even cast a solid lustre over its woes. "Great has been our pleasure, when sitting at our firesides, and enjoying our comforts unmolested, to hear the roar of battle afar off-to mark the gathering glories of our triumphs, and to hail the tyrant's downfall. High is the delight of the warrior, when returning to the bosom of his family-heralded by the trumpet of fame-crowned with the laurels of victory-greeted by the applause of grateful senates, and hailed by the shouts of an emancipated people. 12 So felt Gideon, when he sheathed the sword of the Lord in its scabbard, and entered with trembling extasy the threshold of the temple, now no longer polluted by the unhallowed footstep of the heathen-when he was saluted by the triumphant songs of the Hebrew maidens, and cheered by the approving smile of his God. So felt Themistocles, when thousands rose before him in reverential homage, at the Olympic games, when he had driven back the Persian tyrant, with his countless hosts, in shame and confusion, to their seraglios and their parasites,-plucked his country from the jaws of destruction, and raised her to a proud and dazzling pre-eminence amongst the nations—a vast and imperishable monument of the quenchless fires of the freeman's heart, and the resistless might of the freeman's arm. So felt Washington, when he moved on in his career, in the silent majesty of a planet-giving life and light to an infant republic. So felt Wellington, when, amid the desolation of a continent, and the universal crash of ruin, he went forth, the champion of Britain and of Europe,-shivered into atoms that fabric, which had risen on the ashes of the shrine and the sanctuary-burst the fetters of imprisoned nations, and seized the arch-magician in the midst of his hellish incantations. THE DIRGE OF WALLACE. 'Low pathetic tone. 2 Deep grief. 3 Sorrow. 4 Heroic reflection; tones bold, clear, and elevated. 5 Tones lowered, but bold and firm. 'Tones elevated; confident admiration. 1 THEY lighted a taper, at the dead of night, And chanted their holiest hymn; But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright, And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord, When a death-watch beat in her lonely room, "Now sing you the death-song, and loudly pray For night-mare rides on my strangled sleep; 3 Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, That a trumpet of death, on an English tower, On the high-born blood of a martyr slain; Oh! it was not thus when his oaken spear And hosts of a thousand were scattered, like deer When he strode on the wreck of each well-fought field, |