If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:-
A heart has throbbed beneath thy leathern
breast,

And tears adown that dusky cheek have
rolled;-

Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?

Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgmentmorning,

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?

What was thy name and station, age and Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and race?

Statue of flesh! Immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence !
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow
bed,

And standest undecayed within our pre

sence !

pure

In living virtue; that, when both must sever,

Although corruption may our frame con

sume,

The immortal spirit in the skies may
bloom!
HORACE SMITH.

THE SEVENTH PLAGUE OF EGYPT.

"TWAS morn-the rising splendour rolled
On marble towers and roofs of gold;
Hall, court, and gallery below,
Were crowded with a living flow;
Egyptian, Arab, Nubian there,

The bearers of the bow and spear;

The hoary priest, the Chaldee sage,

Take back the answer to your band;—
Go, reap the wind; go, plough the sand;
Go, vilest of the living vile,

To build the never-ending pile,
Till, darkest of the nameless dead,
The vulture on their flesh is fed.
What better asks the howling slave

The slave, the gemmed and glittering page--Than the base life our bounty gave?"
Helm, turban, and tiara shone,

A dazzling ring round Pharaoh's throne.

There came a man-the human tide
Shrank backward from his stately stride:
His cheek with storm and time was tanned;
A shepherd's staff was in his hand.
A shudder of instinctive fear

Told the dark king what step was near:
On through the host the stranger came-
It parted round his form like flame.

He stooped not at the footstool stone,
He clasped not sandal, kissed not throne;
Erect he stood amid the ring,
His only words--" Be just, O king!"
On Pharaoh's cheek the blood flushed high,
A fire was in his sullen eye;

Yet on the chief of Israel

No arrow of his thousands fell:

All mute and moveless as the grave

Stood chilled the satrap and the slave.

66

Loose as the stubble in the field,

Wide flew the men of spear and shield;
Scattered like foam along the wave,

Flew the proud pageant, prince and slave;
Or, in the chains of terror bound,

Thou'rt come," at length the monarch Lay, corpse-like, on the smouldering

Echoed from Earth a hollow roar,
Like ocean on the midnight shore;
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheeled,
The solid ground beneath them reeled;
In dust sank roof and battlement-
Like webs the giant walls were rent;
Red, broad, before his startled gaze,
The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.

A thousand ships were on the wave-
Where are they?-ask that foaming grave!
Down go the hope, the pride of years,
Down go the myriad mariners;
The riches of Earth's richest zone,
Gone, like a flash of lightning, gone!

And, lo! that first fierce triumph o'er,
Swells Ocean on the shrinking shore;

Still swelled the plague--the flame grew Still onward, onward, dark and wide,

pale ;

Burst from the clouds the charge of hail;
With arrowy keenness, iron weight,
Down poured the ministers of fate;
Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed,
Covered with death the boundless field.

Engulfs the land the furious tide!
Then bowed thy spirit, stubborn king,
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting;
Humbled before the prophet's knee,
He groaned, Be injured Israel free!"

66

To heaven the sage upraised his wand;

Still swelled the plague-uprose the blast, Back rolled the deluge from the land;

The avenger, fit to be the last;
On ocean, river, forest, vale,
Thundered at once the mighty gale.
Before the whirlwind flew the tree,
Beneath the whirlwind roared the sea;

Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapours pale;
Broad burned again the joyous sun :--
The hour of wrath and death was
done.
CROLY.

PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

'MID blazing helms, and bucklers rough with gold,

Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots rolled?

On earth's last margin throng the weeping train;

Their cloudy guide moves on:-" And must we swim the main?"

Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's 'Mid the light spray their snorting camels fates,

Mother of armies!

How the emeralds

stood,

Old Thebes hath poured through all her Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood. hundred gates, He comes their leader comes! The man of God O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod, And onward treads. The circling waves retreat,

glowed, Where, flushed with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode !

Red from the scourge, and recent from the chain?

God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!

Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell;

Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled, Giver and Lord of freedom, help the The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;

Down, safely down the narrow pass they And strange and sad the whispering breezes tread; bore The beetling waters storm above their | The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

A few sad relics of a nation's war;-
Alas, how few! Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose hardened heart alike had
borne

The house of bondage and the oppressor's
scorn,

To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train Invoke for light their monster-gods in The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams vain;

subdued, Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude, Till, kindling into warmer zeal, around And tenfold darkness broods above their The virgin timbrel waked its silver line. sound;

sight confine,

Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supled, pressed,

And range unconscious through the ocean's The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam's bed;

breast.

She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky

The dark transparence of her lucid eye, Poured on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony.

'Where now," she sang, 66 the tall Egyptian

spear?

On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where?

Above their ranks the whelming waters spread!

Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !"

Again the prophet stretched his dreadful And every pause between, as Miriam wand.

sang,

With one wild crash the thundering waters From tribe to tribe the martial thunder

sweep,

And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep! Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs passed,

As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast;

rang,

And loud and far their stormy chorus spread

"Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed!"

HEBER.

MIRIAM'S SONG.

SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark | Praise to the Conqueror! praise to the

sea!

Jehovah has triumphed-His people are free!

Sing! for the pride of the tyrant is broken: His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave,

Lord!

His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword!

Who shall return to tell Egypt the story Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride?

How vain was their boasting!-the Lord For the Lord hath looked out from his hath but spoken,

And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave!

pillar of glory,

And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark

'Tis an old story now, that Battle of the Nile; but a brave story can never die of age.

The Bay is wide, but dangerous from shoals: the line of deep blue water, and the old castle of Aboukir, map out the position of the French fleet on the 1st of August, 1798. Having landed Buonaparte and his army, Brueys, the French Admiral, lay moored in the form of a crescent close along the shore. His vastly superior force, and the strength of his position (protected towards the northward by dangerous shoals, and towards the westward by the castle and batteries), made him consider that position impregnable; and, on the strength of this conviction, he wrote to Paris that Nelson had purposely avoided him. Was he undeceived, when Hood, in the Zealous, made signal that the enemy was in sight, and a cheer of triumph burst from every ship in the British fleet? —that fleet which had been sweeping the seas with bursting sails for six long weeks in search of its formidable foe, and now bore down upon him with fearless exultation. The soundings of that dangerous bay were unknown to Nelson; but he knew that where there was room for a French ship to swing, there must be room for an Englishman to anchor at either side of him, and the closer the better.

As his proud and fearless fleet came on, he hailed Hood, to ask whether the action should commence that night; then receiving the answer he longed for, the signal for "close battle" flew from his mast-head.

The delay thus caused to the Zealous gave Foley the lead. He showed the example of leading inside the enemy's lines, and anchored by the stern alongside the second ship; thus leaving to Hood the first. The latter, putting his own generous construction on an accident, exclaimed, "Thank God, he has nobly left to his old friend still to lead the van!" Slowly and majestically, as the evening fell, the remainder of the fleet came on beneath a cloud of sails, receiving the fire of the castle and the batteries in portentous silence, only broken by the crash of spars, or the boatswain's whistle; each ship furling her sails calmly, as a sea-bird might fold its wings, and gliding tranquilly onward till she found her destined foe. Then the anchor dropped astern, and the fire burst from her blood-stained decks with a vigour that showed how sternly it had been repressed till then. The leading ships passed between the enemy and the shore; but when the admiral came up, he led the remainder of the fleet along the seaward side; thus doubling on the Frenchman's line, and placing it in a defile of fire. The sun went down soon after Nelson anchored; and his rearward ships were only guided through the darkness and the dangers of that formidable bay by the Frenchman's fire flashing fierce welcome, as each enemy arrived and went hovering along the lines. He coolly scrutinized how he might draw most of that fire upon himself. The Bellerophon, with reckless gallantry, fastened on the gigantic Orient, by whose terrible artillery she was soon crushed, and scorched into a wreck. Then she drifted helplessly to leeward. But she had already done her work-the Orient was already on fire, and through the terrible roar of battle a whisper went for a moment that paralyzed every eager heart and hand. During that dread pause the fight was suspended; the very wounded ceased to groan: yet the burning ship still continued to fire broadsides from her flaming decks; her gallant crew alone unawed by their approaching fate, and shouting their own death-song. At length