200 THE EMBARKATION OF CLEOPATRA.

The sky is a gleam of gold!

And the amber breezes float,

Like thoughts to be dreamed of but never told
Around the dancing boat!

She has stepped on the burning sand;
And the thousand tongues are mute!

And the Syrian strikes, with a trembling hand,
The strings of his gilded lute;

And the Ethiop's heart throbs loud and high,
Beneath his white symar;

And the Lybian kneels, as he meets her eye,

Like the flash of an eastern star !

The gales may not be heard,

Yet the silken streamers quiver,

And the vessel shoots—like a bright-plumed bird —

A way down the golden river!

Away by the lofty mount !

And away by the lonely shore!

And away by the gushing of many a fount,

Where fountains gush no more!

Oh! for some warning vision there,

Some voice that should have spoken

Of climes to be laid waste and bare,
And glad young spirits broken!
Of waters dried away,

And hope and beauty blasted!

That scenes so fair and hearts so gay Should be so early wasted!

That land is a desert now!

And grief grew up, to dim the blaze
Upon that royal brow!

The whirlwind's burning wing hath cast
Blight on the marble plain,

And sorrow like the simoom

O'er Cleopatra's brain !

passed

Too like her fervid clime, that bred

Its self-consuming fires,

Her breast

like Indian widows-fed

Its own funeral pyres !

Not such the song her minstrels sing "Live, beauteous, and for ever!"

As the vessel darts, with its purple wing,
Away
down the golden river!

THE LAUNCH OF THE NAUTILUS.

BY THE REV. E. BARNARD.

Αγκυρας ανέλοιο, και εκλυσαιο γυαία,
Ναυτιλε, και πλωοις πασαν εφεις οθονην.

LEONIDAS TARANTINUS.

Up with thy thin transparent sail,

Thou tiny mariner ! -The gale

Comes gently from the land, and brings
The odour of all lovely things

That Zephyr, in his wanton play,
Scatters in Spring's triumphant way;
Of primrose pale, and violet,

And

young anemone, beset

By thousand spikes of every hue,
Purple and scarlet, white and blue :
And every breeze that sweeps the earth
Brings the sweet sound of love and mirth;
The shrilly pipe of things unseen
That pitter in the meadows green ;
The linnet's love-sick melody,

The laverock's carol loud and high;
And mellowed, as from distance borne,
The music of the shepherd's horn.

Up, little Nautilus ! Thy day
Of life and joy is come:—

- away!
The ocean's flood, that gleams so bright
Beneath the morning's ruddy light,
With gentlest surge scarce ripples o'er
The lucid gems that pave the shore ;
Each billow wears its little spray,
As maids wear wreaths on holiday;

More blithely round the May's young queen,
Than thou shalt dance o'er yon bright sea

That wooes thy prow so lovingly.

Then lift thy sail! —'T is shame to rest,
Here on the sand, thy pearly breast.

Away! thou first of mariners:

Give to the wind all idle fears;

Thy freight demands no jealous care,
Yet navies might be proud to bear
The wondrous wealth, the unbought spell,
That load thy ruby-cinctured shell.
A heart is there to nature true,
Which wrath nor envy ever knew,
A heart that calls no creature foe,
And ne'er designed another's woe;
A heart whose joy o'erflows its home,
Simply because sweet spring is come.
Up, beauteous Nautilus !- Away!
The idle muse that chides thy stay
Shall watch thee long with anxious eye,
O'er thy bright course delighted fly;
And, when black storms defend the main,
Cry welcome to the sands again!

Heaven grant that she through life's wild sea
May sail as innocent as thee;

And, homeward turned, like thee may find

Sure refuge from the wave and wind.

THE EXILE.

BY D. L. RICHARDSON.

As memory pictured happier hours, home-sickness seized my heart,

I never thought of English land but burning tears would start;

The faces of familiar friends would haunt me in my

sleep;

I clasped their thrilling hands in mine. then woke again to weep!

At last my spirit's fevered dreams so wrought upon my frame,

That life itself uncertain seemed as some worn taper's

flame;

Till o'er the wide blue waters borne, from regions

strange and far,

I saw dear Albion's bright cliffs gleam beneath the morning star!

That radiant sight redeemed the past, and, stirred with transport wild,

I paced the swift bark's bounding deck, light-hearted as a child;