BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. In that same hour and hall, The fingers of a man ;- Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand. The monarch saw and shook, And bade no more rejoice; Chaldea's seers are good, 85 But here they have no skill; of his life was spent in foreign travel in the south of Europe, his poems being sent home at intervals for publication. A sad mystery hangs over the career of Byron. His separation from his wife, the charitable and amiable lady who so lately passed away from among us, excited great, and not undeserved, hostility against him; and he quitted England with a determination to return no more. Poems, sometimes soaring to the heights of poetic genius, at others trailing through the very slough of impurity and coarseness, gave evidence, from time to time, of the workings of the mighty but ill-regulated spirit, till, in 1824, England was startled by the intelligence of the premature death of a poet, whose powers, though frequently abused, were still marvellously great.] THOU wert out betimes, thou Had risen up, and left her trace On the meadow, with dew so Saw I thee, thou busy, busy bee. Thou wert working late, thou busy, After the fall of the cistus flower, When the primrose of evening was ready to burst, I heard thee last, as I saw thee first; In the silence of the evening hour, Heard I thee, thou busy, busy bee. Thou art a miser, thou busy, busy bee! Late and early at employ; Still on thy golden stores intent, Wise lesson this for me, thou busy, busy bee ! Little dost thou think, thou busy, busy bee ! When the latest flowers of the ivy are gone, Thy master comes for the spoil; Woe, then, for thee, thou busy, busy bee! SOUTHEY. UR bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the And thousands had sunk on the ground, overpower'd, Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. Then pledg'd we the wine-cup; and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part! My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er; And my wife sobb'd aloud, in her fullness of heart: "Stay-stay with us; rest: thou art weary, and worn." And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away! CAMPBELL. |