Long was it ere that fountain, pulsing slow, Caus'd once again that chalice to run o'er; When, thinking no like hindrance now to know, He rais'd it to his parched lips once more:

Once more, as if to cross his purpose bent,

The watchful bird — as if on this one thing, That drink he should not of that stream, intent Struck from his hand the cup with eager wing.

But when this new defeat his purpose found, Swift penalty this time the bird must pay : Hurl'd down with angry force upon the ground, Before her master's feet in death she lay :

And he, twice baffled, did meantime again
From that scant rill to slake his thirst prepare ;
When, down the crags descending, of his train
One cried, "O Monarch, for thy life forbear!

Coil'd in these waters at their fountain head,
And causing them so feebly to distil,

A poisonous snake of hugest growth lies dead,
And doth with venom all the streamlet fill."

Dropp'd from his hand the cup:

cast

-one look he

Upon the faithful bird before his feet, Whose dying struggles now were almost past, For whom a better guardian had been meet;

Then homeward rode in silence many a mile;
But if such thoughts did in his bosom grow,
As did in mine the painfulness beguile,

Of that his falcon's end, what man can know?

I said, "Such chalices the world fills up

For us, and bright and without bale they seem A sparkling potion in a jewell'd cup,

Nor know we drawn from what infected stream.

"Our spirit's thirst they promise to assuage,

And we those cups unto our death had quaff'd, If Heaven did not in dearest love engage

To dash the chalice down, and mar the draught.

"Alas for us, if we that love are fain

With wrath and blind impatience to repay, Which nothing but our weakness doth restrain, As he repaid his faithful bird that day;

If an indignant eye we lift above,

To lose some sparkling goblet ill content, Which, but for that keen watchfulness of love, Swift certain poison through our veins had sent. "

TRENCH.

ON THE DEATH OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

UNHAPPY White!' while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just wav'd her joyous wing,
The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away,
Which else had sounded an immortal lay.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When science' self destroy'd her favourite son!
Yes, she too much indulg'd thy fond pursuit,
She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit.

' Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in 1806, in consequence of over-study.

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart :
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nurs'd the pinion which impell'd the steel;
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

BYRON.

AFAR IN THE DESERT.

AFAR in the Desert I love to ride

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the present, I turn to the past;
And the eye is suffus'd with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And the shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead :
Bright visions of glory that vanish'd too soon,
Day-dreams that departed ere manhood's noon,
Attachments by fate or by falsehood reft,
Companions of early days lost or left,
And my native land, whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame !

The home of my childhood, the haunts of my prime, —

All the passions and scenes of that rapt'rous time, When the feelings were young, and the world was

new,

Like fresh bowers of Paradise opening to view!

All-all now forsaken, forgotten, or gone!
And I a lone exile remember'd of none

My high aims abandon'd, and good acts undone;
Aweary of all that is under the sun;

With that sadness of heart which no stranger may

scan,

I fly to the Desert afar from man.

Afar in the Desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side;
When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life,
With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and
strife, -

The proud man's frown, and the base man's fear,
And the scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear,
The malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and
folly,

Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy;
When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,
And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,
Oh, then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the Desert alone to ride!

There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle's speed;
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand,
(The only law of the Desert land) –
But 'tis not the innocent to destroy,
For I hate the huntsman's savage joy.

Afar in the Desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side, Away-away from the dwellings of men, By the wild deer's haunt and the buffalo's glen; By valleys remote, where the oribi1 plays; Where the gnoo 2, the gazelle, and the hartebeest 3 graze,

1 Antilope Pygmæa
Antilope Bubalis.

2 Antilope Gnu.

And the gemsbok1 and eland 2 unhunted recline; By the skirts of gray forests o'ergrown with wild vine;

And the elephant browses at peace in his wood; And the river-horse 3 gambols unscar'd in the flood;

And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

In the vlei, where the wild-ass is drinking his fill.

Afar in the Desert I love to ride

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
O'er the brown Karroo 5 where the bleating cry
Of the spring-bok's 6 fawn sounds plaintively;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane
In fields seldom cheer'd by the dew or the rain;
And the stately koodoo exultingly bounds,
Undisturb'd by the bay of the hunter's hounds;
And the tim'rous quagha's wild whistling neigh
Is heard, by the fountain, at fall of day;
And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste;
For she hies away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scoop'd their nest,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view,
In the pathless depths of the parch'd Karroo.

Afar in the desert I love to ride

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
Away-away in the wilderness vast,

Where the white man's foot hath never pass'd,

1 Antilope Oryx. Hippopotamus.

• Antilope Oreas.

4 A marsh or small lake.

The great Karroo is an uninhabitable wilderness, about 300 miles long by 80 broad, forming an elevated plain, or tract of table-land, between the great ridges of the Zwartbergen (Black Mountains) and Sneeuwbergen (Snow-Mountains). "Antilope Strepsiceros.

• Antilope Pygarga. Equus Quagga.