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"Some currish plot, some trick, (God wot!) hath laid you all so low,

Ye died not altogether in one fair battle so;

Not all the misbelievers ever pricked upon yon plain
The seven brave boys of Lara in open field had slain.

Thou youngest and the weakest, Gonzalez dear! wert thou,

Yet well this false Almanzor remembers thee, I trow;
O, well doth he remember how on his helmet rung
Thy fiery mace, Gonzalez! although thou wert so young.
"Thy gallant horse had fallen, and thou hadst mounted thee
Upon a stray one in the field, his own true barb had he;
O, hadst thou not pursued his flight upon that runaway,
Ne'er had the caitiff 'scaped that night, to mock thy sire to-
day.

"False Moor, I am thy captive thrall; but when thou bad'st me forth,

To share the banquet in thy hall, I trusted in the worth Of kingly promise. Think'st thou not my God will hear my prayer?

Lord! branchless be (like mine) his tree,-yea, branchless, Lord, and bare !"

So prayed the baron in his ire; but when he looked again, Then burst the sorrow of the sire, and tears ran down like

rain;

Wrath no more could check the sorrow of the old and childless man,

And, like waters in a furrow, down his cheeks the salt tears ran.

He took their heads up one by one, he kissed them o'er and

o'er,

And aye ye saw the tears down run,-I wot that grief was sore. He closed the lids on their dead eyes all with his fingers

frail,

And handled all their bloody curls, and kissed their lips so

pale.

66 had ye died all by my side upon some famous day, My fair young men, no weak tears then had washed your blood away!

The trumpet of Castile had drowned the misbelievers' horn, And the last of all the Lara's line a Gothic spear had borne."

With that it chanced a Moor drew near, to lead him from the place,

Old Lara stooped him down once more, and kissed Gonzalez'

face;

But ere the man observéd him, or could his gesture bar, Sudden he from his side had grasped that Moslem's cimeter.

O, swiftly from its scabbard the crooked blade he drew, And, like some frantic creature, among them all he flew :"Where, where is false Almanzor ?-back, bastards of Ma houn !"

And here and there, in his despair, the old man hewed them down.

A hundred hands, a hundred brands, are ready in the hall,
But ere they mastered Lara, thirteen of them did fall;
He has sent, I ween, a good thirteen of dogs that spurned
his God,

To keep his children company beneath the Moorish sod.

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Ex. CV.-TO THE NEAPOLITANS.

THOMAS MOORE.

AYE-down to the dust with them, slaves as they are,
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of liberty's war

Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.

On, on like a cloud, through their beautiful vales,
Ye locusts of tyranny, blasting them o'er-

Fill, fill up their wide sunny waters, ye sails

From each slave-mart of Europe, and shadow their shore!

Let their fate be a mock-word, let men of all lands

Laugh out with a scorn that shall ring to the poles,

When each sword, that the cowards let fall from their hands,
Shall be forged into fetters to enter their souls.

And deep, and more deep, as the iron is driven,
Base slaves! let the whet of their agony be,

To think-as the doomed often think of that heaven

They had once within reach-that they might have been free.

When the world stood in hope-when a spirit that breathed
The fresh hour of the olden time, whispered about;
And the swords of all Italy, half-way unsheathed,
But waited one conquering cry, to flash out!

When around you the shades of your mighty in fame,
Filicajas and Petrarchs seemed bursting to view,

And their words, and their warnings, like tongues of bright flame

Over Freedom's apostles, fell kindling on you!

Oh shame! that in such a proud moment of life,
Worth ages of history, when had you but hurled
One bolt at your tyrant invader, that strife

Between freemen and tyrants had spread through the world,

That then-oh! disgrace upon manhood-even then
You should falter, should cling to your pitiful breath;
Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood men,
And prefer the slave's life of prostration to death.

It is strange, it is dreadful ;-shout, Tyranny, shout
Through your dungeons and palaces, "Freedom is o'er ;"-
If there lingers one spark of her life, tread it out,
And return to your empire of darkness once more.

J. G. WHITTIER.

Ex. CVI.-THE SEER.

I HEAR the far-off voyager's horn,
I see the Yankee's trail;

His foot on every mountain pass,
On every stream his sail.

He's whittling round St. Mary's falls,
Upon his loaded wain;

He's leaving on the pictured rocks
His fresh tobacco stain.

I hear the mattock in the mine,
The axe stroke in the dell,
The clamor from the Indian lodge,
The Jesuit's chapel bell.

I see the swarthy trappers come
From Mississippi's springs;

The war-chiefs with their painted bows,
And crest of eagle wings.

Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe,
The steamer smokes and raves;
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves.
By forest, lake, and water-fall,
I see the peddler's show-
The mighty mingling with the mean,
The lofty with the low.

I hear the tread of pioneers

Of nations yet to be;

The first low wash of waves that soon

Shall roll a human sea.

The rudiments of empire here

Are plastic yet and warm;

The chaos of a mighty world
Is rounding into form.

Each rude and jostling fragment soon
Its fitting place shall find-

The raw material of a state,

Its music and its mind.

And western still, the star, which leads
The New World in its train,

Has tipped with fire the icy spears
Of many a mountain chain.
The snowy cones of Oregon
Are kindled on its way;
And California's golden sands
Gleam brighter in its ray.

Ex. CVII.-CITY AND COUNTRY.

O. W. HOLMES.

Come back to your mothers, ye children, for shame,
Who have wandered like truants for riches and fame!
With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap,
She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap.

Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes,
And breathe, like your eagles, the air of our plains;
Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives
Will declare 'tis all nonsense insuring your lives.

Come, you of the law, who can talk, if you please,
Till the man in the moon will allow it 's a cheese,
And leave "the old lady that never tells lies,”
To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes.

Ye healers of men, for a moment decline
Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line;
While you shut
up your turnpike, your neighbors can go
The old round-about road to the regions below.

You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens,
And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens,
Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still—
As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill.

Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels
With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels;
No dodger behind, his bandanas to share,-
No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!"

In yonder green meadow, to memory dear,
He slaps a mosquito, and brushes a tear;

The dew-drops hang around him on blossoms and shoots,-
He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots.

There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church;
That tree by its side had the flavor of birch:
O, such were the days of his juvenile tricks,

Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks !"

By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps,
The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps,
Till sated with rapture, he steals to his bed,
With a glow in his heart, and a cold in his head.

'Tis past,--he is dreaming-I see him again;
The ledger returns as by legerdemain ;
His mustache is damp with an easterly flaw,
And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw.

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