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PART SIXTH.

NARRATIVE AND LYRICAL.

1. THE CRUCIFIXION. -Rev. George Croly.
CITY of God! Jerusalem,

Why rushes out thy living stream?
The turbaned priest, the hoary seer,
The Roman in his pride, are there!
And thousands, tens of thousands, still
Cluster round Calvary's wild hill.

Still onward rolls the living tide;

There rush the bridegroom and the bride, -
Prince, beggar, soldier, Pharisee,

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The old, the young, the bond, the free;
The nation's furious multitude,

All maddening with the cry of blood.

'Tis glorious morn; from height to height
Shoot the keen arrows of the light;

And glorious, in their central shower,
Palace of holiness and power,

The temple on Moriah's brow
Looks a new-risen sun below.

But woe to hill, and woe to vale!
Against them shall come forth a wail;
And woe to bridegroom and to bride!
For death shall on the whirlwind ride;
And woe to thee, resplendent shrine,
The sword is out for thee and thine!

Hide, hide thee in the Heavens, thou sun,
Before the deed of blood is done!
Upon that temple's haughty steep
Jerusalem's last angels weep;
They see destruction's funeral pall
Blackening o'er Sion's sacred wall.
Still pours along the multitude, -

Still rends the Heavens the shout of blood;

But, in the murderer's furious van,
Who totters on? A weary man;

A cross upon his shoulder bound,
His brow, his frame, one gushing wound.

And now he treads on Calvary

What slave upon that hill must die?
What hand, what heart, in guilt imbrued,
Must be the mountain vulture's food?
There stand two victims gaunt and bare,
Two culprits, emblems of despair.

Yet who the third? The yell of shame
Is frenzied at the sufferer's name.
Hands clenched, teeth gnashing, vestures torn,
The curse, the taunt, the laugh of scorn,
All that the dying hour can sting,

Are round thee now, thou thorn-crowned king!

Yet, cursed and tortured, taunted, spurned,
No wrath is for the wrath returned;
No vengeance flashes from the eye;
The Sufferer calmly waits to die;
The sceptre-reed, the thorny crown,
Wake on that pallid brow no frown.

At last the word of death is given,
The form is bound, the nails are driven :
Now triumph, Scribe and Pharisee!
Now, Roman, bend the mocking knee!
The cross is reared. The deed is done.
There stands MESSIAH'S earthly throne!

This was the earth's consummate hour;
For this hath blazed the prophet's power;
For this hath swept the conqueror's sword;
Hath ravaged, raised, cast down, restored;
Persepolis, Rome, Babylon,
For this ye sank, for this

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ye

shone!

Yet things to which earth's brightest beam
Were darkness -earth itself a dream,
Foreheads on which shall crowns be laid
Sublime, when sun and star shall fade:
Worlds upon worlds, eternal things,
Hung on thy anguish, King of Kings!

Still from his lip no curse has come,
His lofty eye has looked no doom!
No earthquake burst, no angel brand,
Crushes the black, blaspheming band:
What say those lips, by anguish riven?
"God, be my murderers forgiven!"

2. THE SEVENTH PLAGUE OF EGYPT. -Rev. George Croly.

"T WAS morn, the rising splendor 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,
The slave, the gemmed and glittering page, -
Helm, turban and tiara, shone,

A dazzling ring, round Pharaoh's Throne.

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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.

"Thou 'rt come," at length the Monarch spoke; Haughty and high the words outbroke:

"Is Israel weary of its lair,

The forehead peeled, the shoulder bare?
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
Than the base life our bounty gave?"

Shouted in pride the turbaned peers,
Upclashed to Heaven the golden spears.

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King! thou and thine are doomed!

The prophet spoke, — the thunder rolled!

Behold!"

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Like a huge city's final smoke,

Thick, lurid, stifling, mixed with flame,
Through court and hall the vapors came.
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,

Lay, corpse-like, on the smouldering ground.
"Speak, King! the wrath is but begun,

Still dumb? Then, Heaven, thy will be done!"

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.

Still swelled the plague, the flame grew 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.

Still swelled the plague,

uprose the blast,
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;
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!

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

Still onward, onward, dark and wide,
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!"

To Heaven the sage upraised his wand:
Back rolled the deluge from the land;
Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapors pale;
Broad burned again the joyous sun;·
The hour of wrath and death was done.

3. THREE DAYS IN THE LIFE OF COLUMBUS. — Original adaptation of a transiation from Delavigne.

On the deck stood Columbus; the ocean's expanse,

Untried and unlimited, swept by his glance.

"Back to Spain!" cry his men; "Put the vessel about!

We venture no further through danger and doubt."

"Three days, and I give you a world!" he replied;

"Bear up, my brave comrades;

He sails,

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three days shall decide." but no token of land is in sight; He sails, but the day shows no more than the night; On, onward he sails, while in vain o'er the lee

The lead is plunged down through a fathomless sea.

The pilot, in silence, leans mournfully o'er
The rudder which creaks mid the billowy roar;
He hears the hoarse moan of the spray-driving blast,
And its funeral wail through the shrouds of the mast.
The stars of far Europe have sunk from the skies,
And the great Southern Cross meets his terrified eyes;
But, at length, the slow dawn, softly streaking the night,
Illumes the blue vault with its faint crimson light.
"Columbus! 't is day, and the darkness is o'er."

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Day! and what dost thou see?".

"Sky and ocean. No more!"

The second day's past, and Columbus is sleeping,
While Mutiny near him its vigil is keeping:

"Shall he perish?"

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Ay! death!" is the barbarous cry; "He must triumph to-morrow, or, perjured, must die!" Ungrateful and blind! - shall the world-linking sca,

He traced for the Future, his sepulchre be?

Shall that sea, on the morrow, with pitiless waves,
Fling his corse on that shore which his patient eye craves?
The corse of an humble adventurer, then ;

One day later, Columbus, the first among men!

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