And an echo-like the desert's call-
Flung back to the shouting shores!
And the river's ripple, heard through all,
As it plays with the silver oars—
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 Libyan 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

Away, 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!

A dream of other days!—
That land is a desert, now!

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

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

And sorrow-like the simoom-past
O'er Cleopatra's brain!

Too like her fervid clime, that bred

Its self-consuming fires,

Her breast-like Indian widows-fed
Its own funereal pyres !

Not such the song her minstrels sing-
"Live, beauteous, and forever!"
As the vessel darts, with its purple wing,
Away, down the golden river!

SHE SLEEPS THAT STILL AND PLACID SLEEP.

SHE sleeps that still and placid sleep
For which the weary pant, in vain,
And, where the dews of evening weep,
I may not weep again;—
Oh, nevermore upon her grave

Shall I behold the wild-flower wave!

They laid her where the sun and moon
Look on her tomb with loving eye,
And I have heard the breeze of June
Sweep o'er it-like a sigh!
And the wild river's wailing song

Grow dirge-like, as it stole along!

IV.

purple sails,

And in amid her raven hair, came only per

fumed gales;

And Cupids trimmed the silken ropes along the

cedar spars,

And she lay, like a goddess, on her pillow of the

the fortunes of the world!

EPITAPH.

FAREWELL!-since nevermore for thee The sun comes up our earthly skies, Less bright henceforth shall sunshine be To some fond heart and saddened eyes.

There are, who for thy last long sleep,
Shall sleep as sweetly nevermore,
Must weep because thou canst not weep,
And grieve that all thy griefs are o'er.

Sad thrift of love!-the loving breast, Whereon thine aching head was thrown, Gave up the weary head to rest,

But kept the aching for its own,

Till pain shall find the same low bed
That pillows now thy painless head,
And following darkly through the night,
Love reach thee by the founts of light.

NAY, DRY THAT TEAR!

NAY, dry that tear!-where'er I stray,
My spirit never shall repine,
While it has power to chase away

The shadows, dear! from thine.

My soul bas weathered storms, above The strength of feeble minds to bear; But may not see the cheek I love

Dimmed by affliction's tear.

'Tis bliss enough for me to rest Beneath the ray of that blue eyeOr, pillowed on thy gentle breast,

To echo back its sigh!

But oh! that eye must not be wet
With aught that speaks the touch of sorrow-
Nor must the mummur of regret

Thy sigh's soft music borrow!

Oh, may thy looks be ever bright,
With that sweet smile which peace discloses,
And o'er the young cheek sheds its light,
Like sunbeams upon roses!

And may thy sighs, if sighs e'er start,
Light as the wings to seraphs given,
Come from the heaven of thy heart,
To waft the heart to heaven!

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800. His father was a West India merchant, of Scotch descent. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of eighteen, and was soon known as one of the most brilliant students there. Even at that time his reading had been so wide, and his memory was so tenacious, that he was dubbed "omniscient Macaulay." He took the chancellor's medal twice, in 1819 and 1820, for poems entitled "Pompeii" and "Evening." He graduated in 1822, and during the next four years resided alternately at London and Cambridge. At this time he wrote his poems "Moncontour" and "Ivry," and contributed essays to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. For twenty years he was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, in which many of his well-known essays appeared.

Macaulay was admitted to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1826, but he never practised. He was appointed Commissioner of Bankrupts soon after, and in 1830 entered Parliament for a pocket borough. Two years later he was elected for Leeds. In the House of Commons he made numerous carefully-prepared speeches, advocating the most liberal measures and adding considerable strength to the Whig party. He was appointed Secretary of the Board of Control in

1833, but in 1834 resigned that office and his seat in Parliament, being appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India. There he constructed a new code, which was designed to give equal justice to the natives and the English residents; but it met with determined opposition from the latter, and was not allowed to succeed. He returned to England in 1838, and in 1839 was elected to Parliament for Edinburgh and was appointed Secretary of War in the Melbourne ministry. After that ministry was dissolved in 1841, he sided with the opposition. When the Whigs returned to power in 1846, he was made Paymaster-General; but he failed to be reëlected for Edinburgh in 1847. In 1857 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Macaulay of Rothley.

The first collection of Macaulay's essays was published in Boston, Mass., in 1840. In 1842 he published "Lays of Ancient Rome," which met with immediate and universal appreciation. They are all included in the selections here given. Macaulay introduced each of them with a learned preface which we have not thought it necessary to reprint. "The History of England" was published in 1848-'55. Macaulay died suddenly at Holly Lodge, Campden Hill, Kensington, December 28, 1859, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME.

HORATIUS.

A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY

CCCLX.

LARS PORSENA of Clusium

By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin

Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it,

And named a trysting-day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan

Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium

Is on the march for Rome.

The horsemen and the footmen
Are pouring in amain

From many a stately market-place,
From many a fruitful plain;

From many a lonely hamlet,

Which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine;

From lordly Volaterræ,

Where scowls the far-famed hold
Piled by the hands of giants,
For god-like kings of old;
From sea-girt Populonia,
Whose sentinels desery
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops
Fringing the southern sky;

From the proud mart of Pisa,

Queen of the western waves, Where ride Massilia's triremes

Heavy with fair-haired slaves; From where sweet Clanis wanders Through corn and vines and flowers; From where Cortona lifts to heaven Her diadem of towers.

Tall are the oaks whose acorns
Drop in dark Auser's rill;

Fat are the stags that champ the boughs
Of the Ciminian hill;

Beyond all streams Clitumnus

Is to the herdsman dear;

Best of all pools the fowler loves
The great Volsinian mere.

But now no stroke of woodman

Is heard by Auser's rill;

No hunter tracks the stag's green path
Up the Ciminian hill;
Unwatched along Clitumnus

Grazes the milk-white steer;
Unharmed the water-fowl may dip
In the Volsinian mere.

The harvests of Arretium

This year old men shall reap;
This year young boys in Umbro
Shall plunge the struggling sheep;
And in the vats of Luna,

This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome.

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who alway by Lars Porsena

Both morn and evening stand:
Evening and morn the Thirty

Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore.

And with one voice the Thirty

Have their glad answer given:
"Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena,
Go forth, beloved of Heaven;
Go, and return in glory

To Clusium's royal dome,
And hang round Nurscia's altars
The golden shields of Rome."

And now hath every city

Sent up her tale of men: The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten. Before the gates of Sutrium

Is met the great array, A proud man was Lars Porsena Upon the trysting-day.

For all the Etruscan armies

Were ranged beneath his eye, And many a banished Roman, And many a stout ally; And with a mighty following To join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name.

But by the yellow Tiber

Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign
To Rome men took their flight.

A mile around the city,

The throng stopped up the ways: A fearful sight it was to see Through two long nights and days.

For aged folk on crutches,

And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled,

And sick men borne in litters

High on the necks of slaves,
And troops of sun-burned husbandmen
With reaping-hooks and staves,

And droves of mules and asses

Laden with skins of wine,
And endless flocks of goats and sheep,
And endless herds of kine,
And endless trains of wagons

That creaked beneath their weight
Of corn-sacks and of household goods,
Choked every roaring gate.

Now, from the rock Tarpeian,
Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages
Red in the midnight sky.
The Fathers of the City,

They sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came
With tidings of dismay.

To eastward and to westward

Have spread the Tuscan bands; Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote, In Crustumerium stands. Verbenna down to Ostia

Hath wasted all the plain; Astur hath stormed Janiculum, And the stout guards are slain.

I wis, in all the Senate,

There was no heart so bold,
But sore it ached, and fast it beat,
When that ill news was told.
Forthwith up rose the Consul,
Up rose the Fathers all;

In haste they girded up their gowns,
And hied them to the wall.

They held a council standing
Before the River-gate:

Short time was there, ye well may guess,
For musing or debate.

Out spoke the Consul roundly:

"The bridge must straight go down;

For, since Janiculum is lost,

Naught else can save the town."

Just then a scout came flying,

All wild with haste and fear: "To arms! to arms! Sir Consul; Lars Porsena is here."

On the low hills to westward
The Consul fixed his eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.

And nearer fast and nearer

Doth the red whirlwind come; And louder still and still more loud, From underneath that rolling cloud, Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, The trampling and the hum. And plainly and more plainly

Now through the gloom appears, Far to left and far to right,

In broken gleams of dark-blue light, The long array of helmets bright, The long array of spears.