VI.

I have nought to fear;

My darkness is the fhadow of Thy wing-
Beneath it I am almoft facred-here

Can come no evil thing.

VII.

Oh! I feem to ftand

Trembling where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, Wrapped in the radiance of Thy finless land Which eye hath never feen.

VIII,

Vifions come and go—

Shapes of refplendent beauty round me throng-
From angel's lips I feem to hear the flow
Of foft and holy fong.

IX.

It is nothing now,

When heaven is opening on my fightless eyes,
When airs of Paradise refresh my brow,

The earth in darkness lies.

In a purer clime

X.

My being fills with rapture-waves of thought Roll in upon my fpirit-ftrains fublime

Break over me unfought.

XI.

Give me now my lyre!

I feel the strivings of a gift divine;
Within my bofom glows unearthly fire

Lit by no skill of mine.

MILTON.*

*See Preface refpecting the Authorship of this fublime ode.

IV.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

Y Nebo's lovely mountain,

On this fide Jordan's wave, In a vale of the land of Moab, There lies a lonely grave.

But no man dug that fepulchre,

And no one faw it e'er ;

For the Angels of God upturned the fod,

And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever paffed on earth;
But no man heard the trampling,

forth.

Or faw the train go Noifelefly as the daylight

Comes, when the night is done,

Or the crimson streak on Ocean's cheek
Fades in the setting fun-

Noifeleffly as the spring time,

Her creft of verdure waves, And all the trees on all the hills Open their thousand leaves;

So, without found of mufic,

Or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown That grand proceffion swept.

Perchance fome bald old eagle,
On gray Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his rocky eyrie,

Looked on the wondrous fight;
Perchance fome lion, stalking,

Still fhuns the hallowed spot;

For beaft and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not.

But when the warrior dieth,
His comrades in the war,

With arms reverfed and muffled drums,

Follow the funeral car;

They fhow the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his matchless steed,
While peals the minute gun.

Amid the nobleft of the land
They lay the fage to reft;

And give the bard an honoured place,
With coftly marble dreft;

In the great minster's tranfept high,
Where lights like glories fall,

While the sweet choir fings, and the organ rings
Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the braveft warrior
That ever buckled sword;

This the moft gifted poet

That ever breathed a word; And never earth's philofopher Traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, words half so fage
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honour?
The hill-fide for his pall,
To lie in ftate while angels wait,
With ftars for tapers tall;

The dark rock-pines, like toffing plumes,

Over his bier to wave,

And God's own hand, in that lovely land,
To lay him in the grave?

In that deep grave without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again-moft wondrous thought!

Before the judgment day;

And ftand with glory wrapped around,

On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the ftrife that won our life,
Through Chrift th' Incarnate God.

O filent tomb in Moab's land,

O dark Beth-Peor's hill,

Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be ftill!
God hath His myfteries of grace,
Ways that we cannot tell ;

He hides them deep, like the facred fleep

Of him He loved fo well.*

* The Editor regrets his inability to give the name of the author of these lines, which form one of the most exquisitely beautiful odes in the English language.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The fods with our bayonets turning,
By the ftruggling moonbeam's mifty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No ufelefs coffin confined his breaft,

Nor in fheet nor in fhroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his reft,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of forrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

[head,

That the foe and the ftranger would tread o'er his And we far away on the billow.