Then fled the Dane, while Erin's son,
New-burst from bonds inglorious,
Stood free the gory plain upon,
That saw his arms victorious.

The Spanish Champion.

Knowles.

THE warrior bow'd his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,
And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprison'd sire:
"I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train;
I pledge my faith, my liege, my lord, oh! break my father's chain.”
"Rise! rise! even now thy father comes, a ransom'd man this day;
Mount thy good steed, and thou and I will meet him on his way:"
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed;
And urged, as if with lance in hand, his charger's foaming speed.

And lo! from far, as on they press'd, they met a glittering band,
With one that 'mid them stately rode, like a leader in the land:
Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,
The father, whom thy grateful heart hath yearned so long to see.

His proud breast heaved, his dark eye flash'd, his cheeks' hue came and went;

He reach'd that grey-hair'd chieftain's side, and there dismounting
A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took; [bent;
What was there in its touch, that all his fiery spirit shook?

That hand was cold, a frozen thing, it dropp'd from his like lead;
He look'd up to the face above, the face was of the dead;
A plume waved o'er the noble brow, the brow was fix'd and white;
He met at length his father's eyes, but in them was no sight!

Up from the ground he sprung, and gazed; but who can paint that
They hush'd their very hearts who saw its horror and amaze: [gaze?
They might have chain'd him, as before that noble form he stood;
For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his cheek the
blood.

"Father!" at length he murmur'd low, and wept like children then-
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men—
He thought on all his glorious hopes, on all his high renown;
Then flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down;

And, covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly-mournful brow,
"No more, there is no more," he said, "to lift the sword for now;
My king is false, my hope betray'd, my father, oh! the worth,
The glory, and the loveliness, are past away to earth!"

Up from the ground he sprung once more, and seized the monarch's
Amid the pale and wilder'd looks of all the courtier train;
And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led,
And sternly set them face to face, the king before the dead.

[rein,

"Came I not here, upon thy pledge, my father's hand to kiss?
Be still! and gaze thou on, false king! and tell me what is this?
The look, the voice, the heart I sought-give answer, Where are they?
If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, put life in this cold clay.
"Into those glossy eyes put light; be still, keep down thine ire;
Bid those cold lips a blessing speak,-this earth is not my sire;
Give me back him for whom I fought, for whom my blood was shed;
Thou canst not, and, O king! his blood be mountains on thy head!"

He loosed the rein, his slack hand fell upon the silent face;
He cast one long, deep, mournful glance, and fled from that sad
His after-fate no more was heard, amid the martial train; [place:
His banner led the spears no more among the hills of Spain!

Mrs. Hemans.

Lines on the Departure of Emigrants for New South Wales.

ON England's shore I saw a pensive band,
With sails unfurl'd for earth's remotest strand,
Like children parting from a mother, shed

Tears for the home that could not yield them bread;
Grief mark'd each face receding from the view,—
"Twas grief to nature honourably true.

And long, poor wanderers o'er the ecliptic deep!
The song that names but home shall bid you weep;
Oft shall ye fold your flocks by stars above
In that far world, and miss the stars ye love;
Oft, when its tuneless birds scream round forlorn,
Regret the lark that gladdens England's morn;
And, giving England's names to distant scenes,
Lament that earth's extension intervenes.

But cloud not yet too long, industrious train,
Your solid good with sorrow nursed in vain:
For has the heart no interest yet as bland
As that which binds us to our native land?

The deep-drawn wish, when children crown our hearth,
To hear the cherub chorus of their mirth,
Undamp'd by dread that want may e'er unhouse,
Or servile misery knit those smiling brows:
The pride to rear an independent shed,
And give the lips we love unborrow'd bread;
To see a world, from shadowy forests won,
In youthful beauty wedded to the sun;
lo skirt our home with harvests widely sown,
And call the blooming landscape all our own,

1

I.

Our children's heritage, in prospect long.
These are the hopes, high-minded hopes and strong,
That beckon England's wanderers o'er the brine,
To realms where foreign constellations shine;
Where streams from undiscover'd fountains roll,
And winds shall fan them from the Antarctic pole.
And what though doom'd to shores so far apart
From England's home, that even the home-sick heart
Quails, thinking, ere that gulf can be recross'd,
How large a space of fleeting life is lost:

Yet there, by time, their bosoms shall be changed,
And strangers once shall cease to sigh estranged,
But jocund in the year's long sunshine roam,
That yields their sickle twice its harvest-home.

There, marking o'er his farm's expanding ring
New fleeces whiten and new fruits upspring,
The grey-hair'd swain, his grandchild sporting round,
Shall walk at eve his little empire's bound,
Emblazed with ruby vintage, ripening corn,
And verdant rampart of Acacian thorn,
While, mingling with the scent his pipe exhales,
The orange-grove's and fig-tree's breath prevails;
Survey with pride, beyond a monarch's spoil,
His honest arm's own subjugated soil;
And, summing all the blessings God has given,
Put up his patriarchal prayer to Heaven,-
That, when his bones shall here repose in
The scions of his love may still increase,
And o'er a land where life has ample room,
In health and plenty innocently bloom.

Delightful land! in wildness even benign,
The glorious past is ours, the future thine!
As in a cradled Hercules, we trace

peace,

The lines of empire in thine infant face.
What nations in thy wide horizon's span
Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man!
What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam,
Where now the panther laps a lonely stream,
And all but brute or reptile life is dumb!
Land of the free! thy kingdom is to come,
Of states, with laws from Gothic bondage burst,
And creeds by charter'd priesthoods unaccursed;

Of navies, hoisting their emblazon'd flags,
Where shipless seas now wash unbeacon'd crags;
Of hosts, review'd in dazzling files and squares,
Their pennon'd trumpets breathing native airs!
And minstrels thou shalt have of native fire,
And maids to sing the songs themselves inspire:-
Our very speech, methinks, in after-time,
Shall catch the Ionian blandness of thy clime;
And, whilst the light and luxury of thy skies
Give brighter smiles to beauteous woman's eyes,
The Arts, whose soul is love, shall all spontaneous rise.

Untrack'd in deserts lies the marble mine,

Undug the ore that 'midst thy roofs shall shine;
Unborn the hands-but born they are to be-
Fair Australasia! that shall give to thee
Proud temple-domes, with galleries winding high,
So vast in space, so just in symmetry,
They widen to the contemplating eye,
With colonnaded aisles in long array,
And windows that enrich the flood of day
O'er tesselated pavements, pictures fair,
And niched statues breathing golden air.
Nor there, whilst all that's seen bids Fancy swell,
Shall Music's voice refuse to seal the spell;
But choral hymns shall wake enchantment round,
And organs blow their tempests of sweet sound.

Meanwhile, ere Arts triumphant reach their goal,
How bless'd the years of pastoral life shall roll!
Even should, some wayward hour, the settler's mind
Brood sad on scenes for ever left behind,
Yet not a pang that England's name imparts,
Shall touch a fibre of his children's hearts;
Bound to that native world by nature's bond,
Full little shall their wishes rove beyond
Its mountains blue, and melon-skirted streams,
Since childhood loved and dreamt of in their dreams.
How many a name, to us uncouthly wild,
Shall thrill that region's patriotic child,

And bring as sweet thoughts o'er his bosom's chords,
As aught that's named in song to us affords!
Dear shall that river's margin be to him,

Where sportive first he bathed his boyish limb,

}