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'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood, Nor bath'd a fetlock in the nauseous flood

He comes their leader comes !-the man of God O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,

And onward treads-The circling waves retreat,

In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet ;

And the chas'd surges, inly roaring, show

The hard wet sand and coral hills below.

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell, Down, down they pass a steep and slippery dell Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd, The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world; And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green, And caves, the sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are

seen.

Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;
The beetling waters storm above their head :
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,
Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night,
Still in their van, along that dreadful road,

Blaz'd broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of

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Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave
On the long mirror of the rosy wave:
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek and dance in every eye—
To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain :
Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight
confine,

And tenfold darkness broods above their line.
Yet on they fare by reckless vengeance led,
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed.
Till midway now-that strange and fiery form
Show'd his dread visage lightening through the

storm;

With withering splendour blasted all their might, And brake their chariot-wheels, and marr'd their coursers' flight.

66

Fly, Misraim, fly!"-The ravenous floods they

see,

And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity.

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Fly, Misraim, fly !"-From Edom's coral strand Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand:With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep, And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep

Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swell'd the nightly blast :
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

Oh! welcome came the morn, where Israel

stood

In trustless wonder by th' avenging flood!
Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below;
The mangled limbs of men--the broken car―
A few sad relics of a nation's war:

Alas, how few!-Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose harden'd heart alike had borne
The house of bondage and th' oppressor's scorn,
The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobb'd his gratitude--
Till kindling into warmer zeal, around
The virgin timbrel wak'd its silver sound:
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,
The struggling spirit throbb'd in Miriam's breast.
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky,
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,

Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet

harmony.

"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian

spear?

"On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where? "Above their ranks the whelming waters spread. "Shout, Israel, for the Lord has triumphed!"And every pause between, as Miriam sang, From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang, And loud and far their stormy chorus spread,"Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !"

LINES

SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD,

ON LORD GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION

AS CHANCELLOR.

YE viewless guardians of these sacred shades,
Dear dreams of early song, Aonian maids !—
And you, illustrious dead! whose spirits speak
In every flush that tints the student's cheek,
As, wearied with the world, he seeks again
The page of better times and greater men;
If with pure worship we your steps pursue,
And youth, and health, and rest forget for you,
(Whom most we serve, to whom our lamp burns
bright

Through the long toils of not ingrateful night,)
Yet, yet be present!-Let the worldly train
Mock our cheap joys, and hate our useless strain,
Intent on freighted wealth, or proud to rear
The fleece Iberian or the pamper'd steer ;—
Let sterner science with unwearied eye
Explore the circling spheres and map the sky;

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