But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone;
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings her birthday bells;
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch, and cottage bed;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears:
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys,
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh:
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's;
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.

TO THE POET WORDSWORTH.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

THINE is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices; by the source
Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills
The solitude with sound; for in its course
Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part
Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart.

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TO THE POET WORDSWORTH.

Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken

To the calm breast, in some sweet garden's bowers, Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken,

And bud and bell with changes mark the hours; There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day Sinks with a golden and serene decay.

Or by some hearth where happy faces meet,

When night hath hushed the woods, with all their birds,

There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet As antique music, linked with household words; While in pleased murmurs woman's lip might move, And the raised eye in childhood shine in love!

Or where the shadows of dark solemn yews

Brood silently o'er some lone burial-ground, Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around, From its own glow of hope, and courage high, And steadfast faith's victorious constancy.

True bard and holy!-Thou art even as one
Who by some secret gift of soul or eye
In every spot beneath the smiling sun,

Sees where the springs of living waters lie! Thou mov'st through nature's realm, and touched by thee,

Clear healthful waves flow forth, to each glad wanderer free.

ADDRESS TO THE EGYPTIAN MUMMY

IN BELZONI'S EXHIBITION.

BY HORACE SMITH.

AND thou hast walked about-how strange a story!-
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago!
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And Time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous !

Speak, for thou long enough hast acted Dummy!
Thou hast a tongue-come-let us hear its tune!
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the Moon;

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect,-
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame?
Was Cheops, or Cephrénes architect

Of either Pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden,

By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade ;Then say, what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played? Perhaps thou wert a Priest-if so, my struggles Are vain,-for priestcraft never owns its juggles.

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ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Hath hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat;

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido' pass:
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled?
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled :-
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.

-

Thou couldst develope, if that withered tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left
green!-

Or was it then so old that History's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent! Incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But, prythee, tell us something of thyself,— Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen - what strange adventures

numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange muta

tions;

The Roman Empire has begun and ended;

New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations; And countless kings have into dust been humbled, While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head

165

When the great Persian Conqueror, Cambyses, Marched armies o'er thy tomb, with thundering tread, O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold :—

A heart hath throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that
face?

What was thy name, and station, age, and race?

Statue of flesh !-Immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence !

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its
warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?

O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that when both must sever, Although corruption may our frame consume, The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.