ROBERT A MACHIN, 1344.

He placed the rude inscription on her stone,

Which he with faltering hands had graved, and soon

Himself beside it sunk — yet ere he died,

Faintly he spoke: If ever ye shall hear,

Companions of my few and evil days,

Again the convent's vesper bells, oh! think

Of me; and if in after-times the search

Of men should reach this far removed spot,

Let sad remembrance raise an humble shrine,

And virgin choirs chaunt duly o'er our grave:

Peace, peace! His arm upon the mournful stone

He dropped; his eyes, ere yet in death they closed,

Turned to the name, till he could see no more

ANNA. His pale survivors, earth to earth,

Weeping consigned his poor remains, and placed

Beneath the sod where all he loved was laid.

Then shaping a rude vessel from the woods,

They sought their country o'er the waves, and left

Those scenes once more to deepest solitude.

The beauteous ponciana hung its head

O'er the gray stone; but never human eye

Had mark'd the spot, or gazed upon the grave

Of the unfortunate, but for the voice

Of ENTERPRISE, that spoke, from Sagre's towers,

Through ocean's perils, storms, and unknown wastes —

Speed we to Asia!

Here, Discovery, pause!—

Then from the tomb of him who first was cast

Upon this Heaven-appointed isle, thy gaze

Uplift, and far beyond the Cape of Storms

Pursue De Gama's tract. Mark the rich shores

Of Madagascar, till the purple East

Shines in luxuriant beauty wide disclosed.

But cease thy song, presumptuous Muse!— a bard,

In tones whose patriot sound shall never die,

Has struck his deep shell, and the glorious theme

Recorded.

Say, what lofty meed awaits

The triumph of his victor conch, that swells

Its music on the yellow Tagus’ side,

As when Arion, with his glittering harp

And golden hair, scarce sullied from the main,

Bids all the high rocks listen to his voice

Again! Alas, I see an aged form,

An old man worn by penury, his hair

Blown white upon his haggard cheek, his hand

Emaciated, yet the strings with thrilling touch

Soliciting; but the vain crowds pass by:

His very countrymen, whose fame his song

Has raised to heaven, in stately apathy

Wrapped up, and nursed in pride's fastidious lap,

Regard not. As he plays, a sable man

Looks up, but fears to speak, and when the song

Has ceased, kisses his master's feeble hand.

Is that cold wasted hand, that haggard look,

Thine, Camoens? Oh, shame upon the world!

And is there none, none to sustain thee found,

But he, himself unfriended, who so far

Has followed, severed from his native isles,

To scenes of gorgeous cities, o'er the sea,

Thee and thy broken fortunes!

GOD of worlds!

Oh, whilst I hail the triumph and high boast

Of social life, let me not wrong the sense

Of kindness, planted in the human heart

By man's great Maker, therefore I record

Antonio's faithful, gentle, generous love

To his heartbroken master, that might teach,

High as it bears itself, a polished world

More charity.

DISCOVERY, turn thine eyes!

COLUMBUS’ toiling ship is on the deep,

Stemming the mid Atlantic.

Waste and wild

The view! On the same sunshine o'er the waves

The murmuring mariners, with languid eye,

Ev'n till the heart is sick, gaze day by day!

At midnight in the wind sad voices sound!

When the slow morning o'er the offing dawns,

Heartless they view the same drear weltering waste

Of seas: and when the sun again goes down

Silent, hope dies within them, and they think

Of parting friendship's last despairing look!

See too, dread prodigy, the needle veers

Her trembling point — will Heaven forsake them too!

But lift thy sunk eye, and thy bloodless look,

Despondence! Milder airs at morning breathe:—

Below the slowly-parting prow the sea

Is dark with weeds; and birds of land are seen

To wing the desert tract, as hasting on

To the green valleys of their distant home.

Yet morn succeeds to morn — and nought around

Is seen, but dark weeds floating many a league,

The sun's sole orb, and the pale hollowness

Of heaven's high arch streaked with the early clouds.

Watchman, what from the giddy mast?

A shade

Appears on the horizon's hazy line.

Land! land! aloud is echoed; but the spot

Fades as the shouting crew delighted gaze —

It fades, and there is nothing — nothing now

But the blue sky, the clouds, and surging seas!

As one who, in the desert, faint with thirst,

Upon the trackless and forsaken sands

Sinks dying; him the burning haze deceives,

As mocking his last torments, while it seems,

To his distempered vision, like th’ expanse

Of lucid waters cool: so falsely smiles

Th’ illusive land upon the water's edge,

To the long-straining eye showing what seems

Its headlands and its distant trending shores;—

But all is false, and like the pensive dream

Of poor imagination,‘ mid the waves

Of troubled life, decked with unreal hues,

And ending soon in emptiness and tears.

‘ Tis midnight, and the thoughtful chief, retired

From the vexed crowd, in his still cabin hears

The surge that rolls below; he lifts his eyes,

And casts a silent anxious look without.

It is a light — great God — it is a light!

It moves upon the shore!— Land — there is land!

He spoke in secret, and a tear of joy

Stole down his cheek, when on his knees he fell.

Thou, who hast been his guardian in wastes

Of the hoar deep, accept his tears, his prayers;

While thus he fondly hopes the purer light

Of thy great truths on the benighted world

Shall beam!

The lingering night is past;— the sun

Shines out, while now the red-cross streamers wave

High up the gently-surging bay. From all

Shouts, songs, and rapturous thanksgiving loud,

Burst forth: Another world, entranced they cry,

Another living world!— Awe-struck and mute

The gazing natives stand, and drop their spears,

In homage to the gods!

So from the deep

They hail emerging; sight more awful far

Than ever yet the wondering voyager

Greeted;— the prospect of a new-found world,

Now from the night of dark uncertainty

At once revealed in living light!

How beats

The heart! What thronging thoughts awake! Whence sprung

The roaming nations? From that ancient race

That peopled Asia — Noah's sons? How, then,

Passed they the long and lone expanse between

Of stormy ocean, from the elder earth

Cut off, and lost, for unknown ages, lost

In the vast deep? But whilst the awful view

Stands in thy sight revealed, Spirit, awake

To prouder energies! Even now, in thought,

I see thee opening bold Magellan's tract!

The straits are passed! Thou, as the seas expand,

Pausest a moment, when beneath thine eye

Blue, vast, and rocking, through its boundless rule,

The long Pacific stretches. Nor here cease

Thy search, but with De Quirosto the South

Still urge thy way, if yet some continent

Stretch to its dusky pole, with nations spread,

Forests, and hills, and streams.

So be thy search

With ampler views rewarded, till, at length,

Lo, the round world is compassed! Then return

Back to the bosom of the tranquil Thames,

And hail Britannia's victor ship,that now

From many a storm restored, winds its slow way

Silently up the current, and so finds,

Like to a time-worn pilgrim of the world,

Rest, in that haven where all tempests cease.