There is none but the hunter to follow his | High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a hearse, And no poet but me for his elegy's verse. Ah, yes! for another had fashioned the lay Which was raised by the peasants who bore him away; From a hundred sad voices, as homeward we sped, golden ball, That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall— First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor-round, And last slow-fading vision dear to the outward-bound. The chorus re-echoed, "The roebuck is The gently-gathering shadows shut out the Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud By the glare of her blazing roof-tree the and fire Had marked where the unchained millions marched on to their hearts' desire. On the roofs and the glittering turrets that night, as the sun went down, The mellow glow of the twilight shone like houseless mother fled With the babe she pressed to her bosom shrieking in nameless dread, While the Fire-King's wild battalions scaled wall and capstone high, And planted their flaring banners against an inky sky. And, bathed in the living glory, as the peo- For the death that raged behind them, a jewelled crown, ple lifted their eyes, the crash of ruin loud, and They saw the pride of the city, the spire of To the great square of the city were driven St. Michael's, rise the surging crowd, Where, yet firm in all the tumult, unscathed | But see! he has stepped on the railing; he by the fiery flood, climbs with his feet and his hands, With its heavenward-pointing finger the And firm on a narrow projection, with the church of St. Michael stood. But e'en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail A cry of horror blended with the roaring of the gale, belfry beneath him, he stands; Now once, and once only, they cheer him― a single tempestuous breath— And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death. On whose scorching wings updriven a single Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught flaming brand save the goal of the fire, Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a Still higher and higher, an atom he moves on bloody hand. "Will it fade ?" The whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips; Far out on the lurid harbor they watched it from the ships the face of the spire. He stops. Will he fall? Lo! for answer, a gleam like a meteor's track, And, hurled on the stones of the pavement, the red brand lies shattered and black. A baleful gleam that brighter and ever Once more the shouts of the people have rent brighter shone, the quivering air; Like a flickering, trembling will-o'-wisp to a At the church-door mayor and council wait steady beacon grown. Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand, For the love of the perilled city, plucks down yon burning brand!" with their feet on the stair, And the eager throng behind them press for a touch of his hand The unknown saviour whose daring could compass a deed so grand. So cried the mayor of Charleston, that all But why does a sudden tremor seize on them the people heard, while they gaze? But they looked each one at his fellow, and And what meaneth that stifled murmur of no man spoke a word. Who is it leans from the belfry with face upturned to the sky, Clings to a column and measures the dizzy spire with his eye? wonder and amaze? He stood in the gate of the temple he had perilled his life to save, And the face of the hero, my children, was the sable face of a slave. Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that With folded arms he was speaking in tones terrible sickening height? that were clear, not loud, Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in And his eyes, ablaze in their sockets, burnt his veins at the sight? into the eyes of the crowd: can, strand? "You may keep your gold-I scorn it-but| And the pearl gleams forth from the coral answer me, ye who If the deed I have done before you be not Is it there, sweet mother-that better land?" the deed of a man." "Not there, not there, my child! "Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy ; It is there, it is there, my child!" FELICIA HEMANS. THE BETTER LAND. TEN YEARS AGO. "HEAR thee speak of the better land; I TOO am changed—I scarce know why— Thou callest its children a happy band: Can feel each flagging pulse decay, Melt like a wreath of snow away. strife In soul and form, I linger still In the first summer month of life, But look not thus: I would not give When all around me seemed so fair. bloom, And hand in hand have kept together, And still will keep, 'mid storm and gloom, AND thou hast walked about—how strange ND thou hast walked about-how strange Perchance that very hand now pinioned flat 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 ! 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, Speak! for thou long enough hast acted I need not ask thee if that hand, when dummy. Thou hast a tongue. Come! let us hear its tune! armed, Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled; Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above-ground, For thou wert dead and buried and em mummy, Revisiting the glimpses of the moonNot 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? balmed Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled: Antiquity appears to have begun Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, |