ON READING VIRGIL.
BY MRS. ANN E. BLEECKER.
Written in 1778.
Now, cease these tears, lay gentle Virgil by, Let recent sorrows dim thy pausing eye; Shall Æneas for lost Creusa mourn, And tears be wanting on Abella's urn? Like him, I lost my fair one in my flight From cruel foes, and in the dead of night. Shall he lament the fall of Ilion's tow'rs, And we not mourn the sudden ruin of ours? See York on fire—while, borne by winds, each flame Projects its glowing sheet o'er half the main, The affrighted savage, yelling with amaze, From Allegany sees the rolling blaze. Far from these scenes of horror, in the shade I saw my aged parent safe conveyed; Then sadly followed to the friendly land With my surviving infant by the hand: No cumbrous household gods had I, indeed, To load my shoulders and my flight impede; Protection from such impotence who'd claim? My Gods took care of me—not I of them. The Trojan saw Anchises breathe his last When all domestic dangers he had passed; So my lov'd parent, after she had fled, Lamented, perish'd on a stranger's bed: —He held his way o'er the Cerulian main, But I returned to hostile fields again.
THE LAST PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
BY W. G. CLARK.
"O Domini Deus speravi in te, O caru mi Jesu nunc libera me: In dura catena, in misera pena, Desidera te— Languendo, gemando, et genuflectendo, Adoro, imploro, ut liberas me!" [P]
It was the holy twilight hour, when clouds of crimson glide Along the calm blue firmament, hushed in the evening tide; When the peasant's cheerful song was hushed, by every hill and glen, When the city's voice stole faintly out, and died the hum of men; And as Night's sombre shade came down o'er Day's resplendant eye, A faded face, from prison cell, gazed out upon the sky; For to that face the glad, bright sun of earth for aye had set, And the last time had come, to mark eve's starry coronet.
Oh, who can paint the bitter thoughts that o'er her spirit stole, As her pale lips gave utterance to feeling's deep controul— When shadowed from life's vista back, throng'd 'mid her bursting tears, The phantasies of early hope—dreams of departed years; When Pleasure's light was sprinkled, and silver voices flung Their rich and echoing cadences her virgin hours among— When there came no shadow o'er her brow, no tear to dim her eye, When there frown'd no cloud of sorrow in her being's festal sky.