Amel. Away, away.

Went. Madam, while you are Godfrey Wentworth's wife,

These tender-friendships must be laid aside.
Oh! you can smile. By-

Amel. Mr Wentworth, you

(I must believe it) jest; you jest with me.

Went. Go on, go on: you think me quite a fool.
Woman, my eyes are open; wide awake
To you and all my infamy. By heaven
I will not be a by-word and a mock
In all the mouths of men for any-
I still respect your ears, you see; I-
Amel. You

Insult me, sir.

Went. Forgive me: I indeed

-Pshaw!

Am somewhat of a prude; you'll scorn me for it.
I still think women modest-in the mass.

Amel. Sir-Mr Wentworth-you have used me ill.
Yourself you have used ill. You have forgot
All-what is due to me-what to your wife.
You have forgot-forgot-can I forget
All that I sacrificed for you?-my youth,

My home, my heart-(you know, you knew it then)
In sad obedience to my father's word?
You promised to that father (how you kept
That promise, now remember) you would save
His age from poverty: he had been bred

In splendour, and he could not bow him down,
Like men who never felt the warmth of fortune.
He gave me up, a victim; and I saw

Myself (ah! how I shuddered) borne away
By you, the evil angel of my life,

To a portentous splendour. I became

A pining bride, a wretch-a slave to all

Your host of passions; but I swore (may God
Forgive me!) to love you-you, when I loved
Another, and you knew it: Yes, you knew
My heart was given away, and yet you wed me.
Leave me, sir!

Went. Have you done? Woman, do you think
This mummery is to work me from my purpose→→→
My settled will? Mistress, I leave you now:
But this remember, that your minion-Oh,
I do not heed your frowning-your boy-love
Will visit India shortly, or, it may be,

(You are his guide) a prison here, in England.
Farewell.

Amel. Yet stay-a word more ere we quit.
I do beseech you (though my wrongs are great,
And my proud spirit ill can stoop to this),
You take your malediction from this youth.
He is as innocent-I think he's innocent
Of the least ill toward you. For me, I am
Too innocent to sue; yet let me say,
Since the sad hour I wed you, I have been
As faithful to our cold communion

As though my heart had from the first been yours,
Or you been generous after. Once more, sir,
I would implore you-for your comfort-for
Your honour and my name, to spare this boy.
In the calm tone of one who has not erred
I do require this of you.

Amel. He is gone;

And I am here-oh! such a weary wretch.
Oh! father, father, what a heart had you
To cast me on the wide and bitter world
With such a friend as this! I would have toiled
From the pale morning 'till the dusk of night,
And lived as poorly, and smiled cheerfully,
Keeping out sorrow from our cottage home.
And there was one who would have loved you too,
And aided with his all our wreck of fortune.
You would not hear him; and--and did I hear
His passionate petitioning, and see

His scalding tears, and fling myself away
Upon a wintry bosom, that held years
Doubling my own. What matters it?-'tis past.

I will be still myself: who's there?

Too gay for earnest talk. Who has been here?
Amel. No one; I will not tell; I've made a vow,
And will not break it, 'till-until I'm pressed.
Ch. Then let me press you.

Amel. Silly boy, away;

Go gather me more flowers, violets.

Ch. Here let me place them in your hair.
Amel. No, no;

The violet is for poets: they are yours.

O rare! I like to see you bosom them.
Had they been golden, such as poets earned,
You might have treasured them.

Ch. They are far more

To me for they were yours, Amelia.
Amel. Give me the rose.

Ch. But where shall it be placed?
Amel. Why, in my hand-my hair.
blushes!

To see us both so idle. Give it me.

Look how it

Where? where do ladies hide their favourite flowers But in their bosoms, foolish youth. Away--'Tis I must do it.

Pshaw! how sad you look,

And how you tremble.

Ch. Dear Amelia.

Amel. Call me your mother, Charles.
Ch. My guardian-

Amel. Ah! name him not to me. Charles, I have been

Jesting awhile; but my dark husband's frown
Comes like a cloud upon me. You must go

Far, my dear Charles, from the one friend who loves

you:

To Hindostan.

Ch. I know it.

Amel. For myself,

I shall think of you often, my dear Charles. Think of me sometimes. When your trumpet sounds, You'll recollect the coward knew once, you Over the seas in England?

Ch. Spare my heart.

Amel. I do not think you have a heart: 'tis buried. Ch. Amelia, oh! Amelia, will you never

Know the poor heart that breaks and bursts for

you?

Oh! do not take it ill; but now believe

How fond, and true, and faithful

Look, look! above: the canopy of the sky,
Spotted with stars, shines like a bridal dress:
A queen might envy that so regal blue
Which wraps the world o' nights. Alas, alas!
I do remember in my follying days
What wild and wanton wishes once were mine,
Slaves-radiant gems-and beauty with no peer,
And friends (a ready host)-but I forget.
I shall be dreaming soon, as once I dreamt,
When I had hope to light me. Have you no song,
My gentle girl, for a sick woman's ear?
There's one I've heard you sing: They said his eye'
No, that's not it: the words are hard to hit.
'His eye like the mid-day sun was bright'—
Mar. 'Tis so.

You've a good memory. Well, listen to me.
I must not trip, I see.

Amel. I hearken. Now.

Song.

His eye like the mid-day sun was bright,
Hers had a proud but a milder light,
Clear and sweet like the cloudless moon:
Alas! and must it fade as soon?

His voice was like the breath of war,
But hers was fainter-softer far;
And yet, when he of his long love sighed,
She laughed in scorn:-he fled and died.
Mar. There is another verse, of a different air,
But indistinct-like the low moaning
Of summer winds in the evening: thus it runs--

They said he died upon the wave,

And his bed was the wild and bounding billow:
Her bed shall be a dry earth grave:

Prepare it quick, for she wants her pillow.
Amel. How slowly and how silently doth time
Float on his starry journey. Still he goes,
And goes, and goes, and doth not pass away.
He rises with the golden morning, calmly,
And with the moon at night. Methinks I see
Him stretching wide abroad his mighty wings,
Floating for ever o'er the crowds of men,
Like a huge vulture with its prey beneath.
Lo! I am here, and time seems passing on:
To-morrow I shall be a breathless thing-
Yet he will still be here; and the blue hours
Will laugh as gaily on the busy world
As though I were alive to welcome them.
There's one will shed some tears. Poor Charles!

Ch. I am here.

Did you not call?

[CHARLES enters.]

Amel. You come in time. My thoughts Were full of you, dear Charles. Your mother (now I take that title), in her dying hour Has privilege to speak unto your youth. There's one thing pains me, and I would be calm. My husband has been harsh unto me-yet He is my husband; and you'll think of this If any sterner feeling move your heart? Seek no revenge for me. You will not?-Nay, Is it so hard to grant my last request? He is my husband: he was father, too, Of the blue-eyed boy you were so fond of once. Do you remember how his eyelids closed When the first summer rose was opening? 'Tis now two years ago-more, more: and II now am hastening to him. Pretty boy! He was my only child. How fair he looked In the white garment that encircled him'Twas like a marble slumber; and when we Laid him beneath the green earth in his bed,

I thought my heart was breaking-yet I lived:
But I am weary now.

Mar. You must not talk,
Indeed, dear lady; nay-

Ch. Indeed you must not.

Amel.. Well, then, I will be silent; yet not so.
For ere we journey, ever should we take

A sweet leave of our friends, and wish them well,
And tell them to take heed, and bear in mind
Our blessings. So, in your breast, dear Charles,
Wear the remembrance of Amelia.
She ever loved you-ever; so as might
Become a mother's tender love-no more.
Charles, I have lived in this too bitter world
Now almost thirty seasons: you have been
A child to me for one-third of that time.

I took you to my bosom, when a boy,

Who scarce had seen eight springs come forth and vanish.

You have a warm heart, Charles, and the base crowd
Will feed upon it, if-but you must make
That heart a grave, and in it bury deep

Its young and beautiful feelings.

Ch. I will do

All that you wish-all; but you cannot die And leave me?

Amel. You shall see how calmly Death
Will come and press his finger, cold and pale,
On my now smiling lip: these eyes men swore
Were brighter than the stars that fill the sky,
And yet they must grow dim: an hour-
Ch. Oh! no.

No, no: oh! say not so.
To hear you talk thus.
Amel. No: I would
That soon must happen.
When I am dead-

Ch. Alas, alas!

Amel. This is

I cannot bear

Will you break my heart? caution it against a change, Calmly let us talk.

Ch. Is it then so? My soul is sick and faint. Oh! mother, mother. I-I cannot weep. Oh for some blinding tears to dim my eyes, So I might not gaze on her. And has death Indeed, indeed struck her-so beautiful? So wronged, and never erring; so beloved By one-who now has nothing left to love. Oh! thou bright heaven, if thou art calling now Thy brighter angels to thy bosom―rest, For lo! the brightest of thy host is goneDeparted-and the earth is dark below. And now-I'll wander far and far away, Like one that hath no country. I shall find A sullen pleasure in that life, and when

I say 'I have no friend in all the world,'

My heart will swell with pride, and make a show
Unto itself of happiness; and in truth
There is, in that same solitude, a taste
Of pleasure which the social never know.
From land to land I'll roam, in all a stranger,
And, as the body gains a braver look,

By staring in the face of all the winds,
So from the sad aspects of different things
My soul shall pluck a courage, and bear up
Against the past. And now-for Hindostan.

HENRY HART MILMAN.

The REV. HENRY HART MILMAN, vicar of St Mary, in the town of Reading, is author of several poems and dramas, recently collected and published in three volumes. He first appeared as an author in 1817, when his tragedy of Fuzio was published. It was afterwards acted with success at Drury Lane theatre. In 1820 Mr Milman published a dramatic poem, the Fall of Jerusalem, and to this succeeded three other dramas, Belshazzar, the Martyr of Antioch, and Anne Boleyn, but none of these were designed for the stage. He has also written a narrative poem, Samor, Lord of the Bright City, and several smaller pieces. To our prose literature Mr Milman has contributed a History of the Jews, in three volumes, and an edition of Gibbon's Rome, with notes and corrections. Mr Milman is a native of London, son of an eminent physician, Sir Francis Milman, and was born in the year 1791. He distinguished himself as a classical scholar, and in 1815 was made a fellow of Brazen-nose college, Oxford. He also held (1821) the office of professor of poetry in the university. The taste and attainments of Mr Milman are seen in his poetical works; but he wants the dramatic spirit, and also that warmth of passion and imagination which is necessary to vivify his sacred learning and his classical creations.

[Jerusalem before the Siege.]

Titus. It must be

And yet it moves me, Romans! It confounds
The counsel of my firin philosophy,

That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er,
And barren salt be sown on yon proud city.
As on our olive-crowned hill we stand,
Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters
Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,
As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,
How boldly doth it front us! how majestically!
Like a luxurious vineyard, the hill-side
Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line,
Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still, and nearer
To the blue heavens. There bright and sumptuous
palaces,

With cool and verdant gardens interspersed;
There towers of war that frown in massy strength;
While over all hangs the rich purple eve,
As conscious of its being her last farewell
Of light and glory to that fated city.

And, as our clouds of battle, dust and smoke,
Are melted into air, behold the temple
In undisturbed and lone serenity,
Finding itself a solemn sanctuary

In the profound of heaven! It stands before us
A mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles!
The very sun, as though he worshipped there,
Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs,
And down the long and branching porticos,
On every flowery-sculptured capital,
Glitters the homage of his parting beams.
By Hercules! the sight might almost win
The offended majesty of Rome to mercy.

[Hymn of the Captive Jews.]

[From Belshazzar.']

God of the thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of desolation flow:
Father of vengeance! that with purple feet,

Like a full wine-press, tread'st the world below:

The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havock on his prey,
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way,
Till thou the guilty land hast sealed for wo.
God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage suppress;
Father of mercies! at one word of thine

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness!
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,

And pillared temples rise thy name to bless.
O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke, O Lord!
The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword,
Even her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Her temple sank amid the smouldering flame,

For thou didst ride the tempest-cloud of fate.
O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam,
And the sad city lift her crownless head;

And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam, Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the

dead.

On Carmel's side our maiden's cull the flowers,
The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers,
And angel-feet the glittering Sion tread.
Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves;
With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
'Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep,
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves.
The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;
Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home;
He that went forth a tender yearling boy,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come.
And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear,
And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare;
And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer,

Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blazed the irradiate dome.

[Summons of the Destroying Angel to the City of Babylon.]

The hour is come! the hour is come! With voice
Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee,
Cyrus, the Lord's anointed! And thou river,
That flowest exulting in thy proud approach
To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls,
And brazen gates, and gilded palaces,
And groves, that gleam with marble obelisks,
Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights
Fretted and chequered like the starry heavens:
I do arrest thee in thy stately course,

By Him that poured thee from thine ancient fountain,
And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time,
One of his holy streams, to lave the mounts
Of Paradise. Thou hear'st me: thou dost check
Abrupt thy waters as the Arab chief

His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved
Yet toiling Persian breaks the ruining mound,
I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength;
And, through the deep and roaring Naharmalcha,
Roll on as proudly conscious of fulfilling
The omnipotent command! While, far away,
The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved,
Save by the rippling moonshine, heaves on high

Its foaming surface like a whirlpool-gulf,
And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide.
But silent as thy billows used to flow,
And terrible, the hosts of Elam move,
Winding their darksome way profound, where man
Ne'er trod, nor light e'er shone, nor air from heaven
Breathed. Oh! ye secret and unfathomed depths,
How are ye now a smooth and royal way
For the army of God's vengeance!
And ministers of the Eternal purpose,
Not guided by the treacherous, injured sons
Of Babylon, but by my mightier arm,

Fellow-slaves

Ye come, and spread your banners, and display
Your glittering arms as ye advance, all white
Beneath the admiring moon. Come on! the gates
Are open-not for banqueters in blood
Like you! I see on either side o'erflow
The living deluge of armed men, and cry,
Begin, begin! with fire and sword begin

The work of wrath. Upon my shadowy wings
I pause, and float a little while, to see
Mine human instruments fulfil my task
Of final ruin. Then I mount, I fly,
And sing my proud song, as I ride the clouds,
That stars may hear, and all the hosts of worlds,
That live along the interminable space,
Take up Jehovah's everlasting triumph!

[The Fair Recluse.]

[From Samor, Lord of the Bright City."]

Sunk was the sun, and up the eastern heaven,
Like maiden on a lonely pilgrimage,
Moved the meek star of eve; the wandering air
Breathed odours; wood, and waveless lake, like man,
Slept, weary of the garish, babbling day.

Dove of the wilderness, thy snowy wing
Droops not in slumber; Lilian, thou alone,
'Mid the deep quiet, wakest. Dost thou rove,
Idolatrous of yon majestic moon,
That like a crystal-throned queen in heaven,
Seems with her present deity to hush
To beauteous adoration all the earth?
Might seem the solemn silent mountain tops
Stand up and worship! the translucent streams
Down the hills glittering, cherish the pure light
Beneath the shadowy foliage o'er them flung
At intervals; the lake, so silver-white,
Glistens; all indistinct the snowy swans
Bask in the radiance cool. Doth Lilian muse
To that apparent queen her vesper hymn?
Nursling of solitude, her infant couch
Never did mother watch; within the grave
She slept unwaking: scornful turned aloof
Caswallon, of those pure instinctive joys
By fathers felt, when playful infant grace,
Touched with a feminine softness, round the heart
Winds its light maze of undefined delight,
Contemptuous: he with haughty joy beheld
His boy, fair Malwyn; him in bossy shield
Rocked proudly, him upbore to mountain steep
Fierce and undaunted, for their dangerous nest
To battle with the eagle's clam'rous brood.

But she, the while, from human tenderness
Estranged, and gentler feelings that light up
The cheek of youth with rosy joyous smile,
Like a forgotten lute, played on alone
By chance-caressing airs, amid the wild
Beauteously pale and sadly playful grew,
A lonely child, by not one human heart
Beloved, and loving none: nor strange if learnt
Her native fond affections to embrace
Things senseless and inanimate; she loved
All flowrets that with rich embroidery fair
Enamel the green earth-the odorous thyme,
Wild rose, and roving eglantine; nor spared

To mourn their fading forms with childish tears.
Gray birch and aspen light she loved, that droop
Fringing the crystal stream; the sportive breeze
That wantoned with her brown and glossy locks;
The sunbeam chequering the fresh bank; ere dawn
Wandering, and wandering still at dewy eve,
By Glenderamakin's flower empurpled marge,
Derwent's blue lake, or Greta's wildering glen.

Rare sound to her was human voice, scarce heard,
Save of her aged nurse or shepherd maid
Soothing the child with simple tale or song.
Hence all she knew of earthly hopes and fears,
Life's sins and sorrows: better known the voice
Beloved of lark from misty morning cloud
Blithe carolling, and wild melodious notes
Heard mingling in the summer wood, or plaint
By moonlight, of the lone night-warbling bird.
Nor they of love unconscious, all around
Fearless, familiar they their descants sweet
Tuned emulous; her knew all living shapes
That tenant wood or rock, dun roe or deer,
Sunning his dappled side, at noontide crouched,
Courting her fond caress; nor fled her gaze
The brooding dove, but murmured sounds of joy.

The Day of Judgment.

Even thus amid thy pride and luxury,

Oh earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
That secret coming of the Son of Man,
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:
When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan,
Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away;
Still to the noontide of that nightless day
Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain.
Along the busy mart and crowded street,
The buyer and the seller still shall meet,
And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain:
Still to the pouring out the cup of wo;

Till earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,
And mountains molten by his burning feet,

And heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat.

The hundred-gated cities then,

The towers and temples, named of men
Eternal, and the thrones of kings;
The gilded summer palaces,

The courtly bowers of love and ease,
Where still the bird of pleasure sings:
Ask ye the destiny of them?

Go, gaze on fallen Jerusalem!

Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll,

'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled;
The skies are shrivelled like a burning scroll,
And one vast common doom ensepulchres the world.
Oh! who shall then survive?

Oh! who shall stand and live?

When all that hath been is no more;

When for the round earth hung in air,

With all its constellations fair

In the sky's azure canopy;

When for the breathing earth, and sparkling sea,
Is but a fiery deluge without shore,

Heaving along the abyss profound and dark-
A fiery deluge, and without an ark?

Lord of all power, when thou art there alone
On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne,
That in its high meridian noon

Needs not the perished sun nor moon:

When thou art there in thy presiding state,
Wide-sceptred monarch o'er the realm of doom:

When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb,

The dead of all the ages round thee wait: