LINES SUGGESTED BY THE VIEW OF THE ALPS AT SUNRISE FROM THE RIGHI ON THE BORDERS OF THE LAKE OF LUCERNE. O GOD! upon the mountains, in the calm And beauty of the morning, where each sound Seems like the accents of an holy psalm Swept from the lyre of Nature, and the ground Offers its matin incense wide around, Oh God! upon the mountains is there one, Whose heart receives not, like yon lake profound, The imaged beauty,-sends not back a tone With Nature's solemn voice in gentlest unison ? Thy mighty Presence is around us,-felt, Not in its terrors, earthquake, storm and fire, In sights and sounds of harmony, that melt Into the spirit's depths, 'till each desire Rises to Thee; as yonder clouds aspire To the huge mountains' summits, from below Issuing in mist and dampness,-but as higher They climb the everlasting peaks of snow, Touched with the hues of heaven, and melting in its glow. And there ye stand, majestic Alps! which never By foot of man were trod,―ye stand, and smile In calm derision at his weak endeavour To touch the confines of each sky-girt isle; 'Tis well! albeit his chainless soul the while Can make your peaks her stepping-stones to climb When ye have crumbled down amid the wrecks of time. THE EXECUTION OF A MURDERER. THEY led him forth!-'tis not for words to speak The horrid hue that settled on his cheek, As all the blood that flushed that face of fear Had gathered into blue stagnation there, And left his lip and brow;-e'en death might fail To paint thereon a tint more ashy pale. A faintness fell upon him as he came To that dark place of suffering and of shame; For though he spake not aught, nor changed his look, His weight fell heavier, and his strong frame shook. "Oh God!" he moaned, and darted his fierce eye Up to the clouds that frowned along the sky, "I thought they said, that mighty One above Was something full of pity and of love : I showed no mercy-well deserve to see The friend of all a bitter foe to me! The sky feels hot above me-and my fate Flares in my face. Oh, mercy!-'tis too late!" He seemed to stand before his God alone. He tried the stairs and reeled,-they dragged him on, Then burst in one wild, deafening, maddening yell The voice of execration; winged from hell Rained the hot curses round him far and near, Pealed from its thousand tongues a city's damning prayer. And he the wretched being, on whose path Burst that fell storm of vengeance and of wrath, Who caught from manhood's shout and childhood's cry, In one full curse, his death-sleep's lullaby, He was low kneeling when that fierce yell rang Upon his ear-a moment-up he sprang! But oh, how changed! no longer feeble, tame, Death in his eye, and palsy in his frame— The demon, checked and cowed and trampled, now And both were crimsoned ;-from his dark eye broke A sneer contempt had curled into a smile; Silenced the loudest, and the boldest shook. Abrupt he turned on me :-I felt each sense |