Cambridge, January, 1831.

The Examiners gave Notice, that, should any Poem appear to them to possess distinguished merit, a premium of £100 would be adjudged.

The above premium was awarded to the REV. T. E. HANKINSON, M.A., of Corpus Christi College.

He waked his noblest numbers, to control
The tide and tempest of the maniac's soul;
Through many a maze of melody they flew,-
They rose like incense, they distilled like dew;
Poured through the sufferer's breast delicious balm,
And soothed remembrance till remorse grew calm,—
Till Cain forsook the solitary wild,

Led by the minstrel like a weaned child.

The lyre of Jubal, with divinest art,

Repelled the dæmon, and revived his heart.

Thus song, the breath of heaven, had power to bind
In chains of harmony the mightiest mind;
Thus music's empire in the soul began ;-
The first-born poet ruled the first-born man.

MONTGOMERY,
"World before the Flood," VI.

DAVID

PLAYING THE HARP BEFORE SAUL.

66

THEY talk of Madness-Madness!-would it were !

For Madness is unconsciousness;- and then The spirit falls asleep,-it recks not where—

:

The maniac's fetter and the maniac's den :-
Dreaming itself the crowned denizen
Of its own gorgeous palace,-idly glad

Amid the pity or the scorn of men,—
Careless alike of fair, foul, good or bad,

And laughing at them all,-I would that I were mad !"

But that I am not :-like the fiends in Hell,

I writhe with anguish; but, like them, alas,

I can remember and reflect too well:

My thoughts are no wild whirl, no cumbered mass

Of non-existent phantoms: what I was

I know, and what I am;-but others deem

My reason wrecked and perished :—let it pass!Yet would I give a monarch's diadem

To be, in very sooth, the brain-struck thing I seem."

Yes-I did leave my God!-and He hath left

My spirit to itself;-to me the sun

Of the great world of soul is set :-I drift

Amid the howling gloom,-the deep and dun Darkness, that may be felt. I start and run, As if from sounds of anguish ;-vain to flee

From mine own spirit's wail!-Ah ruined one! The seer spake sooth;-all fatal though it be,

'Thou didst forsake thy God-and God abandons thee.'

"I stood on Carmel once, as day's bright king

Was sinking:-Oh most musical stillness reigned, As proudly he descended, carpeting

The western waves with glory, ere he deigned

To set his foot upon them ;-swift he gained His bourne,-and what a change! I left the brow

All dark ;—and the great sea, like monster chained, Heaved in its bellowing blackness from below.

Oh God, I understand the ominous emblem now!"

"Yet one there is, who calls himself my friend;
And looks into my face with large wild eyes,-
Unearthly eyes,-and3 God, he says, doth send
Him as my guide :—when midnight veils the skies
Those large wild eyes meet mine;-and in them lies

A soul-o'erpowering spell:-I love him not,

Albeit I cannot hate-strange sympathies

Have bound us, sympathies of dreariest thought,

Where the mind shudders o'er the forms it has begot."