to the combats of gladiators, still exhibited to the eyes of the Roman people a grateful spectacle of blood and cruelty."-Gibbon.

I SEE before me the gladiator lie;

He leans upon his hand,- his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,1
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low,
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first 2 of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims 3 around him-he is gone,

[won.

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-

All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire,

And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire.

BYRON.

1. What is meant by conquers agony?ings, state them, and say which you 2. What noun is understood to first?

prefer.

3. Swims is susceptible of two mean- 4. Who were the Goths?

XXIV. LOCH-NA-GARR.

LOCH-NA-GARR is one of the most sublime of the "Caledonian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Balmoral, our Queen's "highland home," is not far distant from Loch-na-Garr. The whole district is exceedingly romantic; and it was fortunate for Byron that he spent some time in it when a boy about eight years old. It produced impressions which remained with him through life.

AWAY ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Restore me the rocks where the snow-flake reposes,

For still they are sacred to freedom and love.
Yes, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains,

Round their white summits though elements war, Though cataracts foam, 'stead of smooth flowing fountains, I sigh for the valley of dark Loch-na-Garr.

Ah, there my young footsteps in infancy wandered!
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains long perished my memory pondered,
As daily I strode through the pine-covered glade.
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheered by traditional story,

Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch-na-Garr.

Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices
Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices,

And rides on the wind o'er his own Highland vale?
Round Loch-na-Garr, while the stormy mist gathers,
Winter presides in his cold icy car;

Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers-
They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch-na-Garr.

Ill-starred, though brave, did no visions foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden?

Victory crowned not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy, in death's earthly slumber
You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar ;
The pibroch resounds to the piper's loud number
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch-na-Garr.

Years have rolled on, Loch-na-Garr, since I left you;
Years must elapse ere I tread you again;
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you,

Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain.
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic

To one who has roved o'er the mountains afar ; Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic,

The steep frowning glories of dark Loch-na-Garr !

BYRON.

LINES ON THE DEPAKTURE OF EMIGRANTS.

41

XXV. LINES ON THE DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES.

"BE fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth."-Gen. i. 28.

ON England's shore I saw a pensive band,

With sails unfurled for earth's remotest strand,
Like children parting from a mother, shed'

Tears for the home that could not yield them bread;
Grief marked each face receding from the view,'

"Twas grief to nature honourably true.

And long poor wanderers o'er the ecliptic deep
The song that names but home shall make you weep;
Oft shall ye fold your flocks by stars above
In that far world, and miss the stars ye love;
Oft, when its tuneless birds scream round forlorn,
Regret the lark that gladdens England's morn;
And, giving England's names to distant scenes,
Lament that earth's extension intervenes.3

But cloud not yet too long, industrious train,
Your solid good with sorrow nursed in vain ;
For has the heart no interest yet as bland
As that which binds us to our native land?
The deep-drawn wish, when children crown our hearth,
To hear the cherub chorus of their mirth,

Undamped by dread that want may e'er unhouse,
Or servile misery knit those smiling brows;

The pride to rear an independent shed,
And give the lips we love unborrowed bread;
To see a world, from shadowy forests won,
In youthful beauty wedded to the sun;
To skirt our home with harvests widely sown,
And call the blooming landscape all our own,

Our children's heritage in prospect long.

These are the hopes, high-minded hopes and strong,
That beckon England's wanderers o'er the brine
To realms where foreign constellations shine;
Where streams from undiscovered fountains roll,
And winds shall fan them from the antarctic pole.
And what though doom'd to shores so far apart
From England's home, that even the home-sick heart
Quails, thinking ere that gulf can be recrossed,
How large a space of fleeting life is lost :

Yet there by time their bosoms shall be changed,
And strangers once 5 shall cease to sigh estranged ;
But jocund in their year's long sunshine roam,
That yields their sickle twice its harvest home."

There, marking o'er his farm's expanding ring,"
New fleeces whiten and new fruits upspring;
The grey-haired swain, his grand-child sporting round,
Shall walk at eve his little empire's bound,
Emblazed with ruby vintage, ripening corn,
And verdant ramparts of acacian thorn,

While mingling with the scent his pipe exhales,
The orange-grove's and fig-tree's breath prevails;
Survey with pride, beyond a monarch's spoil,
His honest arm's own subjugated soil;

And, summing all the blessings God has given,
Put up his patriarchal prayer to heaven,
That when his bones shall here repose in peace,
The scions of his love may still increase,
And o'er a land where life has ample room
In health and plenty innocently bloom.

Delightful land, in wildness even benign,
The glorious past is ours, the future thine!
As in a cradled Hercules, we trace

The lines of empire in thine infant face.
What nations in thy wide horizon's span
Shall teem on tracts untrodden yet by man!

What spacious cities with their spires shall gleam
Where now the panther laps a lonely stream,
And all but brute or reptile life is dumb!
Land of the free! thy kingdom is to come,
Of states, with laws from Gothic bondage burst,
And creeds by charter'd priesthoods unaccursed;

LINES ON THE DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS.

Of navies hoisting their emblazoned flags,
Where shipless seas now wash unbeacon'd crags ;
Of hosts reviewed in dazzling files and squares,
Their pennon'd trumpets breathing native airs,-
For minstrels thou shalt have of native fire,
And maids to sing the songs themselves inspire ;
Our very speech, methinks, in after-time,
Shall catch the Ionian blandness of thy clime;
And whilst the light and luxury of thy skies
Give brighter smiles to beauteous woman's eyes,
The Arts, whose soul is love, shall all-spontaneous rise.
Untrack'd in deserts lies the marble mine,
Undug the ore that 'midst thy roofs shall shine;
Unborn thy hands-but born they are to be-
Fair Australasia, that shall give to thee
Proud temple domes, with galleries winding high,
So vast in space, so just in symmetry;
They widen to the contemplating eye
With colonnaded aisles in long array,
And windows that enrich the flood of day
O'er tesselated pavements, pictures fair,
And niched statues breathing golden air;
Nor there, whilst all that's seen bids Fancy swell,
Shall Music's voice refuse to seal the spell;
But choral hymns shall wake enchantment round,
And organs yield their tempests of sweet sound.

9

8

Meanwhile, ere Arts triumphant reach their goal,
How blest the years of pastoral life shall roll!
Even should some wayward hour the settler's mind
Brood sad on scenes for ever left behind,
Yet not a pang that England's name imparts
Shall touch a fibre of his children's hearts;
Bound to that native land by nature's bond,
Full little shall their wishes rove beyond
Its mountains blue and melon-skirted streams,
Since childhood loved and dreamt of in their dreams.

How many a name to us uncouthly wild
Shall thrill that region's patriotic child;

And bring as sweet thoughts o'er his bosom's chords,
As aught that's named in song to us affords!
Dear shall that river's margin be to him,
Where sportive first he bathed his boyish limb;
Or petted birds still brighter than their bowers,
Or twined his tame young kangaroo with flowers: