Bermuez cried, “I cannot hold,”

so eager was his will. He spurred his horse and drove him on

amid the Moorish rout : They strove to win the banner,

and compassed him about. Had not his armour been so true,

he had lost either life or limb; The Cid called out again,

“For Heaven's sake succour him!” Their shields before their breasts,

forth at once they go, Their lances in the rest

levelled fair and low; Their banners and their crests

waving in a row, Their heads all stooping down

towards the saddle bow. The Cid was in the midst,

his shout was heard afar, “I am Rui Diaz,

the champion of Bivar ; Strike amongst them, gentlemen,

for sweet mercies' sake!" There where Bermuez fought

amidst the foe they brake; Three hundred bannered knights,

it was a gallant show; Three hundred Moors they killed,

a man at every blow : When they wheeled and turned,

as many more lay slain, You might see them raise their lances,

and level them again. There you might see the breastplates, how they were cleft in twain,

B

And many a Moorish shield

lie scattered on the plain. The pennons that were white

marked with a crimson stain, The horses running wild

whose riders had been slain

AN ADDRESS TO A MUMMY.

(Horace Smith.) And thou hast walked about how strange a story!)

In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago, When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And time had not begun to overthrow Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Of which the very ruins are tremendous. Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;

Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune; Thou 'rt standing on thy legs above ground,

mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon, Not like thin ghosts, or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features. Tell us, for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame ? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name? Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer ? Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade,

Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played ? Perhaps thou wert a priest—if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles. Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass; Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.
I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,

Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled, For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled ;
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.
Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, How the world looked when it was fresh and young,

And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old, that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages.
Still silent! incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy ? then keep thy vows;
But prithee tell us something of thyself,

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house; Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen? what strange adventures

numbered ? Since first thy form was in this box extended, We have, above ground, seen some strange muta

tions ;

The Roman empire has begun and ended ;

New worlds have risen ; we have lost old nations, And countless kings have into dust been humbled, Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering

tread,
O’erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ?
If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,

The nature of thy private life unfold;
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,

And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled. Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that

face? What was thy name and station, age and race? Statue of flesh, immortal of the dead !

Imperishable type of evanescence, Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence : Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its

warning.
Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom !

THANATOPSIS.—(W. C. Bryant.) To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile, And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heartGo forth, under the open sky, and list To nature's teachings, while from all aroundEarth and her waters, and the depths of air,Comes a still voice :-Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alonenor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down