FRAGMENT.

Excellence of the Christian Principle set forth, and recommended.

[From an unpublished work.]

Ir thou would'st lay thee in the grave at last,
And die as dies the good man; if thy heart
In that sad hour would feel its sympathies
Sweeten'd, and soothed by solitary thought;
Let thy whole life with virtuous actions teem,
With virtue's law compare. Thou can'st not live
Too pure, or o'er thy smallest actions keep

Too close restraint. Thou can'st not think too oft,
There is a never, never sleeping eye

Which reads thy heart, and registers thy thoughts;
Thou can'st not say too oft-'Teach me to know
My end, that I may feel how short it is'—
Nor can'st thou lie too frequent, or too low
Before that cross whereon the Saviour hung-
A blameless sacrifice. It is his fate,

And by his disobedience invoked,

That man shall view the sepulchre with dread;
That when he looks into its narrow depths,
Its gloom-its cheerlessness; and, spurning earth,
Reflection lifts the separating veil

Which hides the future, undissembled awe
Shall grasp his soul, and will not be dispell'd.
Yet in this chalice hath a provident God
Commingled blessings. He hath mark'd a path,
And promis'd peace to him who walks therein,
And safety through the portals of the grave:
And though thorns weary, and temptations press
To win him into crime-his word is sure,
And it will save him. Our emotions take
Their hues from the complexion of the heart,
As landscapes their variety from light;
And he who pays his conscience due regard,
Is virtue's friend, and reaps a sure reward.
He who has train'd his heart with lib'ral care,
Has robb'd the sable tyrant of his crown,
And torn the robe of terror from his breast.
Death cannot fright him; he has that within
Which, as the needle to the Arctic kept
By law immutable, his mind upbears,

And fastens where earth's influence cannot reach:
Let loose the cohort of diseases-rend

The finest shoots of passion from his heart-
Snap ev'ry tie of common sympathy,

And let the adverse and remorseless waves

Of disappointment roar against his breast

And you have struck some rock on Newstra's coast,
With but the heavings of a summer's sea.
His spirit knows no thraldom, and it takes
A flight sublime, where earth hath never power.

There is a half-way virtue in the world
Which is the world's worst enemy; its bane;
Its with'ring curse. It cheats it with a show-
But offers nought of substance, when is sought
Its peaceful fruits. It suffers men in power
To let the young aspirant rise or fall
As chance directs. The rich man fosters it;
And for the favor, it shuts up his ears
Against the cry of virtuous penury;

Or bids him dole out with a miserly hand,

A farthing, where a thousand should be thrown
And proffer'd kindly. The lone orphan's cries,
The widow's wail in impotence, perchance
Secure a few unmeaning tears—but not
The pity which administers relief.
Words flow as freely as a parrot talks
At tales of suffering; and tears may fall
As free as Niobe's; but not a sacrifice
The heart accepts, nor pleasure is forgone,
Which marks the principle of virtue there,
Or such as finds acceptance in the skies.
Who pays with pity, all my debt of love—
Who weeps for me, yet never sees my lack-
Who says be clothed, yet never proffers aught-
He's not my fellow, nor deserves the name.

A feeble virtue is a vice, adorn'd With virtue's semblance. 'Tis a negative And useless quality. It exempts from wo Insufferable, yet grudges perfect bliss; And he but tricks him in a knave's attire, Who boasts no other. He's but half the man Who, when temptation stares him in the face, Assents, yet trembles to be overcome! Such men do things by halves, and never do Aught with an earnest soul. They fool away A life, in which the good and evil mix So equal, that the sum is neutralized; And Justice on their sepulchres inscribes No sterner truth, than when she writes-a blank.

Why linger then betwixt the two extremes-
The passive puppet of each circumstance?
Why pure, and dev'lish-mortal, and immortal-
Too good for earth-and yet unfit for Heaven?
Why not at once, dispel these baneful mists,
Thrust from thy path, the arts and blandishments
Which win to wickedness; and rise at once

With a proud moral freedom, until thou
Can'st stand upon the stars-and see to Heaven?

THE SCIOT GIRL.

"I cannot bear

To be the scorned and trampled thing I am
In this degraded land. Its very skies,
That smile as if but festivals were held
Beneath their cloudless azure, weigh me down
With a dull sense of bondage."—Hemans.

THE inhabitants of the once beautiful island of Scio, were among the last to rise against their oppressors and throw off the Turkish yoke. A combination of causes prevented them from taking part in the revolt when it first broke out. The spirit of enterprise and commerce, while it enriched and refined the people, had withdrawn them, by degrees, from those warlike habits which had distinguished many of the neighboring isles. They were immediately under the coast of Asia Minor, from whence, without a moment's warning, they might be overwhelmed by hordes of merciless barbarians. They could not look out upon their vine-clad hills and their cultivated fields, where the orange, citron and pomegranate bloomed in oriental richness, and think that the fair scene should be polluted by the horrors of a desolating war. Learning and religion were protected. They were prosperous and happy under a government which, to them at least, had been an indulgent one, and they wisely preferred their present safety to the uncertain chance of future benefit. The young men of the island, many of whom had been educated in the universities of France and Italy, with the generous impulse of their age, hastened, at the first cry, to join the ranks of the revolters; and we may well imagine that many, who were themselves unable to take up arms, prayed for the success of the cause and aided it in secret.

A

year had now passed, and such was the situation of Scio.

It was an evening in the month of March, when a young Greek might be seen hastening along the beach in the direction of the principal town of the island. In the dress of the person-which

His

was that of the higher class of citizens-there was nothing remarkable; but in his manner there was much to draw attention. countenance was marked by an expression of cool and high-strung desperation. He strode on, as if to escape from the burthen of some intolerable thought, and muttered to himself from between his close set teeth. We may catch the import of his words.

Well, well! it is over; and in sooth, she carried it nobly for one so young; but that pride shall have a fall, my haughty beauty,and that stripling Antonio, too-by the cross! to be outwitted, circumvented, thus-that he should step in and pluck the fruit I had coveted so long. Most excellent Constantine! truly thy wits have grown sharp of late to be thus miserably foiled by a beardless boy, and thine own egregious self conceit.-Fool! fool!" He paused for an instant, and a demoniac scowl passed across his features. "Ay, revenge and she shall kneel to me even as I knelt to her, and pray to me in her agony and I will not hear her. Wo to those who would trifle with the proffers of Constantine."

That night he disappeared from the island, and his absence excited little remark and less regret. Of his history scarcely any thing was known; but the mystery with which he chose to envelope his early days, his unbounded prodigality of wealth, and the recklessness of his character, gave rise to a strong suspicion, that his life had been one of desperate and unlawful courses.

And who was she against whom that fearful malediction had been uttered? A gentle spiritual being, unfit for the stormy waves on which she had been cast, destined to struggle with difficulty against them, and perhaps, ere long, to float away on the wilderness of waters, a withered and a broken thing. Surrounded with all that wealth could bring, she had grown up, shadowed from the gaze of the world, beautiful and accomplished in person, but still more lovely, if possible, in her intellectual being. To her the literature of the present and the past were unfolded, and she drank deeply of all that is high or impassioned therein. But most she loved to dwell upon the records of her country, and her young blood would thrill as she read of the ancient glory of her people, of their triumphs in arts and arms, of their bards, and warriors, and sages, and she wept when she beheld the degeneracy of their descendants. The beautiful in nature" haunted her like a passion." She loved the Egean and its isles and the blue sky above them, because they were beautiful themselves, but still more because antiquity had hallowed them. And she was wont to steal away from her companions, and in some shady nook made pleasant by the dashing of a mountain rivulet, to read the stories of the olden time,' till consciousness stole from her and she lived and moved an actor in the scene. On one thus constituted, the first tidings of the revolt struck like an electric shock. The day-dream of her existence seemed to be on the eve of its accomplishment. Already, in imagination, she saw the chains

falling from her nation, and Greece, with her bright coronet of isles, smiling in her recovered independence and happiness. She saw the ruined temples and altars reconstructed, and the statues of the renowned of old, restored to their long deserted niches. She lamented that she too might not grasp the lance and wield the sword. But all the interest of an actual combatant was hers. Her soul was with Niketas, among the passes of the Morea, with Miaulis and Canaris in their desperate engagements by sea, and her prayers were daily with God, that he would crown their efforts with success. She mingled no longer in the song or dance, she was no longer seen in the masque or revel of the festival-a high and holy enthusiasm filled her soul, and

"The boon that nature gave her at her birth,
Her own original gaiety of heart"

was gone. As a mother watches with intense solicitude, the varying pulses of a dying child, so did Zara watch the rising and sinking fortunes of the cause to which she had bound her happiness forever.

It was the night on which commences our story, and Zara is gazing out upon the sea, and the evening breeze that comes in through the lattice, lifts her dark hair and caresses her cheek, as if conscious of the beauty around which it played. The scene through which she had passed, and which had resulted so bitterly to one, had vanished entirely from her mind. The stars were looking down from an unclouded sky, and the waves made music as they broke upon the shore, but both were equally unmarked by her. She thought of her lover beyond the sea, she watched him in all the hazards of a fierce contest, she heard his voice, nerving with confidence his fainting friends and sending dismay into the ranks of the enemy. She saw him driving the Moslem before him, now he is among the thickest of the foe, he struggles valiantly, the infidels hem him in on every side, Holy Virgin preserve him, he is down!—she was suddenly aroused from her painful thoughts. A light boat, containing a single individual, shot rapidly round a curve of the shore, and glided into the dark, smooth water of the little bay that lay beneath her window. A moment after a rich, manly voice rose gaily on the air :

Lady, from thy lofty bower
Look not out so tearfully,
Lady know, this joyous hour,
From beyond the star-lit sea

Brings thy lover back to thee,
Brings him, love, to life and thee!

That voice! it was Antonio's—a moment more and she is in his

arms.

"Ah recreant!" said she, smiling fondly upon him, "is this your boasted patriotism? What sends you from your post in the hour of danger?"