« My song halh an under-strain within,

« To deaden thy footstep's fall. • A kingly wizard - fair girl, is Time

«Each shining flower he sears« And peals on high like a death-bell's chime

«His chorus of «Thirty years.n
Right well doth the ancient seer foretell-

The thirty years are fled -
No more doth that early music swell-

These glorious wreaths are dead.
That dreamy form as glad of yore

As the morris of twinkling fays: We ask in vain on the festal floor,

In the dancers' circling maze.
She cometh still- but no eye is bent

Her faded bloom to seek-
The ward of the prophetess is rent-

When Time hath blanched her cheek.
She stands alone like 'an ancient créed

Beside its fallen shrine-
No Lyrist 'to tune the votive reed,

No Priest to pour the wine-
Away with an idle dream, like this-

Hold !-«Murder will — be out,»
No mourner is she o'er yanished bliss."

But a matron plump "and stout.
That bluff old soldier is her, Lord-

These are her daughters four-
And of sons, each true as his own good sword

She hath full 'half-a-score.
Of old with a faltering voice she spoke

Of sentiment and rills,
And moralized on a blasted oak,

Or a knot of Daffodils.
But now she hath conned a wiser lore

And learnt a newer passion
For at fifty Rhyme is an odious bore,

And flowers are out of fashion :
Oh then-Good Lord-how her brain would teem

With nightingales and trees,
And omens in each starlight gleam,

And sighs on every breeze.
By turns her dream was of nature's truths

And music on the waters 'T is of «glory » now for these stalwart youths

And of rent-rolls for her daughters.

No longer the grim old tyrant's voice is',

With a shuddering start she hears, it
But wisely avers that for «Her and Hersw'. .

« T'is well after Thirty years...'

PART II.

Showeth the History of ayoung Poet, and how he foiled the knavery

of Time by prematurely bidding Good-b’ye to him.

With folded arms a Poet stood

On a river's winding bank - '
With a watchful ear he seemed to hear

The boughs as they rose and sank.
Scarce twenty summers upon his head

Their shadowy hand had laid,
To carve their lines on his snowy brow

Or darken his dreams with shade.
And songs-oh glorious songs were his-

Such as Endymion heard-
When the voice of Dian the moonlight air ? !

O'er slumbering Latmos stirred
A gift divine was the Poet-youth's-

Green tree and flower and sky
With the oriel hues of phantasy

To gladden and glorify.
The drooping bloom on the river-bank

To him was a wood-nymph's cell :
The wandering hum of the loitering bee

A fairy's silver bell-
The lark that choired in middle air

At heaven's own portal hung-
The stilly tone of the woodland fount

From a' Naiad's reed was flung;
And not an autumn leaf could fade,

Or a minster-spire ascend,
VOL. n.

That did not to his musings lone

A holy meaning lend.
The Poet-youth! what pageants 'now

Before his favcy shine ? ;
Say dreamelh he of the Baron's hall,

And the banquet's purple wine ?
Or come the visions of elder days

Once more before his eye-
With shimmering shrines in forest-nooks

And pale girls watching by ?
In vain the Faun with brimming gourd

May chaunt the Maenad hymn-
And the dreamy myth o'er ils cerisers watch

In the temple's twilight dim-
On other themes doth the Poet muse

Than Faun or Antique Fane-
The green earth in this hour of peace

Awakes a nobler strain.
«Oh Lord of Love, n he murmurs low,

«How bountiful thou art« Through all thy world in joy outbreathies

«The universal heart. # As tranquil is this valley now

«As still these clustering trees « As the thin smoke that climbeth up

«From yonder villages, « Above-around-the soul directs

Its visionary flight« The very air sighs like a prayer

« Of sainted Eremite. « How calm ! the little shepherd-girl . «That sitteth by the brook By turns to pluck the, water-cress

«And con ler « sacred book, » «A very Image is of Rest

u An Emblem sanctified* As though good Angels, as of old,

«Were watching by her side. « Enough to fill the yearning heart

With Thanks-giving is here, . When with so deep a benison

'High heaven to earth draws ncar. « Ho! Ho!» quoth Time « 't'is wondrous well

Sir Poet! bul years steal past; * And the colours that flush thy heart to-day

«Shall wither and drop at last.

The spell-that in the desart limns

«Thy phantom Oases, « And bringeth near to thy weary ear

« The murmur of birds and trees «Will pass away, like the false Mirage

That mocks the Arab's haste,
« Nor leave a trace of its magic hand

«On the world's unbroken waste.
« On Fairy isles-in stately piles

«'T'is the Poet's lot to feast,
« And the golden altar where he kneels

«Lacks not or fee or Priest. '«A noble steed is Pegasus,

«Who needs nor groom nor oats ;
“And the elfin pages of Fancy seek

« At his hand no tinselled coats,
«And the fertile realm of cloud she tills

Craves not or plough or steers-
« But a sterner fate shall track thy path

« In the flight of « Thirty years."

Too well doth the ancient seer foretell-
· Not ten brief years are fled -
But the poet's strain is heard no more-

In shadows lies his head.
With fearless hand the shield he smote

At the Temple-gate of Fame-
And the echoes rang from the inmost shrine

At the youthful stranger's name.
But the cold world scorned his gentle voice

And his dreamy song belied —
He brake the lyre of his boyhood's day

And bowed to earth and died. (4)

(") John Keats.

SEPHARDIM;

OR

THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

BY JAMES FINN.

Sephardim is the title of an interesting and unpretending volume on the history of the Jews in Spain and Portugal, from their first appearance in the Peninsula to their expulsion from it by « the most Catholic sovereigns » of Castile and Arragon, it traces their various fortunes under the generally tolerant sway of the Roman empire, their depressed and perilous existence under the Gothie monarchy, their free and prosperous condition in the brilliant era of the Arabs, and their renewed sufferings and final banishment when the Peninsula was again brought under one government and one failh. Il exbibits them under the opposite aspects of agriculturists and merchants, as the rulers of their own communities, or the ministers of state and finance to their Christian or Moorish masters; at one time resuming, under the protection of the crescent, their oriental splendour and stateliness; at another, under the oppression of the cross, as the servants of servants, or veiling their ineradicable Hebraism beneath the strange guise of monks, bishops, or inquisitors. It displays their singular proficiency in some deparlments of science and literature, and their equally singular rejection of other elements of European civilization. Recent events have once more