If all that fondness honors and adores,
If all that grief remembers and deplores,
Could bid the spoiler turn his scythe away,
Or snatch one flower from darkness and decay,
Thou had'st not marked, fair city, his decline,
Nor reared the marble in thy silent shrine-
The cold, ungrieving marble,—to declare
How many hopes lie desolated there.
We will not mourn for him! ere human ill
Could blight one bliss, or make one feeling chill,
In Learning's pure embrace he sunk to rest,
Like a tired child upon his mother's breast:
Peace to his hallowed shade! his ashes dwell
In that sweet spot he loved in life so well,
And the sad Nurse who watched his early bloom,
From this his home, points proudly to his tomb.
But oft, when twilight sleeps on earth and sea,
Beautiful Athens, we will weep for thee;
For thee and for thine offspring!-will they bear
The dreary burthen of their own despair,
Till nature yields, and sense and life depart
From the torn sinews and the trampled heart?
Oh! by the mighty shades that dimly glide
Where Victory beams upon the turf or tide,
By those who sleep at Marathon in bliss,
By those who fell at glorious Salamis,
By every laurelled brow and holy name,
By every thought of freedom and of fame,
By all ye bear, by all that ye have borne,
The blow of anger, and the glance of scorn,
The fruitless labor, and the broken rest,
The bitter torture, and the bitterer jest,
By your sweet infants' unavailing cry,
Your sister's blush, your mother's stifled sigh,
By all the tears that ye have wept, and weep,
Break, Sons of Athens, break your weary sleep!
Yea! it is broken!-Hark, the sudden shock
Rolls on from wave to wave, from rock to rock;
Up, for the Cross and Freedom! far and near
Forth starts the sword, and gleams the patriot spear,
And bursts the echo of the battle song,
Cheering and swift, the banded hosts along.
On, Sons of Athens! let your wrongs and woes
Burnish the blades, and nerve the whistling bows;

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Green be the laurel, ever blest the meed
Of him that shines to-day in martial deed,
And sweet his sleep beneath the dewy sod,
Who falls for fame, his country, and his God!

The hoary sire has helmed his locks of gray,
Scorned the safe hearth, and tottered to the fray:
The beardless boy has left his gilt guitar,

And bared his arm for manhood's holiest war.
E'en the weak girl has mailed her bosom there,
Clasped the rude helmet on her auburn hair,
Changed love's own smile for valor's fiery glance,
Mirth for the field, the distaff for the lance.
Yes, she was beauteous, that Athenian maid,
When erst she sate within her myrtle shade,
Without a passion, and without a thought,
Save those which innocence and childhood wrought,
Delicious hopes, and dreams of life and love,
Young flowers below, and cloudless skies above.
But oh, how fair, how more than doubly fair,
Thus, with the laurel twined around her hair,-
While at her feet her country's chiefs assemble,
And those soft tones amid the war-cry tremble,
As some sweet lute creeps eloquently in,
Breaking the tempest of the trumpet's din,-
Her corselet fastened with a golden clasp,-
Her falchion buckled to her tender grasp,-
And quivering lip, flushed cheek, and flashing eye,
All breathing fire, all speaking' Liberty!'

Firm has that struggle been! but is there none
To hymn the triumph, when the fight is won?
Oh for the harp which once-but through the strings,
Far o'er the sea, the dismal night-wind sings;
Where is the hand that swept it ?-cold and mute,
The lifeless master, and the voiceless lute!
The crowded hall, the murmur, and the gaze,
The look of envy, and the voice of praise,

And friendship's smile, and passion's treasured vow,-
All these are nothing,-life is nothing now!
But the hushed triumph, and the garb of gloom,
The sorrow, deep, but mute, around the tomb,
The soldier's silence, and the matron's tear,-
These are the trappings of the sable bier,
Which time corrupts not, falsehood cannot hide,
Nor folly scorn, nor calumny deride.

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And what is writ, is writ!'-the guilt and shame,
All eyes have seen them, and all lips may blame;
Where is the record of the wrong that stung,
The charm that tempted, and the grief that wrung?
Let feeble hands, iniquitously just,

Rake up the relics of the sinful dust,

Let Ignorance mock the pang it cannot feel,
And Malice brand, what Mercy would conceal;
It matters not! he died as all would die;
Greece had his earliest song, his latest sigh;

And o'er the shrine, in which that cold heart sleeps,
Glory looks dim, and joyous conquest weeps.
The maids of Athens to the spot shall bring
The freshest roses of the new-born spring,

And Spartan boys their first-won wreath shall bear,

290

To bloom round BYRON's urn, or droop in sadness there!
Farewell, sweet ATHENS ! thou shalt be again

The sceptred Queen of all thine old domain,
Again be blest in all thy varied charms
Of loveliness and valor, arts and arms.

Forget not then, that, in thine hour of dread,
While the weak battled, and the guiltless bled,
Though Kings and Courts stood gazing on thy fate,
The bad, to scoff,-the better, to debate,
Here, where the soul of youth remembers yet
The smiles and tears which manhood must forget,
In a far land, the honest and the free

Had lips to pray, and hearts to feel, for thee!

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Note.-Several images in the early part of the poem are selected from passages in the Greek Tragedians ;-particularly from the two wellknown Chorusses in the Edipus Coloneus and the Medea.

The death of LORD BYRON took place after the day appointed for the sending in of the exercises; and the allusion to it has of course been introduced subsequent to the adjudication of the prize.

Mr. Marshall of St. John's College produced so excellent a Poem, that the Examiners were undecided, and obliged to call other aid to settle the comparative merits of the candidates.

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED,

TRINITY COLLEGE.

AMIDS

ON THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

PART V. [Continued from No. LVIII.]

In order that the preceding inferences may not appear to be built on insufficient data, I subjoin the annexed account of the Pyramid from Greaves, who is generally admitted to be most scrupulously accurate in dimensions and description.

"On the north side, ascending thirty-eight feet, upon an artificiall bank of earth, there is a square, and narrow passage leading into the Pyramid, through the mouth of which, being equidistant from the two sides of the Pyramid, we enter as it were down the steep of a hill, declining with an angle of twenty-six degrees. The breadth of this entrance is exactly three feet, and 463 parts of 1000 of the English foot: the length of it beginning from the first declivity, which is some ten palmes without, to the utmost extremity of the neck or strait within, where it contracts it selfe almost nine feet continued, with scarce halfe the depth it had at the first entrance (though it keep still the same breadth), is ninety-two feet and a halfe. The structure of it hath been the labour of an exquisite hand, as appeares by the smoothnesse and evenesse of the work, and by the close knitting of the joints. A property long since observed, and commended by Diodorus, has run through the fabrick of the whole body of this Pyramid. Having passed with tapers in our hands this narrow strait, though with some difficulty (for at the farther end of it we must, serpent-like, creep upon our bellies), we land in a place somewhat larger, and of a pretty height, but lying incomposed, having been dug away, either by the curiosity or avarice of some, in hope to discover an hidden treasure; or rather by the command of Almamon, the deservedly renowned Calife of Babylon. By whomsoever it were, it is not worth the inquiry, nor doth the place merit describing, but that I was unwilling to pretermit any thing: being only an habitation for bats, and those so ugly, and of so large a size (exceeding a foot in length), that I have not elsewhere seen the like. The length of this obscure and broken space conteineth eighty-nine feet, the breadth and height is various, and not worth consideration. On the left hand of this, adjoyning to that narrow entrance thorough which we passed, we climbe up a steep and massy stone, eight or nine feet in height, where we immediately enter upon the lower end of the gallery. The pavement of this rises with a gentle acclivity, consisting of smooth and polished marble, and

where not smeared with dust and filth, appearing of a white and alabaster colour: the sides, and roofe, as Titus Livius Burretinus, a Venetian, an ingenious young man, who accompanied me thither, observed, was of impolished stone, not so hard, and compact, as that on the pavement, but more soft, and tender: the breadth almost five feet, and about the same quantity the height, if he have not mistaken. He likewise discovered some irregularity in the breadth, it opening a little wider in some places, then in others; but this inequality could not be discerned by the eye, but only by measuring it with a carefull hand. By my observation with a line, this gallery conteined in length an hundred and ten feet. At the end of this begins the second gallery, a very stately piece of work, and not inferior, either in respect of the curiosity of art, or richnesse of materials, to the most sumptuous and magnificent buildings. It is divided from the former by a wall, through which, stooping, we passed in a square hole, much about the same bignesse, as that by which we entered into the Pyramid, but of no considerable length. This narrow passage lieth levell, not rising with an acclivity, as doth the pavement below, and roof above, of both these galleries. At the end of it, on the right hand, is the well mentioned by Pliny; the which is circular, and not square, as the Arabian writers describe: the diameter of it exceeds three feet, the sides are lined with white marble, and the descent into it is by fastning the hands and feet in little open spaces, cut in the sides within, opposite and answerable to one another, in a perpendicular. In the same manner are almost all the wells, and passages into the cesterns at Alexandria, contrived without staires or windings, but only with inlets and square holes, on each side within; by which, using the feet and hands, one may with ease descend. Many of these cesternes are with open and double arches, the lowermost arch being marble pillars, upon the top of which stands a second row, bearing the upper and higher arch: the walls within are covered with a sort of plaister for the colour white; but of so durable a substance, that neither by time, nor by the water, is it yet corrupted and impaired. But I returne from the cesternes and wells there to this in the Pyramid, which, in Plinie's calculation, is eighty-six cubits in depth, and it may be, was the passage to those secret vaults mentioned, but not described, by Herodotus, that were hewen out of the naturall rock, over which this Pyramid is erected. By my measure, sounding it with a line, it conteines twenty feet in depth. The reason of the difference between Plinie's observation and mine, VOL. XXX.

CI. JI.

NO. LX.

Q