s the heavy groans of the rending earth!

Oh, there were shrieks of wild affright,
And sounds of hurrying feet,
And men who cursed the lurid light,
Whose glance they feared to meet:
And some sunk down in mute despair
On the parched earth, and perished there.--

It comes!--it comes!--that lengthened shock--
The earth before it reels--
The stately towers and temples rock,
The dark abyss reveals
Its fiery depths--the strife is o'er,
The city sinks to rise no more.

She has passed from earth like a fearful dream;--
Where her pomp and splendour rose,
There runs a dark and turbid stream,
And a sable cloud its shadow throws;
Pale sorrow broods in silence there,
To mourn the perished things that were.

LINES

WRITTEN AMIDST THE RUINS OF A CHURCH ON THE
COAST OF SUFFOLK.

"What hast thou seen in the olden time,
Dark ruin, lone and gray?"
"Full many a race from thy native clime,
And the bright earth, pass away.
The organ has pealed in these roofless aisles,
And priests have knelt to pray
At the altar, where now the daisy smiles
O'er their silent beds of clay.

"I've seen the strong man a wailing child,
By his mother offered here;
I've seen him a warrior fierce and wild;
I've seen him on his bier,
His warlike harness beside him laid
In the silent earth to rust;
His plumed helm and trusty blade
To moulder into dust!

"I've seen the stern reformer scorn
The things once deemed divine,
And the bigot's zeal with gems adorn
The altar's sacred shrine.
I've seen the silken banners wave
Where now the ivy clings,
And the sculptured stone adorn the grave
Of mitred priests and kings.

"I've seen the youth in his tameless glee,
And the hoary locks of age,
Together bend the pious knee,
To read the sacred page;
I've seen the maid with her sunny brow
To the silent dust go down,
The soil-bound slave forget his woe,
The king resign his crown.

"Ages have fled--and I have seen
The young--the fair--the gay--
Forgot as if they ne'er had been,
Though worshipped in their day:
And school-boys here their revels keep,
And spring from grave to grave,
Unconscious that beneath them sleep
The noble and the brave.

"Here thousands find a resting place
Who bent before this shrine;
Their dust is here--their name and race,
Oblivion; now are thine!
The prince--the peer--the peasant sleeps
Alike beneath the sod;
Time o'er their dust short record keeps,
Forg