die,)
A sudden cry escapeth
Mahmood's unguarded lips,
A cry as of a suffering soul
Redeemed from Hell's eclipse.
"Oh, Allah! gracious Allah!
Thy servant badly won
This blessing to a father's heart,
'Tis not--'tis NOT my son!
Fly!--tell my joy in Ghazna;--
Before the night is done
Let lighted shrine and blazing street
Proclaim 'tis not my son!
'Tis not Massoud, the wayward,
Who thus the Law defied,
Yet I deem'd that none but my only son
Dared set my oath aside:
Though my frame grew faint from fasting,
Though my soul with grief grew wild,
Upon this spot I would have wrought
stern justice on my child.
I wrought the deed in darkness,
For fear a single ray
Should light his face, and from this heart
Plead the Poor Man's cause away.
Great Allah sees uprightly
I strive my course to run,
And thus rewards his servant----
_This dead_ is not my son!"

VIII

Thus, through his reign of glory,
Shone his JUSTICE far and wide;
All praise to the First Sultan,
MAHMOOD THE GHAZNAVIDE

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART XIX.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

Change is the master-spirit of Europe, as permanency is of Asia. The
contrast is in the nature of things. However the caprice, the genius, or
the necessities, of the sitter on the throne may attempt to impress
permanency on the habits of the West, or mutability on those of the East,
his success must be but partial. In Europe we have a perpetual movement of
minds, a moral ocean, to which tides and currents are an operation of
nature. But the Caspian or the Euxine is not more defined by its limits of
rock and mountain, or more inexorably separated from the general influx of
the waters which roll round the world, than the Asiatic mind is from
following the free course, and sharing the bold and stormy innovations, of
Europe.

But the most rapid and total change within human memory, was the one which
was now before my eye. I felt as some of the old alchymists might feel in
their laboratories, with all the