Down on the Temple-floor the traitor flung The infamous bribe for which he sold the Lord, Then in despair rushed forth, and with a cord, From out the tree, his reprobate body hung. Pent in his throat, the struggling spirit poured A mingled sound of rage and wildest grief, And Christ it cursed, and its own sin in chief, Which glutted hell with triumphs so abhorred. Forth with a howl at last the spirit fled. Then Justice bore it to the holy mount, And dipping there her finger in the fount Of Christ's all-sacred blood, the sentence dread Wrote on its brow of everlasting woe, Then, loathing, plunged it into hell below. II. Down into hell that wretched soul she flung, When lo! a mighty earthquake shook the ground; The mountain reeled. The wind swept fierce around The black and strangled body where it hung. From Calvary at eve, the angels wending, On slow, hushed wing, their holy vigil o'er, Saw it afar, and swift their white wings, blending With trembling fear, their pure eyes spread before. Meanwhile fiends pluck the corse down in the gloom, And on their burning shoulders, as a bier, Convey the burden to its nameless doom. Cursing and howling, downward thus they steer Their hell-ward course, and in its depths restore The wandering soul to its damned corse once more. SONNET UPON JUDAS. BY GIANNI. Spent with the struggles of his mad despair, Judas hung gasping from the fatal tree; Then swift the tempter-fiend sprang on him there, Flapping his flame-red wings exultingly. With griping claws he clutched the noose that bound The traitor's throat, and hurled him down below, Where hell's hot depths, incessant bubbling glow His burning flesh and crackling bones around: There, mid the gloomy shades, asunder riven By storm and lurid flame, was SATAN seen; Relaxing his stern brow, with hideous grin. Within his dusky arms the wretch he caught, And with smutched lips, fuliginous and hot, _Repaid the kiss which he to Christ had given._ THE CHARACTER OF BURNS. BY EBENEZER ELLIOTT.