Till Belvoir's lordly towers the sign to Lincoln sent, Trent; Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burnt on Gaunt's embattled pile, And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle. MACAULAY. MONCONTOUR. OH, weep for Moncontour! O weep for the hour O weep for Moncontour! O weep for the slain! The renegade's shame, or the exile's despair! One look, one last look to the cots and the towers, Alas! we must leave thee, dear desolate home, Farewell to thy fountains, farewell to thy shades, To the breath of thy gardens, the hum of thy bees, Farewell and for ever! The priest and the slave MACAULAY. A BUTTERFLY AT A CHILD'S GRAVE. A BUTTERFLY basked on an infant's grave, "Why art thou here with thy gaudy dye? Then it lightly soared through the sunny air, And spoke from its shining track: "I was a worm till I won my wings, And she whom thou mourn'st, like a seraph sings Would thou call the blest one back?" NAPOLEON'S RETURN. SIGOURNEY. A KING is standing there, * And, with uncovered head, Receives him in the name of France: Receiveth whom?-The dead! Was he not buried deep In island-cavern drear, Girt by the sounding ocean surge? Was there no rest for him Beneath a peaceful pall, That thus he brake his stony tomb An echo, never to be heard A requiem for the chief Whose fiat millions slew, The soaring eagle of the Alps, The crushed at Waterloo; The banished who returned, The dead who rose again, And rode in his shroud the billows proud To the sunny banks of Seine. They laid him there in state, That warrior strong and bold; The imperial crown, with jewels bright, Upon his ashes cold, While round those columns proud The blazoned banners wave, That on a hundred fields he won With the heart's blood of the brave. Mysterious one, and proud! N In the land where shadows reign, Hast thou met the flocking ghosts of those Oh, when the cry of that spectral host Like a rushing blast shall be, What will thine answer be to them? And what thy God's to thee? SIGOURNEY. FLOWERS. SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, Bright and glorious is that revelation, Written all over this great world of ours; Making evident our own creation In these stars oí earth-these golden flowers. And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, Seeks, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same universal Being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, These in flowers and men are more than seeming ; Workings are they of the self-same powers, Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. Everywhere about us are they glowing, Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing, And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, In the centre of his brazen shield; Not alone in meadows and green alleys, Not alone in her vast dome of glory, On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone; |