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And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;

The tumult of each sacked and burning village,

The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns ;

The soldier's revels in the midst of pillage;

The wail of famine in beleaguered

towns;

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,

The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;

And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,

The diapason of the cannonade. Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, [these, With such accursed instruments as Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices.

And jarrest the celestial harmonies? Were half the power that fills the world with terror,

Were half the wealth bestowed on

camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error,

There were no need for arsenals nor

forts :

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred !

And every nation, that should lift again

Its hand against a brother, on its forehead

Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!

Down the dark future, through long generations,

The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;

And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"

Peace; and no longer from its brazen portals

The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!

But beautiful as songs of the immortals,

The holy melodies of love arise.

TO A CHILD.

DEAR child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,

With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,

Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,

With many a grotesque form and face,
The ancient chimney of thy nursery!
The lady with the gay macaw,
The dancing girl, the brave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin;
And, leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command
Thou shakest in thy little hand
The coral rattle with its silver bells,
Making a merry tune!

Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon
Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!

Those silver bells Reposed of yore As shapeless ore,

Far down in the deep-sunken wells
Of darksome mines,
In some obscure and sunless place,
Beneath huge Chimborazo's base,
Or Potosí's o'erhanging pines!

And thus for thee, O little child,
Through many a danger and escape,
The tall ships passed the stormy cape;
For thee in foreign lands remote,
Beneath the burning, tropic skies,
The Indian peasant, chasing the wild
goat,

Himself as swift and wild,
The fibres of whose shallow root,
In falling, clutched the frail arbute,
The silver veins beneath it laid,
Uplifted from the soil, betrayed
The buried treasures of dead centuries.

But, lo! thy door is left ajar!
Thou hearest footsteps from afar!
And, at the sound
Thou turnest round
With quick and questioning eyes,
Like one who, in a foreign land,
Beholds on every hand

Some source of wonder and surprise!
And, restlessly, impatiently,
Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free.

The four walls of thy nursery
Are now like prison-walls to thee.
No more thy mother's smiles,
No more the painted tiles
Delight thee, nor the playthings on
the floor,

That won thy little beating heart
before;

Thou strugglest for the open door.

Through these once solitary halls
Thy pattering footstep falls.
The sound of thy merry voice
Makes the old walls
Jubilant, and they rejoice
With the joy of thy young heart,
O'er the light of whose gladness
No shadows of sadness
From the sombre background of me-
mory start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,
One whom memory oft recalls,
The Father of his Country dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp
The fires of the besieging camp
Encircled with a burning belt.
Up and down these echoing stairs,
Heavy with the weight of cares,
Sounded his majestic tread;
Yes, within this very room
Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head.

But what are these grave thoughts to
thee?

Out, out! into the open air!

Thy only dream is liberty,

Thou carest little how or where.

I see thee eager at thy play,

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nest,

From which the laughing birds have taken wing,

By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.

Dream-like the waters of the river gleam;

A sailless vessel drops adown the stream,

And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,
Thou driftest gently down the tides
of sleep.

O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison !
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand,

As at the touch of Fate!

Into those realms of love and hate,

Now shouting to the apples on the Into that darkness blank and drear,

tree,

With cheeks as round and red as they ;
And now among the yellow stalks,
Among the flowering shrubs and plants,

As restless as the bee.
Along the garden-walks
The tracks of thy small carriage-
wheels I trace;

And see at every turn how they efface
Whole villages of sand-roofed tents,
That rise like golden domes
Above the cavernous and secret homes
Of wandering and nomadic tribes of
Ah, cruel little Tamerlane,
Who, with thy dreadful reign,
Dost persecute and overwhelm

[ants.

By some prophetic feeling taught,
I launch the bold, adventurous
thought,

Freighted with hope and fear;
As upon subterranean streams,
In caverns unexplored and dark,
Laden with flickering fire,
Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,
And watch its swift-receding bcams,
Until at length they disappear,
And in the distant dark expire.
By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!
Like the new moon thy life appears;
A little strip of silver light,
And widening outward into night

These hapless Troglodytes of thy The shadowy disk of future years;

realm!"

And yet upon its outer rim,

A luminous circle faint and dim,
And scarcely visible to us here,
Rounds and completes the perfect
sphere;

A prophecy and intimation,
A pale and feeble adumbration,
Of the great world of light, that lies
Behind all human destinies.
Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,
Should be to wet the dusty soil
With the hot tears and sweat of toil,-
To struggle with imperious thought
Until the overburdened brain,
Weary with labour, faint with pain,
Like a jarred pendulum, retain
Only its motion, not its power,-
Remember, in that perilous hour,
When most afflicted and oppressed,
From labour there shall come forth

rest.

And if a more auspicious fate.
On thy advancing steps await,
Still let it ever be thy pride
To linger by the labourer's side;
With words of sympathy or song
To cheer the dreary march along

Of the great army of the poor,
O'er desert sand, or dangerous moor.

Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility;

As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they

smote

The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that
hung

Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire,
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.

Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold;
For, like Acestes' shaft of old,
The swift thought kindles as it flies,
And burns to ashes in the skies.

THE NORMAN BARON.

"Dans les moments de la vie où la réflexion devient plus calme et plus profonde, où l'intérêt et l'avarice parlent moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de maladie, et de péril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de posséder des serfs, comme d'une chose peu agréable à Dieu, qui avait créé tous les hommes son image."-THIERRY, Conquête de l'Angleterre

IN his chamber, weak and dying, Was the Norman baron lying; [dered, Loud, without, the tempest thun

And the castle turret shook.

In this fight was death the gainer,
Spite of vassal and retainer,
And the lands his sires had plundered,
Written in the Doomsday Book.
By his bed a monk was seated,
Who in humble voice repeated
Many a prayer and pater-noster

From the missal on his knee;
And, amid the tempest pealing,
Sound of bells came faintly stealing,
Bells, that, from the neighbouring
Rang for the Nativity. [kloster,

In the hall, the serf and vassal [sail; Held, that night, their Christmas wasMany a carol, old and saintly,

Sang the minstrels and the waits.

And so loud these Saxon gleemen Sang to slaves the songs of freemen, That the storm was heard but faintly,

Knocking at the castle-gates.

Till at length the lays they chaunted Reached the chamber terror-haunted, Where the monk, with accents holy,

Whispered at the baron's ear. Tears upon his eyelids glistened, As he paused a while and listened, And the dying baron slowly

Turned his weary head to hear. "Wassail for the kingly stranger Born and cradled in a manger! King, like David, priest, like Aaron,

Christ is born to set us free!" And the lightning showed the sainted Figures on the casement painted, And exclaimed the shuddering baron, "Miserere, Domine !"

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