BREATHES THERE THE MAN.

FROM "THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL," CANTO VI. BREATHES there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

MY COUNTRY.

THERE is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air.
In every clime, the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar race,
The heritage of nature's noblest grace,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life:

But down swept all his power,

With chariot and with charge;
Down poured the arrows' shower,
Till sank the Dorian's targe.

They gathered round the tent,
With all their strength unstrung;
To Greece one look they sent,

Then on high their torches flung.

The king sat on the throne,

His captains by his side, While the flame rushed roaring on, And their Pæan loud replied.

Thus fought the Greek of old!
Thus will he fight again!

Shall not the self-same mould
Bring forth the self-same men?

GEORGE CROLY.

HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.

LARS PORSENA of Clusium,

By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it,

And named a trysting-day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan

Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium

Is on the march for Rome !

The horsemen and the footmen
Are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place,
From many a fruitful plain,
From many a lonely hamlet,

Which, hid by beech and pine,

Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine:

From lordly Volaterræ,'

Where scowls the far-famed hold
Piled by the hands of giants
For godlike kings of old;
From sea-girt Populonia,
Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops
Fringing the southern sky;

From the proud mart of Pisa,
Queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia's triremes,

Heavy with fair-haired slaves;
From where sweet Clanis wanders
Through corn and vines and flowers,
From where Cortona lifts to heaven
Her diadem of towers.

Tall are the oaks whose acorns

Drop in dark Auser's rill;
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs
Of the Ciminian hill;
Beyond all streams, Clitumnus

Is to the herdsman dear;
Best of all pools the fowler loves
The great Volsinian mere.

But now no stroke of woodman

Is heard by Auser's rill;

No hunter tracks the stag's green path
Up the Ciminian hill;

Unwatched along Clitumnus
Grazes the milk-white steer;
Unharmed the water-fowl may dip
In the Volsinian mere.

The harvests of Arretium,

This year, old men shall reap; This year, young boys in Umbro Shall plunge the struggling sheep; And in the vats of Luna,

This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome.

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who always by Lars Porsena

Both morn and evening stand.
Evening and morn the Thirty

Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore;

And with one voice the Thirty

Have their glad answer given :
"Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena,
Go forth, beloved of Heaven!
Go, and return in glory

To Clusium's royal dome,

And hang round Nurscia's altars

The golden shields of Rome !"

And now hath every city

Sent up her tale of men ;

The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten.