"I've brought thee back thy banner, wench, from as rude and red a fray, As e'er was proof of soldier's thew, or theme for minstrel's lay! Here, Hubert, bring the silver bowl, and liquor quantum suff. I'll make a shift to drain it yet, ere I part with boots and buff; Though Guy through many a gaping wound is breathing forth his life, And I come to thee a landless man, my fond and faithful wife! "Sweet! we will fill our money-bags, and freight a ship for France, And mourn in merry Paris for this poor land's mischance: For if the worst befall me, why better axe and rope, Than life with Lenthal for a king, and Peters for a pope! Alas! alas! my gallant Guy!-curse on the crop-eared boor, Who sent me with my standard, on foot from Marston Moor!" STANZAS, WRITTEN UNDER A DRAWING OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE. EXTRACTED FROM AN ALBUM IN DEVONSHIRE. Most beautiful!—I gaze and gaze The ground were still divine. Some awe the good and wise have felt, Or the false prophet's tomb. But when was high devotion graced With lovelier dwelling, loftier throne, Than thus the limner's art hath traced From the time-honored stone? The spirit here of worship seems To hold the heart in wondrous thrall, And heavenward hopes and holy dreams, Came at her voiceless call; At midnight, when the lonely moon Makes that fair scene more deeply fair; And dusk and day-break, calm and storm, Are all religion there. TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-NINE. I HEARD a sick man's dying sigh, And an infant's idle laughter, The Old Year went with mourning by— The New came dancing after! Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear, Bring boughs of cypress for the bier, Fling roses on the cradle e; Mutes to wait on the funeral state; Pages to pour the wine; A requiem for Twenty-Eight, And a health to Twenty-Nine! Alas for human happiness! Alas for human sorrow! Our yesterday is nothingness, What else will be our morrow? Still Beauty must be stealing hearts, And Knavery stealing purses; While sages prate and courts debate, The same stars set and shine; And the world as it rolled through Twenty-Eight, Must roll through Twenty-Nine. Some King will come, in Heaven's good time, To the tomb his father came to; Some Thief will wade through blood and crime The manacles that bound her; And gather the links of the broken chain And much where we were in Twenty-Eight, O'Connell will toil to raise the Rent, And thought of bayonets and swords And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords, And writers of weight will speculate And just what it did in Twenty-Eight |