Yet still he waves his banner, and cries amid the rout, "For Church and King, fair gentlemen! spur on, and fight it out!"

And now he wards a Roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave,

And now he quotes a stage-play, and now he fells a knave.

God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas! thou hast no thought

of fear;

God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas ! for fearful odds are

here!

The rebels hem thee in, and at every cut and thrust, "Down, down," they cry, "with Belial! down with him to the dust."

"I would," quoth grim old Oliver, "that Belial's trusty sword,

This day were doing battle for the Saints and for the Lord!"

The Lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower, The gray-haired warder watches from the castle's top most tower;

"What news? what news, old Hubert ?"-"The battle's lost and won;

The royal troops are melting, like mists before the sun!

And a wounded man approaches;-I'm blind and cannot

see,

Yet sure I am that sturdy step, my master's step must

be!"

"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 mis

chance:

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
In silence on the glorious pile;
And the glad thoughts of other days
Come thronging back the while.
To me dim Memory makes more dear
The perfect grandeur of the shrine;
But if I stood a stranger here,

The ground were still divine.

Some awe the good and wise have felt,
As reverently their feet have trod
On any spot where man hath knelt,
To commune with his God;
By haunted spring, or fairy well,
Beneath the ruined convent's gloom,

Beside the feeble hermit's cell,

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
Looks from a vapor's silvery fold;
Or morning, when the sun of June
Crests the high towers with gold;
For every change of hour and form

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,

Let Revelry hold her ladle;
Bring boughs of cypress for the bier,
Fling roses on the cradle;

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;
Still cooks must live by making tarts,
And wits by making verses;