On Egypt's burning plains, By the pyramid o'erswayed, With fearful power the noonday reigns, And the palm-trees yield no shade.

But let the angry sun

From heaven look fiercely red,
Unfelt by those whose task is done!
There slumber England's dead.
The hurricane hath might
Along the Indian shore,
And far, by Ganges' banks at night,
Is heard the tiger's roar.

But let the sound roll on!
It hath no tone of dread,

For those that from their toils are gone;-
There slumber England's dead!

Loud rush the torrent-floods
The western wilds among,

And free, in green Columbia's woods,
The hunter's bow is strung.

But let the floods rush on!
Let the arrow's flight be sped!

Why should they reck whose task is done?
There slumber England's dead.

The mountain-storms rise high
In the snowy Pyrenees,

And toss the pine-boughs through the sky,
Like rose-leaves on the breeze.

But let the storm rage on!
Let the forest wreaths be shed;
For the Roncesvalles' field is won,-
There slumber England's dead.

On the frozen deep's repose
'Tis a dark and dreadful hour,
When round the ship the ice-fields close,
To chain her with their power.

But let the ice drift on!

Let the cold-blue desert spread! Their course with mast and flag is done, There slumber England's dead.

The warlike of the isles,
The men of field and wave!
Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shores their grave?

Go, stranger! track the deep,
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foa.n, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England's dead.

CASABIANCA.

Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile), after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

THE boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled,
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,

A proud though childlike form.

The flames rolled on-he would not go
Without his father's word;

That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud-"Say, father, say,
If yet my task is done?"

He knew not that the chieftain lay,
Unconscious of his son.

"Speak, father!" once again he cried, "If I may yet be gone!"

-And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair;

And looked from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair:

And shouted but once more aloud, "My father! must I stay?" While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,

The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound-
The boy-oh! where was he?
-Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea!

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part-
But the noblest thing that perished there,
Was that young faithful heart.

0:

We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest, and rest can never find;

Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life,
A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife.

Wherefore and whence we are ye cannot know,

Nor where life springs, nor whither life doth go;

We are as ye are, ghosts from the inane, What pleasure have we of our changeful pain?

What pleasure hast thou of thy changeless bliss?

Nay, if love lasted, there were joy in this; But life's way is the wind's way; all these things

Are but brief voices breathed on shifting strings.

O Maya's son! because we roam the earth, Moan we upon these strings; we make no mirth,

So many woes we see in many lands, So many streaming eyes and wringing hands.

Yet mock we while we wail, for, could they know,

This life they cling to is but empty show; 'Twere all as well to bid a cloud to stand, Or hold a running river with the hand.

But thou that art to save, thine hour is nigh!

The sad world waiteth in its misery; The blind world stumbleth on its round of pain;

Rise, Maya's child! wake! slumber not again!

We are the voices of the wandering wind: Wander thou, too, O prince, thy rest to find;

Leave love for love of lovers, for woe's sake

Quit state for sorrow, and deliverance make.

So sigh we, passing o'er the silver strings, To thee who know'st not yet of earthly things;

So say we; mocking, as we pass away, These lovely shadows wherewith thou dost play.

AN EASTERN MORNING.

THEN slept he* for what space the fleet moon asks

To swim a tenth part of her cloudy sea; But rose ere the False-dawn, and stood again

Wistful on some dark platform of his hill, Watching the sleeping earth with ardent eyes, [things, And thoughts embracing all its living While o'er the waving fields that murmur moved

Which is the kiss of Morn waking the lands, And in the East that miracle of Day Gathered and grew. At first a dusk so dim, Night seems still unaware of whispered dawn. [twice, But soon-before the jungle cock crows A white verge clear, a widening, brightening white, [floods

High as the herald-star, which fades in Of silver, warming into pale gold caught By topmost clouds, and flaming on their

rims

[brink

ing

Turning the tears of Night to joyous gems Decking the earth with radiance, 'broider[fringe, The sinking storm-clouds with a golden Gilding the feathers of the palms which waved

Glad salutation; darting beams of gold
Into the glades; touching with magic wand
The stream to rippled ruby; in the brake
Finding the mild eyes of the antelopes,
And saying, "It is day;" in nested sleep
Touching the small heads under many a
wing,
[light of day."

And whispering, "Children, praise the Whereat there piped anthems of all the birds,

The koil's fluted song, the bulbul's hymn, The "morning! morning!" of the painted thrush,

The twitter of the sunbirds starting forth To find the honey ere the bees be out, The grey crow's caw, the parrot's scream, the strokes

[chirp,

Of the green hammersmith, the myna's The never-finished love-talk of the doves: Yea! and so holy was the influence Of that high Dawn which came with victory, [spread

That far and near in homes of men there An unknown peace. The slayer hid his knife; [shroff

The robber laid his plunder back; the Counted full tale of coins; all evil hearts Grew gentle, kind hearts gentler, as the balm

Of that divinest Daybreak lightened earth. Kings at fierce war called truce; the sick

men leaped [smiled Laughing from beds of pain; the dying As though they knew that happy Morn was sprung [East;

From fountains farther than the utmost And over the heart of sad Yasodhara, Sitting forlorn at Prince Siddartha's bed, Came sudden bliss, as if love should not fail,

Nor such vast sorrow miss to end in joy. So glad the world was— -though it wist not why[songs

That over desolate wastes went swooning Of mirth, the voice of bodiless Prets and Bhuts,

Foreseeing Buddh; and Devas in the air Cried, "It is finished, finished!" and the priests

Stood with the wondering people in the [the sky, Watching those golden splendours flood

streets,

And saying, "There hath happed some mighty thing."

Also in Ran and jungle grew that day Friendship amongst the creatures: spotted deer [cubs, Browsed fearless where the tigress fed her And cheetahs lapped the pool beside the bucks; [scoured,

Under the eagle's rock the brown hares While his fierce beak but preened an idle wing; [beam, The snake sunned all his jewels in the With deadly fangs in sheath; the shrike let pass

The nestling finch; the emerald halcyons Sate dreaming while the fishes played beneath;

Nor hawked the merops, though the butterflies

Crimson, and blue, and amber-flitted thick

Around his perch.

'Tis a simple sea-shell, one
Out of which the pearl is gone;
The shell is nothing-leave it there--
The pearl, the soul-was all-is here!
'Tis an earthen pot, whose lid
Allah sealed, the while it hid
That treasure of His treasury-
A mind that loved Him; let it be!
Let the shards be earth's once more,
Since the gold goes to His store!

Allah glorious, Allah good,
Now Thy world is understood!
Now the long, long wonder ends,
Yet you weep, my foolish friends;
While the man you say "is dead"
In unspoken bliss instead

Lives and loves you;-lost, 'tis true,
For any light that shines with you;
But, in that light you do not see,
Raised to full felicity,

In a perfect Paradise,

And a life which never dies.

Farewell friends! yet not farewell:
Where you are I too shall dwell;
I am gone beyond your face,
A moment's march, a single pace.
When you come where I have stepped,
You will wonder why you wept;
You will see by true life taught,
That here is all, and there is nought.
Weep a while, if you are fain,
Sunshine still must follow rain,
Only, not at death; for death
Now, I see, is that long breath
Which our souls draw when they enter
Life that is of all life-centre.

'MONG the gay nobles of Firenze's plains, Though still a ruddy stripling with fair cheek

And raven locks, not one in prowess vied With Gualtiero, by ten male descents Count of Saluzzo. For he sat his steed As none beside; and when he blew the horn,

And sallied to the field with hawk and hound,

All people cried, "Behold the noble son Of noble sires, the glory of his race,' Proud was Saluzzo of her youthful Count: And sooth he was of a right ancient line The only hope; and fear was in the hearts Of Gualtiero's vassals, day and night, That should some accident by flood or field Betide their lord, that fair domain should [fierce.

pass

To distant strangers-men both rude and Now thrice six years had passed since first

he played

A tiny infant at his mother's knee

In fair Saluzzo's halls; but she, worn down With saddest heritage of widowed woe, All broken-hearted when scarce past her prime,

To her last rest had gone. Gualtiero mused Upon her memory, oft would dwell upon The soft, dark lineaments of her sweet face. Such thoughts would temper and subdue

to tears

The pride which smouldered in his breast; for she

Had ruled his wayward temper as a child, And as he grew to boyhood. He recalled The long dark tresses of her raven hair, Which she would bind across her marble brow,

Her tender, loving eyes, her princely mien,

*It is scarcely necessary to tell the well-informed reader that the story of Griselda forms the concluding Novel of the Tenth Day in the "Decameron of Boccaccio, and that it has been often quoted as the most touching of all the tales which make up that most witty and amusing book.