Lords and Princes by Philip's favour : By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,— Drake and Frobisher, Hawkins and Howard, Ours will harry them, board, and carry them, By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,— Her's ever, and her's still, come life, come death : God save Elizabeth! -Has God risen in wrath and scatter'd, Have his tempests smote them in scorn? Past the Orcades, dumb and tatter'd, 'Mong sea-beasts do they drift forlorn? We were as lions hungry for battle; God has made our battle his own! God has scatter'd them, sunk, and shatter'd them : While our oath we swear By the name we bear, By England's Queen, and England free and fair,Her's ever, and her's still, come life, come death : God save Elizabeth! THERE are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.-Shakspeare. WAR.-Byron. HARK!-heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath? Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote; Nor sav'd your brethren ere they sank beneath Tyrants and tyrants' slaves?-the fires of death, The bale-fires flash on high :--írom rock to rock Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ; Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands, Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done; For on this morn three potent nations meet, To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see (For one who hath no friend, no brother there,) Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery, Their various arms that glitter in the air! What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey. All join the chase, but few the triumph share : The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array. Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice; Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high. And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. BALAKLAVA.-Archbishop Trench. MANY a deed of faithful daring may obtain no record here, Wrought where none could see or note it, save the one Almighty Seer. Many a deed, awhile remembered, out of memory needs must fall, Covered, as the years roll onward, by oblivion's creeping pall: But there are which never, never, to oblivion can give room, Till in flame earth's records perish, till the thunderpeal of doom. And of these through all the ages married to immortal fame, One is linked, and linked for ever, Balaklava, with thy name; With thine armies three that wond'ring stood at gaze and held their breath, With thy fatal lists of honour, and thy tournament of death. O our brothers that are sleeping, weary with your great day's strife, On that bleak Crimean headland, noble prodigals of life, Eyes which ne'er beheld you living, these have dearly mourned you dead, All your squandered wealth of valour, all the lavish blood ye shed. And in our eyes tears are springing; but we bid them back again; None shall say, to see us weeping, that we hold your offering vain ; That for nothing, in our sentence, did that holocaust arise, With a battle-field for altar, and with you for sacrifice. Not for nought; to more than warriors armed as you for mortal fray, Unto each that in life's battle waits his Captain's word ye say 'What by duty's voice is bidden, there where duty's star may guide, Thither follow, that accomplish, whatsoever else betide.' This ye taught; and this your lesson solemnly in blood ye sealed: Heroes, martyrs, are the harvest Balaklava's heights shall yield. THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.-Lord Lytton. FROM Heaven what fancy stole The dream of some good spirit, aye at hand, Who to the cradle gave The unseen watcher by the mother's side, Is it a fable?—“No,' I hear LOVE answer from the sunlit air, Still where my presence gilds the darkness-know Is it a fable? Hark, FAITH hymns from deeps beyond the palest star, Thy guide to shores afar.' Is it a fable?- sweet From wave, from air, from every forest tree, 'From myriads take thy choice, In all that lives a guide to God is given; THE GLADIATOR.-Byron. I SEE before me the Gladiator lie : And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow The arena swims around him he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.—Browning. OH, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England-now! And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, |