MARGUERITE OF FRANCE

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Yes! as before the falcon shrinks

The bird of meaner wing,

So shrank they from the imperial glance
Of her that fragile thing!

And her flute-like voice rose clear and high
Through the din of arms around-
Sweet, and yet stirring to the soul

As a silver clarion's sound.

"The honour of the Lily

Is in your hands to keep,

And the banner of the Cross, for Him
Who died on Calvary's steep;

And the city which for Christian prayer
Hath heard the holy bell—

And is it these your hearts would yield
To the godless infidel?

"Then bring me here a breastplate
And a helm, before ye fly,

And I will gird my woman's form,

And on the ramparts die !

And the boy whom I have borne for woe,

But never for disgrace,

Shall go within mine arms to death

Meet for his royal race.

"Look on him as he slumbers

In the shadow of the lance!
Then go, and with the Cross forsake
The princely babe of France!
But tell your homes ye left one heart
To perish undefiled:

A woman, and a queen, to guard

Her honour and her child !"

Before her words they thrilled, like leaves
When winds are in the wood;

And a deepening murmur told of men
Roused to a loftier mood.

And her babe awoke to flashing swords,
Unsheathed in many a hand,

As they gathered round the helpless one,
Again a noble band!

"We are thy warriors, lady!

True to the Cross and thee;
The spirit of thy kindling words
On every sword shall be.

Rest, with thy fair child on thy breast;
Rest-we will guard thee well.

St Denis for the Lily-flower

And the Christian citadel !"

THE SISTER'S DREAM

[SUGGESTED by a picture in which a young girl is represented as sleeping, and visited during her slumbers by the spirits of her departed sisters.]

SHE sleeps!—but not the free and sunny sleep

That lightly on the brow of childhood lies; Though happy be her rest, and soft and deep,

Yet, ere it sank upon her shadowed eyes,

Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o'erswept Her soul's meek stillness-she had prayed and wept.

THE SISTER'S DREAM

And now in visions to her couch they come,
The early lost, the beautiful, the dead!
That unto her bequeathed a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled.
They rise-the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.

And well the sleeper knows them not of earth-
Not as they were when binding up the flowers,
Telling wild legends round the winter-hearth,
Braiding their long fair hair for festal hours:
These things are past-a spiritual gleam,
A solemn glory, robes them in that dream.

Yet, if the glee of life's fresh budding years
In those pure aspects may no more be read,
Thence, too, hath sorrow melted-and the tears
Which o'er their mother's holy dust they shed,
Are all effaced. There earth hath left no sign
Save its deep love, still touching every line.

But oh! more soft, more tender-breathing more
A thought of pity, than in vanished days!
While, hovering silently and brightly o'er

The lone one's head, they meet her spirit's gaze
With their immortal eyes, that seem to say,
"Yet, sister! yet we love thee-come away!"

"Twill fade, the radiant dream! And will she not Wake with more painful yearning at her heart? Will not her home seem yet a lonelier spot,

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Her task more sad, when those bright shadows part? And the green summer after them look dim,

And sorrow's tone be in the bird's wild hymn?

But let her hope be strong, and let the dead
Visit her soul in heaven's calm beauty still;
Be their names uttered, be their memory spread
Yet round the place they never more may fill !
All is not over with earth's broken tie-

Where, where should sisters love, if not on high?

WRITTEN AFTER VISITING A TOMB*

"Yes! hide beneath the mouldering heap

The undelighted slighted thing;

There in the cold earth, buried deep,

In silence let it wait the Spring."

MRS TIGHE'S poem of "The Lily."

I STOOD where the lip of Song lay low,

Where the dust had gathered on Beauty's brow,
Where stillness hung on the heart of Love,

And a marble weeper kept watch above.

I stood in the silence of lonely thought,
Of deep affections that inly wrought,
Troubled and dreamy and dim with fear-
They knew themselves exiled spirits here!

Then didst thou pass me in radiance by,
Child of the sunbeam, bright butterfly!
Thou that dost bear on thy fairy wings
No burden of mortal sufferings.

* That of Mrs Tighe, near Woodstock, in the county of Kilkenny.

WRITTEN AFTER VISITING A TOMB 235

Thou wert flitting past that solemn tomb,
Over a bright world of joy and bloom;
And strangely I felt, as I saw thee shine,
The all that severed thy life and mine :-

Mine, with its inborn mysterious things,
Of love and grief its unfathomed springs;
And quick thoughts wandering o'er earth and sky,
With voices to question eternity ;-

Thine, in its reckless and joyous way,
Like an embodied breeze at play.

Child of the sunlight! thou winged and free!
One moment, one moment I envied thee.

Thou art not lonely, though born to roam;

Thou hast no longings that pine for home;
Thou seek'st not the haunts of the bee and bird,
To fly from the sickness of hope deferred:

In thy brief being no strife of mind,
No boundless passion, is deeply shrined;
While I, as I gazed on thy swift flight by,
One hour of my soul seemed infinity.

And she, that voiceless below me slept,
Flowed not her song from a heart that wept?
O Love and Song! though of heaven your powers,
Dark is your fate in this world of ours.

Yet, ere I turned from that silent place,
Or ceased from watching thy sunny race,
Thou, even thou, on those glancing wings,
Didst waft me visions of brighter things!