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Such the Bard's prophetic words, pregnant with celestial fire; Bending as he swept the chords of his sweet but awful lyre. She, with all a monarch's pride, felt them in her bosom glow; Rushed to battle, fought, and died,-dying, hurled them on the foe. "Ruffians! pitiless as proud, heaven awards the vengeance due; Empire is on us bestowed, shame and ruin wait for you!"

LXXIII.-THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.-Hood.
WITH fingers weary and worn, with eye-lids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread:

Stitch! stitch! stitch! in poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, she sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work! while the cock is crowing aloof!

And work-work-work, till the stars shine through the roof!

It's oh! to be a slave along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save, if this is Christian work!
"Work-work-work-till the brain begins to swim;
Work-work-work-till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band-band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep, and sow them on in a dream!
"Oh! Men, with Sisters dear! Oh! Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out, but human creatures' lives!
Stitch-stitch-stitch, in poverty, hunger, and dirt,

Sewing at once, with a double thread, a shroud as well as a shirt.
"But why do I talk of Death-that phantom of grisly bone?
I hardly fear his terrible shape, it seems so like my own-

It seems so like my own, because of the fasts I keep.

Alas! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work-work-work! my labour never flags:

And what are its wages? A bed of straw-a crust of bread-and rags;
That shattered roof-and this naked floor-a table-a broken chair-
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank for sometimes falling there!
"Work-work-work! From weary chime to chime,
Work-work-work, as prisoners work for crime !

Band, and gusset, and seam-seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, as well as the weary hand.

"Work-work-work, in the dull December light,

And work-work-work, when the weather is warm and bright;
While underneath the eaves the brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs, and twit me with the Spring.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath of the cowslip and primrose sweetWith the sky above my head, and the grass beneath my feet; For only one short hour to feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want, and the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh, but for one short hour! a respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, but only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart; but in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop hinders needle and thread."

With fingers weary and worn, with eye-lids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread:
Stitch! stitch! stitch! in poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,

(Would that its tone could reach the rich!)
She sang this, "Song of the Shirt."

LXXIV.

THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS.-Leigh Hunt.

KING Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the Court;
The nobles filled the benches round, the ladies by their side,

And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:

And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show-
Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;

They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws:

With wallowing might and stifled roar, they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whizzing through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith! gentlemen, we're better here than there!"
De Lorge's love o'er-heard the king,-a beauteous lively dame,
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always seemed the

same;

She thought, "The Count my lover is brave as brave can be-
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me:
King, ladies, lovers, all look on the occasion is divine!

I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine!"

She dropped ner glove to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;

He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild.

The leap was quick, return was quick-he has regained the place,— Then threw the glove-but not with love-right in the lady's face. "In truth," cried Francis, " 'rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat:

"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that!"

LXXV.-SONG OF OLD TIME.-Eliza Cook.

I WEAR not the purple of earth-born kings,
Nor the stately ermine of lordly things;
But monarch and courtier, though great they be,
Must fall from their glory and bend to me.
My sceptre is gemless; yet who can say
They will not come under its mighty sway?

Ye may learn who I am ;-there's the passing chime
And the dial to herald me-Old King Time!
Softly I creep, like a thief in the night,
After cheeks all blooming, and eyes all bright;
My steps are seen on the patriarch's brow,
In the deep-worn furrows and locks of snow.

Who laugh at my power? The young and the guy :-
But they dream not how closely I track their way;
Wait till their first bright sands have run,

And they will not smile at what Time hath done.

I eat through treasures, with moth and rust:
I lay the gorgeous palace in dust;

I make the shell-proof tower my own,
And break the battlement stone from stone.
Work on at your cities and temples, proud Man!
Build high as ye may, and strong as ye can ;
But the marble shall crumble, the pillar shall fall,
And Time,-Old Time,—will be King after all!

LXXVI. THE KING OF THE WIND.-Eliza Cook.

HE burst through the ice-pillared gates of the north,
And away on his hurricane wings he rushed forth:
He exulted all free in his might and his speed,
He mocked at the lion, and taunted the steed:
He whistled along through each cranny and creek;
He whirled o'er the mountains with hollow-toned shriek:
The arrow and eagle were laggard behind,

And alone in his flight sped the King of the Wind!
He swept o'er the earth-the tall battlements fell,
And he laughed, as they crumbled, with maniac yell;
The broad oak of the wood dared to wrestle again,
Till, wild in his fury, he hurled it in twain:
He grappled with pyramids, works of an age,
And dire records were left of his havoc and rage.
No power could brave him, no fetters could bind;
Supreme in his sway was the King of the Wind!
He careered o'er the waters with death and despair;
He wrecked the proud ship-and his triumph was there!
The cheeks that had blanched not at foeman or blade,
At the sound of his breathing turned pale and afraid:
He rocked the staunch light-house, he shivered the mast;
He howled;-the strong life-boat in fragments was cast;
And he roared in his glory, "Where, where will ye find
A despot so great as the King of the Wind ?"

LXXVII.-DE BRUCE.-Allan Cunningham.

"DE BRUCE! De Bruce!"-With that proud call thy glens, green Galloway,

Grow bright with helm, and axe, and glaive, and plumes in close

array:

The English shafts are loosed, and see! they fall like winter sleet;

The southern nobles urge their steeds-earth shudders 'neath their feet.

Flow gently on, thou gentle Orr, down to old Solway's flood-
The ruddy tide that stains thy stream is England's richest blood.

"De Bruce! De Bruce!"-Yon silver star that shines in heaven su sweet

The lonely Orr—the good greenwood-the sod aneath our feet—
Yon pasture-mountain green and large-the sea that sweeps its foot-
Shall die-shall dry-shall cease to be, and earth and air be mute;
The sage's word, the poet's song, and woman's love, shall be
Things charming none,-when Scotland's heart warms not with
naming thee.

"De Bruce! De Bruce!"-on Dee's wild banks, and on Orr's silver side,

Far other sounds are echoing now than war-shouts answering wide:
The reaper's horn rings merrily now; beneath the golden grain
The sickle shines, and maidens' songs glad all the glens again.
But minstrel-mirth, and homely joy, and heavenly liberty-
De Bruce! De Bruce! we owe them all to thy good sword and thee.
Lord of the mighty heart and mind, and theme of many a song!
Brave, mild, and meek, and merciful, I see thee bound along:
Thy helmet-plume is seen afar, that never bore a stain,
Thy mighty sword is flashing high, which never fell in vain.
Shout, Scotland, shout-'till Carlisle-wall gives back the sound again:
"De Bruce! De Bruce!"-less than a god, but noblest of all men!

LXXVIII.—THE RUINED COTTAGE.-Mrs. Maclean.

NONE will dwell in that cottage, for they say oppression reft it from an honest man, and that a curse clings to it: hence the vine trails its green weight of leaves upon the ground; hence weeds are in that garden; hence, the hedge, once sweet with honeysuckle, is half dead; and hence the gray moss on the apple-tree. One once dwelt there, who had been in his youth a Soldier; and when many years had passed, he sought his native village, and sat down to end his days in peace. He had one child-a little laughing thing, whose large dark eyes, he said, were like the mother's he had left buried in strangers' land. And time went on in comfort and content:-and that fair girl had grown far taller than the red-rose tree her father planted on her first English birthday; and he had trained it up against an ash till it became his pride;-it was so rich in blossom and in beauty, it was called the tree of Isabel. 'Twas an appeal to all the better feelings of the heart, to mark their quiet happiness; their home-in truth a home of love; and more than all, to see them on the Sabbath, when they came among the first to church, and Isabel, with her bright colour and her clear glad eyes, bowed down so meekly in the house of prayer; and in the hymn her sweet voice audible: her father looked so fond of her, and then from her looked up so thankfully to heaven! And their small cottage was so very neat; their garden filled with fruits, and herbs, and flowers; and in the winter there was no fireside so cheerful as their own.

But other days and other fortunes came-an evil power! They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped for better times, but ruin came at last; and the old Soldier left his own dear home, and left it for a prison! 'Twas in June, one of June's brightest days:-the bee, the bird, the butterfly, were on their lightest wing; the fruits had their first tinge of summer light; the sunny sky, the very leaves seemed

glad, and the old man looked back upon his cottage, and he wept aloud. They hurried him away, from the dear child that would not leave his side. They led him from the sight of the blue heaven and the green trees, into a low, dark cell, the windows shutting out the blessed sun with iron grating; and for the first time he threw him on his bed, and could not hear his Isabel's good-night! But the next morn she was the earliest at the prison gate, the last on whom it closed; and her sweet voice and sweeter smile made him forget to pine.

She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers; but every morning could he mark her cheek grow paler and more pale, and her low tones get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew was on the hand he held. One day, he saw the sunshine through the grating of his cell-yet Isabel came not; at every sound his heart-beat took away his breath-yet still she came not near him! But one sad day he marked the dull street through the iron bars that shut him from the world; at length he saw a coffin carried carelessly along, and he grew desperate-he forced the bars, and he stood on the street free and alone! he had no aim, no wish for liberty-he only felt one want, to see the corpse that had no mourners. When they set it down, ere it was lowered into the new-dug grave, a rush of passion came upon his soul, and he tore off the lid-he saw the face of Isabel, and knew he had no child!-then, lay down by the coffin quietly -his heart was broken!

LXXIX. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.-Lord Byron. ALAS! It is a fearful thing to see the human soul take wing in any shape, in any mood:-I've seen it rushing forth in blood; I've seen it on the breaking ocean, strive with a swollen convulsive motion; I've seen the sick and ghastly bed of Sin, delirous with its dread: but these were horrors; this was woe unmixed with such—but sure and slow. He faded, and so calm and meek, so softly worn, so sweetly weak, so tearless, yet so tender-kind, and grieved for those he left behind; with all the while a cheek whose bloom was as a mockery of the tomb,-whose tints as gently sunk away as a departing rainbow's ray; an eye of most transparent light, that almost made the dungeon bright; and not a word of murmur-not a groan o'er his untimely lot; a little talk of better days, a little hope my own to raise, for I was sunk in silence-lost in this last loss, of all the most; and then the sighs he would suppress of fainting nature's feebleness, more slowly drawn, grew less and less: I listened, but I could not hear-I called, for I was wild with fear; I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread would not be thus admonished; I called, and thought I heard a sound. I burst my chain with one strong bound, and rushed to him: I found him not! I only stirred in this black spot-I only lived-I only drew the accursed breath of dungeon dew! The lastthe sole--the dearest link between me and the eternal brink, which bound me to my failing race, was broken in this fatal place. One on the earth, and one beneath!-my brothers--both had ceased to breathe; I took that hand which lay so still-alas! my own was full as chill! I had not strength to stir, or strive, but felt that I was still alive-a frantic feeling, when we know that what we love shall ne'er be so. I know not why I could not die! I had no earthly hope-but faith, and that forbade a selfish death.-What next befel me then and

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