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. 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! Sewing at once, with a double thread, a shroud as well as a shirt. 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; 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; 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! With fingers weary and worn, with eye-lids heavy and red, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, (Would that its tone could reach the rich!) LXXIV. THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS.-Leigh Hunt. KING Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport, 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— Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with thei paws: With wallowing might and stifled roar, they rolled on one another, same; She thought, "The Count my lover is brave as brave can be- I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine!" 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, Ye may learn who I am;-there's the passing chime Softly I creep, like a thief in the night, Who laugh at my power? The young and the gay :- And they will not smile at what Time hath done. I eat through treasures, with moth and rust: I make the shell-proof tower my own, LXXVI.—THE KING OF THE WIND.-Eliza Cook. And alone in his flight sped 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- "De Bruce! De Bruce!"-Yon silver star that shines in heaven su sweet The lonely Orr-the good greenwood-the sod aneath our feet- "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: 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 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 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 |