There is a smile upon the stream,
An anthem on the breeze.

Glory, they cry, to Him whose might
Hath turned the barbarous foe to flight,
Whose arm protects with power divine
The city of his favoured line.

The caves, the woods, the rocks, repeat the sound ;
The everlasting hills roll the long echoes round.

But, if Thy rescued church may dare
Still to besiege Thy throne with prayer,
Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord,
Sheathe not Thy victorious sword.
Still Panonia pines away,

Vassal of a double sway:

Still Thy servants groan in chains,

Still the race which hates Thee reigns:

Part the living from the dead:

Join the members to the head:

Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold;

Let one kind shepherd rule one undivided fold.

He is the victor, only he

Who reaps the fruits of victory.

We conquered once in vain,

When foamed the Ionian waves with gore,
And heaped Lepanto's stormy shore

With wrecks and Moslem slain.

Yet wretched Cyprus never broke

The Syrian tyrant's iron yoke.

Shall the twice vanquished foe
Again repeat his blow?

Shall Europe's sword be hung to rust in peace?
No-let the red-cross ranks

Of the triumphant Franks

Bear swift deliverance to the shrines of Greece
And in her inmost heart let Asia feel

The avenging plagues of Western fire and steel.

Oh God! for one short moment raise
The veil which hides those glorious days.

The flying foes I see Thee urge
Even to the river's headlong verge.

Close on their rear the loud uproar
Of fierce pursuit from Ister's shore
Comes pealing on the wind;
The Rab's wild waters are before,
The Christian sword behind.
Sons of perdition, speed your flight,
No earthly spear is in the rest;
No earthly champion leads to fight
The warriors of the West.

The Lord of Hosts asserts His old renown,

Scatters, and smites, and slays, and tramples down.

Fast, fast beyond what mortal tongue can say,

Or mortal fancy dream,

He rushes on his prey :

Till, with the terrors of the wondrous theme
Bewildered and appalled, I cease to sing,

And close my dazzled eye, and rest my wearied wing.

THE LAST BUCCANEER.

(1839.)

THE winds were yelling, the waves were swelling,

The sky was black and drear,

When the crew with eyes of flame brought the ship without a name Alongside the last Buccaneer.

"Whence flies your sloop full sail before so fierce a gale,

When all others drive bare on the seas?

Say, come ye from the shore of the holy Salvador,

Or the gulf of the rich Caribbees?"

"From a shore no search hath found, from a gulf no line can sound, Without rudder or needle we steer;

Above, below, our bark, dies the sea-fowl and the shark,

As we fly by the last Buccaneer.

"To-night there shall be heard on the rocks of Cape de Verde,

A loud crash, and a louder roar;

And to-morrow shall the deep, with a heavy moaning, sweep
The corpses and wreck to the shore."

The stately ship of Clyde securely now may ride,
In the breath of the citron shades;

And Severn's towering mast securely now flies fast,
Through the sea of the balmy Trades.

From St Jago's wealthy port, from Havannah's royal fort,
The seaman goes forth without fear;

For since that stormy night not a mortal hath had sight
Of the flag of the last Buccaneer.

EPITAPH ON A JACOBITЕ.
(1845-)

To my true king I offered free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away.
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.

For him I languished in a foreign clime,
Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood's prime ;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting place I asked, an early grave.

Oh thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

LINES WRITTEN IN AUGUST.

(1847.)

THE day of tumult, strife, defeat, was o'er;
Worn out with toil, and noise, and scorn, and spleen,
I slumbered, and in slumber saw once more

A room in an old mansion, long unseen.

That room, methought, was curtained from the light; Yet through the curtains shone the moon's cold ray Full on a cradle, where, in linen white,

Sleeping life's first soft sleep, an infant lay.

Pale flickered on the hearth the dying flame,
And all was silent in that ancient hall,
Save when by fits on the low night-wind came
The murmur of the distant waterfall.

And lo! the fairy queens who rule our birth

Drew nigh to speak the new-born baby's doom: With noiseless step, which left no trace on earth, From gloom they came, and vanished into gloom.

Not deigning on the boy a glance to cast

Swept careless by the gorgeous Queen of Gain;
More scornful still, the Queen of Fashion passed,
With mincing gait and sneer of cold disdain.

The Queen of Power tossed high her jewelled head,
And o'er her shoulder threw a wrathful frown;
The Queen of Pleasure on the pillow shed
Scarce one stray rose-leaf from her fragrant crown.

Still Fay in long procession followed Fay;

And still the little couch remained unblest:

But, when those wayward sprites had passed away,
Came One, the last, the mightiest, and the best.

Oh glorious lady, with the eyes of light
And laurels clustering round thy lofty brow,
Who by the cradle's side didst watch that night,
Warbling a sweet, strange music, who wast thou?

66

Yes, darling; let them go ;" so ran the strain : "Yes; let them go, gain, fashion, pleasure, power, And all the busy elves to whose domain

Belongs the nether sphere, the fleeting hour.

"Without one envious sigh, one anxious scheme,
The nether sphere, the fleeting hour resign.
Mine is the world of thought, the world of dream,
Mine all the past, and all the future mine.

66

Fortune, that lays in sport the mighty low, Age, that to penance turns the joys of youth, Shall leave untouched the gifts which I bestow, The sense of beauty and the thirst of truth.

"Of the fair brotherhood who share my grace, I, from thy natal day, pronounce thee free; And, if for some I keep a nobler place,

I keep for none a happier than for thee.

"There are who, while to vulgar eyes they seem Of all my bounties largely to partake,

Of me as of some rival's handmaid deem,

And court me but for gain's, power's, fashion's sake.

"To such, though deep their lore, though wide their fame, Shall my great mysteries be all unknown :

But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,
Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?

"Yes; thou wilt love me with exceeding love;
And I will tenfold all that love repay,
Still smiling, though the tender may reprove,
Still faithful, though the trusted may betray.

"For aye mine emblem was, and aye shall be,
The ever-during plant whose bough I wear,
Brightest and greenest then, when every tree
That blossoms in the light of Time is bare.

"In the dark hour of shame, I deigned to stand
Before the frowning peers at Bacon's side:
On a far shore I smoothed with tender hand,

Through months of pain, the sleepless bed of Hyde:

"I brought the wise and brave of ancient days
To cheer the cell where Raleigh pined alone :

I lighted Milton's darkness with the blaze
Of the bright ranks that guard the eternal throne.

"And even so, my child, it is my pleasure
That thou not then alone shouldst feel me nigh,
When, in domestic bliss and studious leisure,

Thy weeks uncounted come, uncounted fly;
"Not then alone, when myriads, closely pressed
Around thy car, the shout of triumph raise;
Nor when, in gilded drawing rooms, thy breast
Swells at the sweeter sound of woman's praise.

66

"No: : when on restless night dawns cheerless morrow,
When weary soul and wasting body pine,

Thine am I still, in danger, sickness, sorrow,

In conflict, obloquy, want, exile, thine;

"Thine, where on mountain waves the snowbirds scream,
Where more than Thule's winter barbs the breeze,
Where scarce, through lowering clouds, one sickly gleam
Lights the drear May-day of Antarctic seas;

"Thine, when around thy litter's track all day
White sandhills shall reflect the blinding glare;
Thine, when, through forests breathing death, thy way
All night shall wind by many a tiger's lair;

"Thine most, when friends turn pale, when traitors fly,
When, hard beset, thy spirit, justly proud,
For truth, peace, freedom, mercy, dares defy
A sullen priesthood and a raving crowd.
"Amidst the din of all things fell and vile,
Hate's yell, and envy's hiss, and folly's bray,
Remember me; and with an unforced smile
See riches, baubles, flatterers, pass away.

"Yes they will pass away; nor deem it strange :
They come and go, as comes and goes the sea :
And let them come and go: thou, through all change,
Fix thy firm gaze on virtue and on me.

TRANSLATION FROM PLAUTUS.
(1850.)

[The author passed a part of the summer and autumn of 1850 at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight. He usually, when walking alone, had with him a book. On one occasion, as he was loitering in the landslip near Bonchurch, reading the Rudens of Plautus, it struck him that it might be an interesting experiment to attempt to produce something which might be supposed to resemble passages in the lost Greek drama of Diphilus, from which the Rudens appears to have been taken. He selected one passage in the Rudens, of which he then made the following version, which he afterwards copied out at the request of a friend to whom he had repeated it.]

Act. IV. Sc. vii.

DÆMONES.

O GRIPE, Gripe, in ætate hominum plurimæ
Fiunt transennæ, ubi decipiuntur dolis;