WALK in St. Mark's, the time, the ample space,

Lies in the freshness of the evening shade, When, on each side, with gravely-darkened face,

The masses rise above the light arcade; Walk down the midst with slowly timed pace,

But gay withal, for there is high parade Of fair attire, and fairer forms, which pass Like varying groups on a magician's glass.

From broad illumined chambers far within, Or under curtains daintily outspread, Music, and laugh, and talk-the motley din Of all who from sad thought or toil are sped,

Here a chance hour of social joy to win Gush forth; but I love best above my head

To feel nor arch nor tent, nor anything But that pure heaven's eternal covering.

It is one broad saloon, one gorgeous hall; A chamber where a multitude, all kings, May hold full audience, splendid festival, Or Piety's most prosperous minist'rings: Thus be its height unmarred-thus be it all One mighty room, whose form direct upsprings

To the o'erarching sky: it is right good When Art and Nature keep such brotherhood.

For where, upon the firmest sodden land, Was ever monarch's power and toil of slaves [land Equalled the works of that self-governed Who fixed the Delos of the Adrian waves? Planting upon these strips of yielding sand

A Temple of the Beautiful, which braves The jealous stroke of ocean, nor yet fears The far more perilous sea "whose waves are years.

Walk in St. Mark's again, some few hours after,

When a bright sleep is on each storied pile,

When fitful music and inconstant laughter Give place to Nature's silent moonlight smile;

Now Fancy wants no fairy gale to waft her To Magian haunt or charm-engirdled isle:

All too content, in passive bliss, to see
This show divine of visible poetry.

On such a night as this, impassionedly

The old Venetian sang these verses rare: "That Venice must of needs eternal be, For heaven had looked through the pellucid air,

And cast its reflex on the crystal sea

And Venice was the image pictured there." I hear them now, and tremble, for I seem As treading on an unsubstantial dream.

Who talks of vanished glory, of dead power, Of things that were and are not? Is he bere?

Can he take in the glory of this hour,

And call it all the decking of a bier? No; surely as on that Titanic tower

The Guardian Angel stands in ether clear, With the moon's silver tempering his gold wing,

So Venice lives, as lives no other thing:

That strange cathedral! exquisitely strange; That front, on whose bright varied tints the eye

. Rests, as of gems; those arches, whose high range

Gives its rich broidered border to the sky; Those ever-prancing steeds;-my friend, whom change

Of restless will has led to lands that lie Deep in the East, does not thy fancy set Above these domes an airy minaret?

Dost thou not feel that in this scene are blent

Wide distances of the estrangèd earth,— Far thoughts, far faiths, beseeming her who bent

The spacious Orient to her simple worth, Who, in her own young freedom eminent, Scorning the slaves that shamed their ancient birth,

And feeling what the West could be-had been,

Went out a traveller, and returned a queen?

:0:

JEAN INGELOW.

THE HIGH TIDE.

(ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE, 1571.)

THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, The ringers ran by two, by three: "Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he: "Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!

Play all your changes, all your swells, Play uppe, The Brides of Enderby.'

Men say it was a stolen tyde

The Lord that sent it, He knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide

The message that the bells let fall: And there was nought of strange, beside The flights of mews and peewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes: The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies; And dark against day's golden death She moved where Lindis wandereth, My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews were falling,
Farre away I heard her song,
"Cusha! Cusha!" all along;
Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth,

From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking song,-
"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
"For the dews will soone be falling:
Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Light-
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,

Hollow, hollow:

Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,

[foot,

From the clovers lift your head, [foot, Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, LightCome uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,

Jetty, to the milking-shed."

If it be long, ay, long ago,

When I beginne to think howe long, Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrow sharpe and strong; And all the aire, it seemeth mee, Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee), That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where full fyve good miles away

The steeple towered from out the greene;
And lo! the great bell farre and wide
Was heard in all the country-side
That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where their sedges are
Moved on in sunset's golden breath,
The shepherde lads I heard affarre,
And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o'er the grassy sea
Came downe that kyndly message free,
The Brides of Mavis Enderby.'

"

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows

To where the goodly vessels lie,

And where the lordly steeple shows.
They sayde, "And why should this thing be?
What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby!

"For evil news from Mablethorpe,
Of pyrate galleys warping down;
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,
They have not spared to wake the towne;

"

"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away,
With her two bairns I marked her long;
And ere yon bells beganne to play
Afar I heard her milking song.
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left. "Ho Enderby!"
They rang
"The Brides of Enderby!"

With that he cried and beat his breast;
For, lo! along the river's bed

A mighty eygre reared his crest,

And uppe the Lindis raging sped. It swept with thunderous noises loud; Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud, Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis, backward pressed, Shook all her trembling bankes amaine; Then madly at the eygre's breast

Flung uppe her weltering walls again. Then bankes came downe with ruin and

rout-

Then beaten foam flew round aboutThen all the mighty floods were out!

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,

The heart had hardly time to beat Before a shallow seething wave

Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet; The feet had hardly time to flee Before it brake against the knee, And all the world was in the sea!

Upon the roofe we sate that night,

The noise of bells went sweeping by; I marked the lofty beacon-light

Stream from the church tower, red and high

And didst thou visit him no more? Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;

The waters laid thee at his doore

Ere yet the early dawn was clear. Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, The lifted sun shone on thy face, Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow stretched wrecks about the grass, That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea; A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!

To manye more than myne and mee. But each will mourn his own (she saith): And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.

(Supposed to be spoken by one of Napoleon's soldiers.)

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,"-

Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound

Full galloping; nor bridle drew
Untill he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,

And held himself erect

By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect-
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)

You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

"Well,"cried he, "Emperor by God's grace
We've got you Ratisbon !
The Marshal's in the market-place,
And you'll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his wings
Where I, to heart's desire,

Perched him!" The Chief's eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

The Chief's eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle's eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes: "You're wounded!" "Nay," his soldier's pride

Touched to the quick, he said:

"I'm killed, Sire!" And, his Chief beside, Smiling the boy fell dead.

:0:

CHARLES MACKAY.

INKERMANN. 1854.

SEBASTOPOL lay shrouded

In thick November gloom,

And through the midnight silence
The guns had ceased to boom.
The sentinel outworn

In watching for the morn,
From Balaclava's heights
Beheld the Russian lights,

In the close-beleagured fortress far adown;
And heard a sound of bells

Wafted upwards through the dells,

And a roar of mingling voices and of anthems from the town.

They prayed the God of Justice
To aid them in the wrong,

They consecrated Murder

With jubilee and song.

To the slain, the joys of heaven,To the living, sin forgiven,

Were the promises divine

That were passed along the line, As they gathered in their myriads ere the dawn;

While their priests in full accord
Chanted glory to the Lord,

And blessed the Russian banner and the sword for battle drawn.

Stealthily and darkly,

'Mid the rain and sleet;
No trumpet-call resounding,

Nor drum's tempestuous beat-
But shadow-like and slow,
Came the legions of the foe,
Moving dimly up the steep
Where the British camp, asleep,

Lay unconscious of the danger lurking near;
And the soldier breathing hard,

On the cold and sodden sward, Dreamed of victory and glory, or of home and England dear.

Hark! heard ye not a rumbling
On the misty morning air,
Like the rush of rising tempests

When they shake the forest bare?
The outposts on the hill

Hear it close, and closer still.

'Tis the tramp of iron heels,

'Tis the crash of cannon-wheels,

And "To arms!" "To arms!" "To arms!" is the cry.

"Tis the Russians on our flank!
Up, and arm each British rank!

And meet them, gallant Guardsmen, to conquer or to die."

Then rose the loud alarum

With a hurricane of sound,

And from short uneasy slumber

Sprang each hero from the ground;
Sprang each horseman to his steed,
Ready saddled for his need;
Sprang each soldier to his place,

With a stern, determined face; [far, While the rousing drum and bugle echoed And the crack of rifles rung,

And the cannon found a tongue, As down upon them bursting came the avalanche of war!

Through the cold and foggy darkness
Sped the rocket's fiery breath,
And the light of rapid volleys,
In a haze of Living Death;
But each British heart that day
Throbbed impetuous for the fray