But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained,
In sturdy boys to virtuous labours trained;
Pride, in the power that guards his country's
coast,

And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride, in a life that slander's tongue defied;-
In fact, a noble passion, misnamed pride.

He had no party's rage, no sectary's whim, Christian and countryman was all with him: True to his church he came; no Sunday shower

Kept him at home in that important hour;
Nor his firm feet could one persuading sect,
By the strong glare of their new light, direct;
'On hope in mine own sober light I gaze,
But should be blind and lose it in your blaze,'

In times severe, when many a sturdy swain Felt it his pride, his comfort, to complain; Isaac their wants would soothe, his own would hide,

And feel in that his comfort and his pride.
At length he found, when seventy years

6

And they are just ;—when young we give you all,
And for assistance in our weakness call;
Why then this proud reluctance to be fed,
To join your poor, and eat the parish-bread?
But yet I linger, loath with him to feed,
Who gains his plenty by the sons of need;
He who by contract all your paupers took,
And gauges stomachs with an anxious look:
On some old master I could well depend,
See him with joy, and thank him as a friend;
But ill on him who doles the day's supply,
And counts our chances, who at night may die.
Yet help me Heaven! and let me not complain
Of what I suffer, but my fate sustain.'

Such were his thoughts, and so resigned he grew;

Daily he placed the workhouse in his view; But came not there, for sudden was his fate; He dropped, expiring at his cottage gate.

I feel his absence in the hours of prayer,
And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there:
I see no more those white locks thinly spread
Round the bald polish of that honoured head;
No more that awful glance on playful wight
Compelled to kneel, and tremble at the sight,
To fold his fingers, all in dread the while,
Till Mister Ashford softened to a smile;
No more that meek and suppliant look in
prayer,

Nor the pure faith, to give it force, are there:
But he is blest, and I lament no more
A wise good man, contented to be poor.

A prince, who speaks no English, spares
None that have loyal blood to shed;
Still, not throughout that clique of theirs,
Is English impulse dead."
When to his block the Elector vowed

Bold Nairn's unshrinking head to give, Stanhope, in generous anger loud,

Swore that his friend should live ; That neither title, pension, place, nor star, Should buy, from him, that head for Temple Bar.

Sleek Walpole strove in vain to bring

His bribes to bear; in vain the lout, Whom Whigs now call an English king,

Threw German oaths about.

Back from the fields of boyhood came

The past, with all its hopes, once more;
The passion of each hard-fought game,
The rustling of the oar,

As, where the yellow river-lilies float,
Round the tall rushes whirled their eager boat.

Once more he sees two lads, at eve,

Who dream of glory, side by side;
Each wild web that their fancies weave,

Too loving then to hide.
Under the whispering elms they walk,
With arms around each other twined,

And, rapt into the future, talk,

To future sorrow blind :

Then pale that well-known face seemed hovering nigh,

And blood drops fell, as some one raised it high.

'I brook on this point no control,'
He shouted: 'seek not to reply:
For by that God, who made the soul,
I will not have him die!
What, use me, ruthless as a tool,

To slay my earliest friend? our names
Are cut together in the school,

Together at my dame's;

Half of my past is his, half his is mine;
I will not hear it argued. I resign.'

When that word thundered through the

throng

Of supple slaves, they could not choose; A soldier-statesman he, too strong

For clerks like them to lose.

So Walpole, with the heart of stone,
Before that righteous outbreak bent,
And George, like dog forced from his bone,
Growled forth a grim consent.

Our turn will come-we must not then forget
One rebel, true to Eton memories yet.

[During the Chinese war some Sikhs and a private of the Buffs, named Moyse, in charge of the grog-carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. Being ordered to prostrate themselves before the authorities, Moyse refused to bow before any Chinaman alive. He was immediately killed and thrown on to a dunghill.]

LAST night among his fellow-roughs
He jested, quaffed, and swore,
A drunken private of the Buffs
Who never looked before.

To-day beneath the foeman's frown
He stands in Elgin's place,*
Ambassador from Britain's crown
And type of all her race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered and alone,

A heart with English instinct fraught
He yet can call his own.

Ay, tear his body limb from limb,
Bring cord or axe or flame,

He only knows that not through him
Shall England come to shame.

* Lord Elgin was British Ambassador at Pekin in 1860.

Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed,
Like dreams, to come and go,
Bright leagues of cherry blossom gleamed
One sheet of living snow;

The smoke above his father's door
In grey soft eddyings hung;
Must he then watch it rise no more,
Doomed by himself, so young?

Yes, honour calls! with strength like steel,
He put the vision by:

Let dusky Indians whine and kneel

An English lad must die!

And thus with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink
To his red grave he went.

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed,
Vain those all-shattering guns,
Unless proud England keep untamed
The strong heart of her sons.
So let his name through Europe ring,
A man of mean estate,

Who died as firm as Sparta's king,
Because his soul was great.

WHEN Freedom from her mountain height

Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest-trumpings loud, And see the lightning-lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven!— Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on;
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,

Each soldier eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn, And, as his springing steps advance, Catch war and vengeance from the glance; And when the cannon-mouthings loud

Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall, Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, Then shall thy meteor-glances glow, And cowering foes shall sink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; When death, careering on the gale,

Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendours fly In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valour given !
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
For ever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

FAIR stood the wind for France

When we our sails advance,

Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;

But putting to the main

At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,

Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marcheth towards Agincourt

In happy hour;

Skirmishing day by day

With those that stopped his way Where the French general lay With all his power.

Timotheus, placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above
(Such is the power of mighty love);
A dragon's fiery form belied the god;
Sublime on radiant spires he rode.
When he to fair Olympia pressed,
And while he sought her snowy breast:
Then round her slender waist he curled,
And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign
of the world.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,
A present deity, they shout around:
A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:
Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure,

Sweet is pleasure after pain.]

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again;

And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.

The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse
Soft pity to infuse:

He sung Darius great and good,
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,

And weltering in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast eyes the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole ;

And tears began to flow.

[The mighty master smiled, to see
That love was in the next degree:
'Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour, but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying;
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying;

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the goods the gods provide thee! The many rend the skies with loud applause; So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause. The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,

Sighed and looked, and sighed again: At length, with love and wine at once oppressed The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.]