Strong-limbed, stern-visaged, and with life-like eyes,
That seem'd for ever glaring at gaunt Death
With a fierce mockery;-all mighty men,
Men of renown were they, foremost in fight,
Whose names were blazon'd in the scrolls of fame,
For the world's worship. In their hands they held
Great swords, or keen-edged axes, and each foot
Was planted firmly on its granite base

With an immutable will, as who should say,
"We take our stand here till the eternal years
Bring us renewal of our glorious prime!"
Above them hung old banners, that had waved
On many a stricken field, and with brief pause,
A trumpet blast reverberate, awoke

The hollow echoes of the vaulted aisles,
With its victorious clangour;-whereupon
Those banners rustled, waving to and fro
As in the rush of battle, and a strange
And ghostly murmur seemed to thrill around,
As if the marble lips of those dead men
Were striving to give utterance anew
To their old war-cries. And whenever thus
The trumpet sounded, then methought I saw
The spaces of the hall on a sudden filled
With a dense multitude, all kneeling low,
All pouring forth the tide of their hearts' love
And reverential homage at the feet
Of those crowned knights of war.

Musing, I gazed,

Compassed with saddest phantasies of thought,
Till slowly waned the vision from my sight,
Chased by the dawn, and to my waking ear,
With the first matin-song of happy birds,
Came rumours of great battles, won afar,
Harvests of slaughter, garner'd in by Death,
And honours, by a world's acclaim bestow'd
On our victorious generals.

Time rolled on,

And once again, in dream, I seem'd to stand
Within the portals of that hall of Fame.

Lo! change was busy there-change-ay the grand
Calm fixedness that reigned supreme before
Had vanished wholly; in its place was seen,
Working its pitiless ravage, fell Decay.

Still burnt the torches, though with failing fires

Still on their pedestals were ranged the shapes,
The effigies of those stern men of old.

But all the jewels in their crowns were dim,
And from the drooping brows of some the crowns
Themselves had fallen; phantom-like they looked,
An unsubstantial, ghastly, wan array,
Impalpable, unreal-their glowing eyes

Grown meaningless and void, their stately bulk
Shrunken and shadowy-all their grandeur gone,
All their proud bearing-scarce their meagre hands
Could clutch the deadly symbols of their sway,
Their rusted swords and axes-tottering,

As if o'ermaster'd by a fate sublime,

They stood in act to fall;—and when the trump
Broke the drear silence, not as erst it did,
In notes of exultation loud and long,
But with a feeble melancholy moan,
It woke no recognition, and so died
Into a silence drearier than before.

Wide open stood the portals, but in vain―
No throng of worshippers sought entrance there,
No knees were bent, no vows were paid: pale Death,
And Desolation, and Decay alone

Stalk'd like avengers through the lone dim aisles.
So pass'd the hours, till one by one the flames
Of the wasted torches flicker'd and went out,
And pitchy darkness hover'd over all.
Then suddenly, a mighty thunder peal
Shook the huge fabric-the tall columns rocked,
The solid basements trembled, and in the midst,
What time the trumpet breathed its final blast,
A wail of lamentation and despair,-
Most like the cry of a lost spirit's woe,-
Down, headlong from their granite pedestals
Fell those false idols, while amid the din,
Methought I heard a solemn voice proclaim,
The voice as of an angel, clear and strong,-
"These shedders of men's blood, for evermore
Their glory hath departed:-God hath said,
Even God, the Lord Omnipotent, hath said,
There shall be no more war!"

Oh blessed dream!

I look through the long vista of the years―

I see the forms of the meek men of peace,

The men with thoughtful eyes, and broad calm brows, That in their patient lowliness of heart

Have been up-lifted to the seats of power,
And from that eminence have scatter'd down
New light and wider blessings on mankind.
I see them wear the crowns of the world's love,
Its earnest homage, its enduring faith-
Wear them, not darkly in sepulchral halls,
But in the open sunshine, 'neath the smile
Of the sweet heaven. I look abroad and scan
The rich plains of the populous earth, its vales,
Its mighty cities; o'er the seas I look,

Lit

up
with white sails of the merchant ships,
And in the length and breadth of the fair world,
I see no lingering token of the reign

Of the destroyer, War. But to my ear

Instead, the burden of a solemn hymn

Steals, floating upward from the souls of men,
Upward and onward still, from star to star,

Through all the spaces of the Universe,

"There shall be no more war!"-Oh! blessed dream!

T. WESTWOOD.

FABLES FOR FOOLISH FELLOWS.

No. II.

THE HIGHLAND AND THE LOWLAND SHEEP WHO WENT TO WAR AT THE PERSUASION OF WOLVES.

In a country not so remote that it cannot be reached by the moral of our fable there had been, from time immemorial, a feud between its Highland and its Lowland races of sheep, which came to a collision whenever and wherever they met on the borders of their feeding-grounds, which neither their respective shepherds, nor their irrespective dogs, could prevent, appease, or put down, when once their bloods were up. It was shocking to mutton-eating men to hear of this perpetual petty warfare, and the rumours of a general rising of both of these belligerent parties, to bring their quarrel to a general battle, and abide the issue; but this their lords and masters would not hear of for a moment, and contrived as much as possible to keep the rival clans apart, driving them to higher grounds on the one side, and lower grounds on the other, so as to leave a good broad neutral line of land between. The main bodies of both armies being

thus kept encamped at such respectful distances, the war between them was, for a long time, little more than an affair of outposts, a picking out of pickets, and serving them out, as we say, or driving them in, as men-military express it. The neutral ground was rocky and mountainous, and pretty well covered with forests of pine and ash and larch, and such like woods, and was in the joint occupation of eagles of large growth, and daring, audaciously daring characters,-now lifting a lamb, and, when lamb was out of season, a young shepherd in his swaddling clouts; and of a pack of wolves, gaunt, bony, and grim, whose reputations were just as bad as the eagles', and both would hang them in any court in Christendom. A nice neutral country this for strong-headed, wrong-headed, and stupid sheep to straggle through, when their bloods were up, to have a brush with the enemy; and a nice set of neutral, indifferent spectators these wolves and eagles were truly, to stand by, and see fair play when Greek met Greek, and came the tug of war!

The cause of quarrel was about as good as these causes are even among wiser creatures. Born and bred in one common country, it was a war of castes, or clans: a feud-a difference about blood, which was the purest; and an intolerance to hatred of each other's religion, though their faith was in essentials the same, and their modes of worship not greatly at variance. Blood -bad blood-ill blood-and that that thought itself the purest, really the foulest and blackest was at the bottom and top of this desire to destroy each other. The Highland sheep despised the Lowland sheep as an inferior race-as sleek, well-fed, fine-woolled, slavish, cowardly, and shut up in folds and pastures fat and warm ; and not wiry, sinewy, shaggy, courageous, strong, free, and wandering at their own wild will over mountains and exposed moors and rock-strewn valleys, as hardy as the heather they roved among. Their animosity originated partly in a religious prejudice. In the car of a Highlander it was horrible, and like blasphemy, to mark the drawling nasal Bāā (long) of these Lowlanders, which they pronounced Baă (short and crisp as their scant herbage), and believed to be orthodoxical, and the other accent to be irreverent, indecent, heterodoxical, and a scandalous departure from the simplicity of the natural piety of sheep. They would not have minded it so much if they had kept their heterodoxy to themselves; but when they forwarded a set of sleek, meek fellows, in wool as white as snow, and combed very straight, as missionaries

to the heathens in the Highlands, who dared to call their hills, which get the first and last of the sun when the mists will allow them, a dark and benighted neighbourhood, and presumed to preach against idolatrous bending of the knee to stock and stone, -flesh and blood--at any rate, Highland flesh and blood-could not bear it, would not bear it. Besides, though fewer in number, they were their masters for strength and courage, and they knew it; and so did the Lowlanders, who avoided them as much as they could, as soon as they saw their missionaries sent back with broken heads and horns,

"And kept the even tenour of their way"

to themselves. But sometimes the young bloods of the respective races, in their border wanderings, fell in with one another, and fell out as soon as they met, Băd (short) and Bāā (long), the old sign and countersign, soon setting them by the cars.

It was early in the day after one of these foolish encounters, when

። Imany a gallant gentleman Lay gasping on the ground,"

the Highlanders having the best of the battle as usual, while the Wolves stood looking on, and not interfering, that the mountaineers were astonished to see three venerable Wolves, silvery white with age, emerge from the forest, and wend their way very deliberately, and somewhat infirmly, into their camp among the hills. They could hardly believe their eyes that they were Wolves, and thought they must be the ghosts of old shepherds' dogs, who could not rest in their graves for

"The foul deeds done in their days of nature,"

the sins they had committed in their hot youth in sheep-biting. But then again they loomed too large for the ghosts of departed tykes. This, however, might be an exaggeration of the morning mist, made to frighten them, as superstitiously inclined. But as these venerable strangers came nearer and nearer, they saw they were no ghosts of dogs, but veritable Wolves in the flesh. They did not fear them much, for they looked too old for mischief; but safe bind safe find: it was as well to have a care of them for it is your old grinders that love to indulge in your young meats, as tenderest and most toothsome. The pack of which they were the reverend representatives was now so few in number, and had