With his bowmen and knights,

And his banner all burnished with gold.

At the Conqueror's side

There his minstrelsy sat harp in hand,
In pavilion wide;

And they chanted the deeds of Roland.

Still the ramparted ground
With a vision my fancy inspires,
And I hear the trump sound,
As it marshalled our chivalry's sires.

On each turf of that mead

Stood the captors of England's domains,
That ennobled her breed

And high-mettled the blood of her veins.

Over hauberk and helm

As the sun's setting splendor was thrown,
Thence they looked o'er a realm, –
And to-morrow beheld it their own.

Thomas Campbell.

Hathern.

INSCRIPTION

FOR THE RUIN OF A VILLAGE CROSS, HATHERN, LEICESTERSHIRE.

HE simple folk once used to throng

THE

These mouldering steps beneath,

And every child that passed along

Its soft petitions breathe,

In pious days of yore.

The workingmen at dawn of day
Were here assembled kneeling,

And to their labor bore away

A calm of holy feeling,

In Christian days of yore.

Till once a stalwart company
Of men with gloomy faces,
Unlike the men ye used to see

In such-like holy places

In quiet days of yore,

With savage hands pulled down the sign
Of our Redeemer's sorrow,

And promised in more force to join,

And break the rest to-morrow,

Hating the days of yore.

But Providence from then till now
This remnant hath befriended,

And by this shaft and time-worn steps
The memory hath defended

Of the good days of yore.

And still, whene'er the good and great
On common times pass nigh me,
Though no petition they repeat,
Nor kneel in silence by me,

As in the days of yore;

Yet blessed thoughts upon their hearts
From Heaven come gently stealing,
And each from this gray ruin parts
With calmer, holier feeling,

Blessing the days of yore.

Henry Alford.

Hatfield Broadoak.

THE OLD OAK-TREE AT HATFIELD BROADOAK.

A

MIGHTY growth! The countyside
Lamented when the giant died,

For England loves her trees:

What misty legends round him cling!
How lavishly he once did fling

His acorns to the breeze!

To strike a thousand roots in fame,
To give the district half its name,

The fiat could not hinder;

Last spring he put forth one green bough, The red leaves hang there still, — but now His very props are tinder.

Elate, the thunderbolt he braved;
Long centuries his branches waved
A welcome to the blast:

An oak of broadest girth he grew,
And woodman never dared to do
What time has done at last.

The monarch wore a leafy crown,

And wolves, ere wolves were hunted down,
Found shelter at his foot;
Unnumbered squirrels gambolled free,
Glad music filled the gallant tree
From stem to topmost shoot.

And it were hard to fix the tale
Of when he first peered forth a frail

Petitioner for dew;

He took no ill from Saxon spade,
The rabbit spared the tender blade,
And valiantly he grew,

And showed some inches from the ground
When Saint Augustine came and found
Us very proper Vandals;

When nymphs owned bluer eyes than hose, When England measured men by blows, And measured time by candles.

Worn pilgrims blessed his grateful shade
Ere Richard led the first crusade,
And maidens led the dance

Where, boy and man, in summer time,
Sweet Chaucer pondered o'er his rhyme;
And Robin Hood, perchance,

Stole hither to maid Marian

(And if they did not come, one can At any rate suppose it);

They met beneath the mistletoe,

We did the same, and ought to know
The reason why they chose it.

And this was called the traitors' branch,

Stern Warwick hung six yeomen stanch
Along its mighty fork;

Uncivil wars for them! The fair
Red rose and white still bloom,

Are Lancaster and York?

but where

A churchman once was England's hope,
He saw that bold man beard the Pope;

In persecution's reign

He mourned our martyrs at the stake,
And sent his kin to sea with Drake,
When Tudor humbled Spain.