But whether the angel Death comes down

And marks my brow with his loving touch,
As one that shall wear the victor's crown,
It matters much.

Noah BARKER.

The Last Redoubt.

KACELYEVO's slope still felt
The cannon's bolts and the rifles' pelt ;
For the last redoubt up the hill remained,
By the Russ yet held, by the Turk not gained.

Mehemet Ali stroked his beard ;
His lips were clinched and his look was weird ;
Round him were ranks of his ragged folk,
Their faces blackened with blood and smoke.

"Clear me the Muscovite out!” he cried.
Then the name of “ Allah !" echoed wide,
And the fezzes were waved and the bayonets lowered,
And on to the last redoubt they poured.

One fell, and a second quickly stopped
The gap that he left when he reeled and dropped ;
The second, a third straight filled his place ;
The third, — and a fourth kept up the race.

Many a fez in the mud was crushed,
Many a throat that cheered was hushed,
Many a heart that sought the crest
Found Allah's arms and a houri's breast.

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Over their corpses the living sprang,
And the ridge with their musket-rattle rang,
Till the faces that lined the last redoubt
Could see their faces and hear their shout.

In the redoubt a fair form towered,
That cheered up the brave and chid the coward ;
Brandishing blade with a gallant air ;
His head erect and his bosom bare.

“Fly! they are on us !” his men implored ;

But he waved them on with his waving sword. “It cannot be held ; 'tis no shame to go !” But he stood with his face set hard to the foe.

Then clung they about him, and tugged, and knelt ;
He drew a pistol from out his belt,
And fired it blank at the first that set
Foot on the edge of the parapet.

Over that first one toppled ; but on
Clambered the rest till their bayonets shone,
As hurriedly fled his men dismayed,
Not a bayonet's length from the length of his blade.

“Yield !” But aloft his steel he flashed,

And down on their steel it ringing clashed ;
Then back he reeled with a bladeless hilt,
His honor full, but his life-blood spilt.

They lifted him up from the dabbled ground ;
His limbs were shapely and soft and round,
No down on his lip, on his cheek no shade, -
“Bismillah !" they cried, “'t is an infidel maid !”

Mehemet Ali came and saw The riddled breast and the tender jaw. “Make her a bier of your arms,” he said, “ And daintily bury this dainty dead !

“Make her a grave where she stood and fell,

'Gainst the jackal's scratch and the vulture's smell.

Did the Muscovite men like their maidens fight,
In their lines we had scarcely supped to-night."

So a deeper trench 'mong the trenches there
Was dug, for the form as brave as fair;
And none, till the judgment trump and shout,
Shall drive her out of the last redoubt.

ALFRED AUSTIN. NOTES.

My Mind to Me a Kingdom is. Page 1. BYRD (6. 1540, d. 1623) wag organist to Queen Elizabeth, and composed an immense amount of vocal music. Three or four other stanzas, inferior to these, are sometimes inserted in this poem, and its authorship has been claimed for Sir Edward Dyer, a contemporary of Byrd's. There are also four stanzas of precisely similar construction, having many of the same thoughts, and in some cases almost identical words, which are attributed to Joshua Sylvester. These are given at page 15.

The Lye. Page 2. The authorship of this poem has been disputed. Percy ascribes it to RALEIGH (b. 1552, executed 1618), and a copy of it among the Chetham manuscripts bears his signature.

Man's Mortality. Page 6. WASTEL (b. about 1566) published in 1629 “Microbiblion, or the Bible's Epitome in Verse," of which these famous stanzas are a fragment.

Willy Drowned in Yarrow. Page 8. This poem is believed to date from the 15th century.

Verses. Page 9. The story of CHEDIOCK TICHEBORNE is told in Disraeli's “Curiosities of Literature,” Vol. II. He was executed for treason (of which he was probably innocent) in 1586.

The Ballad of Agincourt. Page 10. DRAYTON (b. 1563, d. 1631) published many poems, this being one of his latest. The battle, in which 15,000 English defeated 50,000 French, took place in 1415. Longfellow borrows the metrical formula of this poem for his “Skeleton in Armor.'

Take thy Old Cloake about thee. Page 13. The seventh stanza of this poem is sung by Iago in the Second Act of “Othello." The whole appeared in Ramsay's "Tea-Table Miscellany," 1724.

A Contented Mind. Page 15. See the first of these Notes. SYLVESTEB was born in England in 1563, and died in 1618.

Love me Little, Love me Long. Page 16. This poem dates from the latter half of the 16th century.

Good Ale. Page 18. STILL (d. 1607), Bishop of Bath and Wells, was the author of Gammer Gurton's Needle," one of the earliest of English comedies, in which this poem occurs.

Exequy. Page 19. KING (b. 1592, d. 1669) was chaplain to James I. and became Bishop of Chichester. A single stanza exactly imitating those of Simon Wastel given at page 6 of this volume, is attributed to him. He turned the Psalms of David into verse, and wrote other poems.

The Angler's Wish. Page 23. These lines occur in the “Complete Angler” of IZAAK WALTON (b. 1593, d. 1683). Old Piscator says, When I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did of the city of Florence, that they were too pleasant to be looked on but only on holidays.' As I then sat on this very grass, I turned my pleasant thoughts into verse." Bryan, mentioned in the last stanza, is supposed to be his dog.

Death's Final Conquest. Page 24. SHIRLEY (b. in London, 1596, d. 1668) was a dramatist, and this poem occurs in his “Contention of Ajax and Ulysses."

The Bride. Page 24. SUCKLING'S (6. 1609, d. 1641) "Ballad upon a Wedding," from which these stanzas are taken, is never printed complete now-a-days; for reasons which would be obvious if it were.

Ye Gentlemen of England. Page 26. These verses have probably attracted much more attention than they ever would if Campbell had not re-written them as “Ye Mariners of England." The three stanzas here given are the best of a long ballad which is not worth printing entire. PARKER lived in the 17th century.

Song. Page 26. SEDLEY (6. 1639, d. 1701) was one of the wits of the Restoration.

My Dear and Only Love. Page 27. The author of this poem (b. 1612, hanged in Edinburgh in 1650) is the hero of Aytoun's “Execution of Montrose."

The Splendid Shilling. Page 32. PHILIPS (b. 1676, d. 1708) wrote this poem to parody the style of Milton.

Bonnie George Campbell. Page 36. Motherwell, in his “Minstrelsy," says this is “probably a lament for one of the adherents of the house of Argyle, who fell in the battle of Glenlivat, Oct. 3, 1594."

The Hermit. Page 37. PARNELL (b. 1679, d. 1718) was a native of Dublin, and became Archdeacon of Clogher.

On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America. Page 4. Bishop BERKELEY (b. in Ireland, 1684, d. 1753) formed & scheme “for converting the American savages to Christianity, by a college to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda.'