THE WAR.-ON A Spiteful LETTER. Her frantic city's flashing heats But fire, to blast, the hopes of men. Why change the titles of your streets? You fools, you'll want them all again. Hands all round! God the tyrant's cause confound! To France, the wiser France, we drink, my friends, And the great name of England, round and round. Gigantic daughter of the West, We drink to thee across the flood, But let thy broadsides roar with ours. God the tyrant's cause confound! O rise, our strong Atlantic sons, When war against our freedom springs ! O speak to Europe through your guns! They can be understood by kings. You must not mix our Queen with those That wish to keep their people fools; Our freedom's foemen are her foes, She comprehends the race she rules. Hands all round! God the tyrant's cause confound! To our dear kinsman in the West, my friends, And the great name of England, round and round. THE WAR.* THERE is a sound of thunder afar, Form! form! Riflemen form! Be not deaf to the sound that warns ! Let your Reforms for a moment go, Than a rotten fleet or a city in flames! • London Times, May 9, 1850. Form! form! Riflemen form! Form, be ready to do or die! 297 Form in Freedom's name and the Queen's! True, that we have a faithful ally, But only the Devil knows what he means. Ready, be ready to meet the storm! This fallen leaf, is n't fame as brief? O faded leaf, is n't fame as brief? Greater than I-is n't that your cry? O summer leaf, is n't life as brief? 1865-1866.† I STOOD on a tower in the wet, And winds were roaring and blowing; But aught that is worth the knowing?" And New Year blowing and roaring. Once a Week, January 4, 1868. Good Words, March, 1868. THE WINDOW; OR, THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. WORDS WRITTEN FOR MUSIC. THE MUSIC BY ARTHUR SULLIVAN. FOUR years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as "Orpheus with his Lute," and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise. December, 1870. A. TENNYSON. Bite, frost, bite! You roll up away from the light The blue woodlouse, and the plump dor mouse, And the bees are still'd, and the flies are kill'd, VII. NO ANSWER. THE mist and the rain, the mist and the rain! And never a glimpse of her window-pane ! bite far into the heart of the house, And the grass will grow when I am gone, But not into mine. Bite, frost, bite! The woods are all the searer, The fuel is all the dearer, The fires are all the clearer, My spring is all the nearer, You have bitten into the heart of the earth, V. SPRING. BIRDS' love and birds' song And you with gold for hair Passing with the weather, Men's song and men's love, To love once and for ever. Men's love and birds' love, And women's love and men's! I'll be King of the Queen of the wrens, And the wet west wind and the world will go IX. THE ANSWER. Two little hands that meet, I must take you, and break you, you may break my heart. LIGHT, so low upon earth, O the woods and the meadows, Light, so low in the vale, You flash and lighten afar: For this is the golden morning of love, And you are his morning star. Flash, I am coming, I come, By meadow and stile and wood: O lighten into my eyes and my heart, Into my heart and my blood! Heart, are you great enough For a love that never tires? O heart, are you great enough for love! I have heard of thorns and briers. Over the thorns and briers, Over the meadows and stiles, Over the world to the end of it Flash for a million miles |