Thou didst provide, e'en for this nameless

bird,

Home, and a natural love, amid the surging

seas.

THE SILENT TOWER OF

BOTTREAU

TINTADGEL bells ring o'er the tide,
The boy leans on his vessel side;

He hears that sound, and dreams of home
Soothe the wild orphan of the foam.
"Come to thy God in time!"
Thus saith their pealing chime:
Youth, manhood, old age past,
"Come to thy God at last."

But why are Bottreau's echoes still?
Her tower stands proudly on the hill;

Yet the strange chough that home hath found,

The lamb lies sleeping on the ground.
"Come to thy God in time!"
Should be her answering chime:
"Come to thy God at last!"
Should echo on the blast.

The ship rode down with courses free,
The daughter of a distant sea:
Her sheet was loose, her anchor stor❜d,
The merry Bottreau bells on board.
"Come to thy God in time!"
Rung out Tintadgel chime;
Youth, manhood, old age past,
"Come to thy God at last!"

The pilot heard his native bells Hang on the breeze in fitful swells; "Thank God," with reverent brow he cried, "We make the shore with evening's tide." "Come to thy God in time!" It was his marriage chime : Youth, manhood, old age past, His bell must ring at last.

"Thank God, thou whining knave, on land, But thank, at sea, the steersman's hand," The captain's voice above the gale : Thank the good ship and ready sail." "Come to thy God in time !" Sad grew the boding chime:

"Come to thy God at last!" Boom'd heavy on the blast.

Uprose that sea! as if it heard

The mighty Master's signal-word : What thrills the captain's whitening lip? The death-groans of his sinking ship. "Come to thy God in time!" Swung deep the funeral chime : Grace, mercy, kindness past, "Come to thy God at last!"

Long did the rescued pilot tell

When gray hairs o'er his forehead fell,
While those around would hear and weep-
That fearful judgment of the deep.
"Come to thy God in time!"
He read his native chime :
Youth, manhood, old age past,
His bell rung out at last.

Still when the storm of Bottreau's waves
Is wakening in his weedy caves,
Those bells, that sullen surges hide,
Peal their deep notes beneath the tide :
"Come to thy God in time!"
Thus saith the ocean chime:
Storm, billow, whirlwind past,
"Come to thy God at last!"

TO ALFRED TENNYSON THEY told me in their shadowy phrase, Caught from a tale gone by,

That Arthur, King of Cornish praise, Died not, and would not die.

Dreams had they, that in fairy bowers
Their living warrior lies,
Or wears a garland of the flowers
That grow in Paradise.

I read the rune with deeper ken,
And thus the myth I trace :-

A bard should rise, mid future men,
The mightiest of his race.

He would great Arthur's deeds rehearse
On gray Dundagel's shore ;

And so the King in laurell'd verse
Shall live, and die no more!

Upon the dark and stormy tides where life Gives battle to the elements, and man Wrestles with man for some slight plank, whose weight

Will bear but one, while round the desperate wretch

The hungry billows roar, and the fierce Fate, Like some huge monster, dim-seen through the surf,

Waits him who drops;-ye safe and formal men,

Who write the deeds, and with unfeverish hand

Weigh in nice scales the motives of the Great,

Ye cannot know what ye have never tried!
History preserves only the fleshless bones
Of what we are, and by the mocking skull
The would-be wise pretend to guess the
features.

Without the roundness and the glow of life
How hideous is the skeleton! Without
The colorings and humanities that clothe
Our errors, the anatomists of schools
Can make our memory hideous.

I have wrought
Great uses out of evil tools, and they
In the time to come may bask beneath the
light

Which I have stolen from the angry gods, And warn their sons against the glorious theft,

Forgetful of the darkness which it broke.
I have shed blood, but I have had no foes
Save those the State had; if my wrath was
deadly,

'Tis that I felt my country in my veins, And smote her sons as Brutus smote his

own.

And yet I am not happy: blanch'd and sear'd

Before my time; breathing an air of hate, And seeing daggers in the eyes of men, And wasting powers that shake the thrones of earth

In contest with the insects; bearding kings And brav'd by lackies; murder at my bed; And lone amidst the multitudinous web, With the dread Three, that are the Fates who hold

The woof and shears the Monk, the Spy, the Headsman.

And this is power? Alas! I am not happy.
[After a pause.
And yet the Nile is fretted by the weeds
Its rising roots not up; but never yet
Did one least barrier by a ripple vex
My onward tide, unswept in sport away.
Am I so ruthless then that I do hate
Them who hate me? Tush, tush! I do not
hate;

Nay, I forgive. The Statesman writes the doom,

But the Priest sends the blessing. I forgive them,

But I destroy; forgiveness is mine own, Destruction is the State's! For private life, Scripture the guide - for public, Machiavel. Would fortune serve me if the Heaven were wroth?

For chance makes half my greatness. I

was born

O beautiful, all golden, gentle youth! Making thy palace in the careless front And hopeful eye of man, ere yet the soul Hath lost the memories which (so Plato dream'd)

Breath'd glory from the earlier star it dwelt in

Oh, for one gale from thine exulting morning,

Stirring amidst the roses, where of old Love shook the dew-drops from his glancing hair!

Could I recall the past, or had not set
The prodigal treasures of the bankrupt soul

In one slight bark upon the shoreless sea; The yoked steer, after his day of toil, Forgets the goad, and rests: to me alike Or day or night - Ambition has no rest! Shall I resign? who can resign himself? For custom is ourself; as drink and food Become our bone and flesh, the aliments Nurturing our nobler part, the mind, thoughts, dreams,

Passions, and aims, in the revolving cycle Of the great alchemy, at length are made Our mind itself; and yet the sweets of leisure,

An honor'd home far from these base intrigues,

An eyrie on the heaven-kiss'd heights of

wisdom.

[Taking up the book. Speak to me, moralist! I'll heed thy

counsel.

WHEN STARS ARE IN THE
QUIET SKIES

WHEN stars are in the quiet skies,

Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me then thy tender eyes,

As stars look on the sea! For thoughts, like waves that glide by night, Are stillest when they shine; Mine earthly love lies hush'd in light

Beneath the heaven of thine.

There is an hour when angels keep
Familiar watch o'er men,

When coarser souls are wrapp'd in sleep-
Sweet spirit, meet me then!
There is an hour when holy dreams

Through slumber fairest glide;
And in that mystic hour it seems
Thou shouldst be by my side.

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE

COME hither, Evan Cameron !
Come, stand beside my knee :
I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.
There's shouting on the mountain-side,
There's war within the blast ;
Old faces look upon me,

Old forms go trooping past:
I hear the pibroch wailing
Amidst the din of fight,
And my dim spirit wakes again
Upon the verge of night.

'T was I that led the Highland host
Through wild Lochaber's snows,
What time the plaided clans came down
To battle with Montrose.

I've told thee how the Southrons fell
Beneath the broad claymore,
And how we smote the Campbell clan
By Inverlochy's shore.
I've told thee how we swept Dundee,
And tam'd the Lindsays' pride;
But never have I told thee yet

How the great Marquis died.

And blew the note with yell and shout
And bade him pass along.

It would have made a brave man's heart
Grow sad and sick that day,

To watch the keen malignant eyes
Bent down on that array.

There stood the Whig west-country lords,
In balcony and bow;

There sat their gaunt and wither'd dames,
And their daughters all a-row.
And every open window

Was full as full might be

With black-rob'd Covenanting carles,
That goodly sport to see!

But when he came, though pale and wan,
He look'd so great and high,

So noble was his manly front,
So calm his steadfast eye,
The rabble rout forbore to shout,
And each man held his breath,
For well they knew the hero's soul
Was face to face with death.
And then a mournful shudder

Through all the people crept,
And some that came to scoff at him
Now turn'd aside and wept.

For seven long years thou hast not dar'd To look him in the face."

Had I been there with sword in hand,
And fifty Camerons by,
That day through high Dunedin's streets
Had peal'd the slogan-cry.
Not all their troops of trampling horse,
Nor might of mailed men,
Not all the rebels in the south

Had borne us backwards then! Once more his foot on Highland heath Had trod as free as air,

Or I, and all who bore my name,
Been laid around him there!

It might not be. They placed him next
Within the solemn hall,
Where once the Scottish kings were
thron'd

Amidst their nobles all.

But there was dust of vulgar feet
On that polluted floor,
And perjur'd traitors fill'd the place
Where good men sate before.
With savage glee came Warristoun
To read the murderous doom;
And then uprose the great Montrose
In the middle of the room.

"Now, by my faith as belted knight,
And by the name I bear,
And by the bright Saint Andrew's cross
That waves above us there,
Yea, by a greater, mightier oath
And oh, that such should be!
By that dark stream of royal blood
That lies 'twixt you and me,
I have not sought in battle-field
A wreath of such renown,
Nor dar'd I hope on my dying day
To win the martyr's crown!

"There is a chamber far away

Where sleep the good and brave, But a better place ye have nam'd for

me

Than by my father's grave. For truth and right, 'gainst treason's might,

This hand hath always striven, And ye raise it up for a witness still In the eye of earth and heaven. Then nail my head on yonder tower, Give every town a limb,

And God who made shall gather them : I go from you to Him!

The morning dawn'd full darkly,

The rain came flashing down, And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt Lit up the gloomy town:

The thunder crash'd across the heaven,
The fatal hour was come;

Yet aye broke in with muffled beat
The 'larum of the drum.

There was madness on the earth below
And anger in the sky,

And young and old, and rich and poor, Came forth to see him die.

Ah, God! that ghastly gibbet!
How dismal 't is to see.

The great tall spectral skeleton,
The ladder and the tree !
Hark! hark! it is the clash of arms
The bells begin to toll-
"He is coming! he is coming!
God's mercy on his soul!'
One last long peal of thunder:

The clouds are clear'd away,

And the glorious sun once more looks down

Amidst the dazzling day.

"He is coming! he is coming!" Like a bridegroom from his room, Came the hero from his prison

To the scaffold and the doom. There was glory on his forehead, There was lustre in his eye, And he never walk'd to battle More proudly than to die : There was color in his visage, Though the cheeks of all were wan, And they marvell'd as they saw him pass That great and goodly man!

He mounted up the scaffold,

And he turn'd him to the crowd;
But they dar'd not trust the people,
So he might not speak aloud.
But he look'd upon the heavens,
And they were clear and blue,
And in the liquid ether

The eye of God shone through;
Yet a black and murky battlement
Lay resting on the hill,

As though the thunder slept within-
All else was calm and still.