230

ALNWICK CASTLE.

I wander'd through the lofty halls
Trod by the Percys of old fame,
And traced upon the chapel walls

Each high, heroic name,

From him who once his standard set

Where now, o'er mosque and minaret,

Glitter the Sultan's crescent moons;
To him who, when a younger son,
Fought for King George at Lexington,
A Major of dragoons.

That last half stanza-it has dash'd
From my warm lip the sparkling cup;
The light that o'er my eyebeam flash'd,
The power that bore my spirit up
Above this bank-note world—is gone;
And Alnwick's but a market-town,
And this, alas! its market-day,

And beasts and borderers throng the way;
Oxen, and bleating lambs in lots,
Northumbrian boors, and plaided Scots,

Men in the coal and cattle line;
From Teviot's bard and hero land,
From Royal Berwick's beach of sand,
From Wooller, Morpeth, Hexam, and
Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

These are not the romantic times
So beautiful in Spenser's rhymes,

So dazzling to the dreaming boy :
Ours are the days of fact, not fable,
Of Knights, but not of the Round Table,
Of Bailie Jarvie, not Rob Roy :

ALNWICK CASTLE,

"Tis what "our President," Monroe,
Has call'd "the era of good feeling :"
The Highlander, the bitterest foe

To modern laws, has felt their blow,
Consented to be tax'd, and vote,
And put on pantaloons and coat,
And leave off cattle-stealing:
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings;
And noble name and cultured land,
Palace, and park, and vassal band
Are powerless to the notes of hand
Of Rothschild or the Barings.

The age of bargaining, said Burke,

Has come to-day the turban'd Turk, (Sleep, Richard of the lion heart!

Sleep on, nor from your cerements start,)
Is England's friend and fast ally;
The Moslem tramples on the Greek,
And on the Cross and altar stone,
And Christendom looks tamely on,
And hears the Christian maiden shriek,
And sees the Christian father die;
And not a sabre blow is given

For Greece and fame, for faith and Heaven,
By Europe's craven chivalry.

You'll ask if yet the Percy lives

In the arm'd pomp of feudal state?
The present representatives

Of Hotspur and his "gentle Kate,"
Are some half-dozen serving men,
In the drab coat of William Penn ;

231

232

DEATH OF AN INFANT.

A chambermaid, whose lip and eye,

And cheek, and brown hair, bright and curling,

Spoke nature's aristocracy;

And one, half groom, half seneschal,

Who bow'd me through court, bower, and hall,
From donjon-keep to turret wall,

For ten-and-sixpence sterling.

DEATH OF AN INFANT.

BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

DEATH found strange beauty on that polish'd brow,
There was a tint of rose

And dash'd it out.

On cheek and lip.

And the rose faded.

He touch'd the veins with ice,
Forth from those blue eyes

There spake a wisnful tenderness, a doubt

Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence
Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of those curtaining lids

For ever.

There had been a murmuring sound With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set The seal of silence. But there beam'd a smile, So fix'd, so holy, from that cherub brow,

Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal The signet-ring of heaven,

THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

THERE is a Reaper, whose name is Death,

He

And, with his sickle keen,

reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair?" saith he; "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kiss'd their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where he was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear.

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

20*

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234

DEMOCRACY.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'Twas an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.

DEMOCRACY.

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

SPIRIT of Truth, and Love, and Light!
The foe of Wrong, and Hate, and Fraud !
Of all which pains the holy sight,

Or wounds the generous ear of GOD!

Beautiful yet thy temples rise,

Though there profaning gifts are thrown; And fires unkindled of the skies

Are glaring round thy altar-stone.

Still sacred-though thy name be breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth deride;
And garlands, pluck'd from thee, are wreath'd
Around the haughty brows of Pride.

Oh, ideal of my boyhood's time!

The faith in which my father stood,

Even when the sons of Lust and Crime
Had stain'd thy peaceful courts with blood!

Still to those courts my footsteps turn,
For through the mists which darken there,

I see the flame of Freedom burn

The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!