ON THE GRAVE OF BISHOP KEN,

AT FROME, IN SOMERSETSHIRE.

LET other thoughts, where'er I roam,
Ne'er from my memory cancel
The coffin-fashioned tomb at Frome
That lies behind the chancel;
A basket-work where bars are bent,
Iron in place of osier,

And shapes above that represent

A mitre and a crosier.

These signs of him that slumbers there

The dignity betoken;

These iron bars a heart declare

Hard bent but never broken;
This form pourtrays how souls like his,
Their pride and passion quelling,

Preferr'd to earth's high palaces

This calm and narrow dwelling.

There with the church-yard's common dust

He loved his own to mingle;
The faith in which he placed his trust

Was nothing rare or single;

Yet laid he to the sacred wall

As close as he was able,

The blessed crumbs might almost fall Upon him from God's table.

Who was this Father of the Church,
So secret in his glory?

In vain might antiquarians search
For record of his story;

But preciously tradition keeps

The fame of holy men;

So there the Christian smiles or weeps For love of Bishop Ken.

A name his country once forsook,
But now with joy inherits,
Confessor in the Church's book,

And Martyr in the Spirit's!
That dared with royal power to cope,

In peaceful faith persisting,
A braver Becket-who could hope
To conquer unresisting!

OCCASIONAL POEMS.

THE FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON.

ALL nature is stiff in the chill of the air,
The sun looks around with a smile of despair;
'Tis a day of delusion, of glitter and gloom,
As brilliant as glory, as cold as the tomb.

The pageant is passing-the multitude sways-
Awaiting, pursuing, the line with its gaze,
With the tramp of battalion, the tremor of drums,
And the grave exultation of trumpets he comes.

It passes! what passes? He comes! who is He?
Is it Joy too profound to be uttered in glee?
Oh, no! it is Death, the Dethroner of old,
Now folded in purple and girded with gold!

It is Death, who enjoys the magnificent car,

It is Death, whom the warriors have brought from afar, It is Death, to whom thousands have knelt on the shore, And sainted the bark and the treasure it bore.

What other than He, in his terrible calm,

Could mingle for myriads the bitter and balm,
Could hush into silence this ocean of men,
And bid the wild passion be still in its den?

What other than He could have placed side by side The chief and the humblest, that serving him died, Could the blood of the past to the mourner atone, And let all bless the name that has orphaned their own?

From the shades of the olive, the palm, and the pine, From the banks of the Moskwa, the Nile, and the Rhine, From the sands and the glaciers, in armament dim, Come they who have perished for France and for Him.

Rejoice, ye sad Mothers, whose desolate years
Have been traced in the desert of earth by their tears,
The Children for whom ye have hearts that still burn,
In this triumph of Death—it is they that return.

And Ye in whose breast dwell the images true
Of parents that loved Him still better than you,
No longer lament o'er a cenotaph urn,
In this triumph of Death—it is they that return.

From legion to legion the watchword is sped"Long life to the Emperor-life to the dead!" The prayer is accomplished-his ashes remain 'Mid the people he loved, on the banks of the Seine.

In dominions of Thought that no traitor can reach,
Through the kingdoms of Fancy, the regions of Speech,
O'er the world of Emotions, Napoleon shall reign
'Mid the people he loved, on the banks of the Seine.

PARIS, December, 1840.

IRELAND, 1847.

THE woes of Ireland are too deep for verse:
The Muse has many sorrows of her own;
Griefs she may well to sympathy rehearse,
Pains she may soften by her gentle tone.

But the stark death in hunger and sharp cold,
The slow exhaustion of our mortal clay,
Are not for her to touch.-She can but fold
Her mantle o'er her head, and weep and pray.

O gracious Ruler of the rolling hours!
Let not this agony last over long;
Restore a nation to its manly powers,

Give back its suffe'rings to the sphere of Song.

VOL. I.

T