Mark, as it spreads, how deserts bloom, and error flies away,
As vanishes the mist of night before the star of day!
But grand as are the victories whose monuments we see,
These are but as the dawn, which speaks of noontide yet
to be.
Take heed, then, heirs of Saxon fame, take heed, nor once disgrace
With deadly pen or spoiling sword, our noble tongue and
Go forth prepared in every clime to love and help each other, And judge that they who counsel strife would bid you smite -a brother.
Go forth, and jointly speed the time, by good men prayed for long,
When Christian states, grown just and wise, will scorn revenge and wrong;
When earth's oppressed and savage tribes shall cease to pine or roam,
All taught to prize these English words-FAITH, FREEDOM, HEAVEN, and HOME.
II. THE THREATENED INVASION.
Thomas Campbell, so well known by his "Pleasures of Hope," and his many spirited lyrics, was born in Glasgow in 1777, and died in Boulogne in 1844. The poem refers to the invasion threatened by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803.
OUR bosoms we'll bare for the glorious strife,
And our oath is recorded on high,
To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or, crushed in its ruins, to die!
Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
"Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust-
God bless the green isle of the brave!
Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers' dust,
It would rouse the old dead from their grave!
Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
In a Briton's sweet home shall a spoiler abide,
Profaning its loves and its charms?
Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side?—
To arms! O my country, to arms!
Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen ?—No!
His head to the sword shall be given-
A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe,
And his blood be an offering to Heaven!
Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!
III.-THE ABBOT TO BRUCE.
(SIR WALTER SCOTT.)
Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh in 1771, and died at Abbotsford in 1832.
THEN on King Robert turned the Monk,
But twice his courage came and sunk;
Confronted with the hero's look,
Twice fell his eye, his accents shook;
At length, resolved in tone and brow,
Sternly he questioned him,-" And thou,
Unhappy! what hast thou to plead,
Why I denounce not on thy deed
That awful doom which canons tell
Shuts paradise, and opens hell;
Anathema of power so dread,
It blends the living with the dead,
Bids each good angel soar away,
And every ill one claim his prey;
Expels thee from the Church's care,
And deafens Heaven against thy prayer;
Arms every hand against thy life,
Bans all who aid thee in the strife,
Nay, each whose succour, cold and scant,
With meanest alms relieves thy want;
Haunts thee while living, and, when dead,
Dwells on thy yet devoted head;
Rends Honour's scutcheon from thy hearse,
Stills o'er thy bier the holy verse,
And spurns thy corpse from hallowed ground,
Flung like vile carrion to the hound!
Such is the dire and desperate doom
For sacrilege, decreed by Rome;
And such the well-deserved meed
Of thine unhallowed, ruthless deed."-
"Abbot!" The Bruce replied, "thy charge
It boots not to dispute at large.
This much, howe'er, I bid thee know,
No selfish vengeance dealt the blow,
For Comyn died his country's foe.
Nor blame I friends whose ill-timed speed
Fulfilled my soon-repented deed;
Nor censure those from whose stern tongue
The dire anathema has rung.
I only blame mine own wild ire,
By Scotland's wrongs incensed to fire.
Heaven knows my purpose to atone,
Far as I may, the evil done,
And hears a penitent's appeal
From papal curse and prelate's zeal.
My first and dearest task achieved,
Fair Scotland from her thrall relieved,
Shall many a priest in cope and stole
Say requiem for Red Comyn's soul;
While I the blessèd Cross advance,
And expiate this unhappy chance
In Palestine, with sword and lance.
But while content the Church should know
My conscience owns the debt I owe,
Unto De Argentine and Lorn
The name of traitor I return.
Bid them defiance stern and high,
And give them in their throats the lie!
These brief words spoke, I speak no more.
Do what thou wilt; my shrift is o'er."
Like man by prodigy amazed,
Upon the King the Abbot gazed;
Then o'er his pallid features glance
Convulsions of ecstatic trance.
His breathing came more thick and fast,
And from his pale blue eyes were cast
Strange rays of wild and wandering light;
Uprise his locks of silver white,
Flushed is his brow, through every vein
In azure tide the currents strain,
And undistinguished accents broke
The awful silence ere he spoke.
"De Bruce! I rose with purpose dread,
To speak my curse upon thy head,
And give thee as an outcast o'er
To him who burns to shed thy gore;-
But, like the Midianite of old,
Who stood on Zophim, heaven-controlled,
I feel within mine aged breast
A power that will not be repressed:
It prompts my voice, it swells my veins,
It burns, it maddens, it constrains !—
De Bruce, thy sacrilegious blow
Hath at God's altar slain thy foe
O'ermastered yet by high behest,
I bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed!”
He spoke, and o'er the astonished throng
Was silence, awful, deep, and long.
Again that light has fired his eye,
Again his form swells bold and high,
The broken voice of age is gone,
"Tis vigorous manhood's lofty tone:-
"Thrice vanquished on the battle-plain,
Thy followers slaughtered, fled, or ta'en,
A hunted wanderer on the wild,
On foreign shores a man exiled,
Disowned, deserted, and distressed,
I bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed!
Blessed in the hall and in the field,
Under the mantle as the shield!
Avenger of thy country's shame,
Restorer of her injured fame,
Blessed in thy sceptre and thy sword,
De Bruce, fair Scotland's rightful lord,
Blessed in thy deeds and in thy fame,
What lengthened honours wait thy name!
In distant ages, sire to son
Shall tell thy tale of freedom won,
And teach his infants, in the use
Of earliest speech, to falter Bruce.
Go, then, triumphant! sweep along
Thy course, the theme of many a song!
The Power, whose dictates swell my breast,
Hath blessed thee, and thou shalt be blessed!"
George Lord Byron was born in London in 1788. His father was Captain John
Byron of the Guards; and his mother, Miss Gordon of Gight, in Aberdeenshire.
He succeeded his grand-uncle, William Lord Byron, in the title and estates
when eleven years of age.
He died at Missolonghi, in Greece, in 1824.
CLIME of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land from plain to mountain cave
Was freedom's home, or glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave:
Say, is not this Thermopyla?
These waters blue that round you lave,
O servile offspring of the free-
|