MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

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THE stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound,
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,

What gladsome looks of household love

Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,

Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The Cottage Homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves,

And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free, fair Homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be rear'd
To guard each hallow'd wall!
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,

Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!

THE SICILIAN CAPTIVE.

"I have dreamt thou wert

A captive in thy hopelessness; afar

From the sweet home of thy young infancy,
Whose image unto thee is as a dream

Of fire and slaughter; I can see thee wasting,
Sick for thy native air."

L. E. L.

THE champions had come from their fields of war, Over the crests of the billows far

They had brought back the spoils of a hundred shores,
Where the deep had foam'd to their flashing oars.

They sat at their feast round the Norse king's board;
By the glare of the torch-light the mead was pour'd;
The hearth was heap'd with the pine-boughs high,
And it flung a red radiance on shields thrown by.
The Scalds that chanted in Runic rhyme
Their songs of the sword and the olden time;
And a solemn thrill, as the harp-chords rung,
Had breathed from the walls where the bright spears
hung.

But the swell was gone from the quivering string,
They had summon'd a softer voice to sing,

And a captive girl, at the warriors' call,
Stood forth in the midst of that frowning hall.

Lonely she stood:-in her mournful eyes
Lay the clear midnight of southern skies;
And the drooping fringe of their lashes low,
Half-veil'd a depth of unfathom'd woe.