'Why 't was a very wicked thing!' Said little Wilhelmine; 'Nay.. nay.. my little girl,' quoth he, 'It was a famous victory. 'And every body praised the Duke Who this great fight did win.' 'Why that I cannot tell,' said he, 'But 't was a famous victory.' R. Southey WH CCXVII PRO PATRIA MORI WHEN he who adores thee has left but the name O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn, For, Heaven can witness, though guilty to them, With thee were the dreams of my earliest love; In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above O! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live The days of thy glory to see; But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give T. Moore CCXVIII THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, NOT As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; Few and short were the prayers we said We thought as we hollow'd his narrow bed And smoothed down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow! Lightly they 'll talk of the spirit that's gone But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring: And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stoneBut we left him alone with his glory. C. Wolfe CCXIX SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN N the sweet shire of Cardigan, I Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall, An old man dwells, a little man, Is red as a ripe cherry. No man like him the horn could sound, The halloo of Simon Lee. In those proud days he little cared For husbandry or tillage; To blither tasks did Simon rouse The sleepers of the village. He all the country could outrun, Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the chase was done, And still there's something in the world For when the chiming hounds are out, But O the heavy change!-bereft Of health, strength, friends and kindred, see Old Simon to the world is left In liveried poverty: His master's dead, and no one now Dwells in the Hall of Ivor; Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; And he is lean and he is sick, His body dwindled and awry Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; His legs are thin and dry. He has no son, he has no child; His wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Upon the village common. Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill "T is little, very little, all That they can do between them. Few months of life has he in store As he to you will tell, For still, the more he works, the more My gentle reader, I perceive O reader! had you in your mind A tale in everything. What more I have to say is short, And you must kindly take it: One summer-day I chanced to see The mattock totter'd in his hand; |