"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.'
‘But what good came of it at last ?'
Quoth little Peterkin :-
"Why that I cannot tell,' said he,
‘But ’t was a famous victory.'
R. Southey
THEN he who adores thee has left but the name
Of his fault and his sorrows behind,
O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resign'd !
Yes, weep, and liowever my foes may condemn,
Thy tears shall efface their decree;
For, Heaven can witness, though guilty to them,
I have been but too faithful to thee.
With thee were the dreams of my earliest love ;
Every thought of my reason was thine :
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above
Thy name shall be mingled with mine!
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
Is the pride of thus dying for thee.
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT
CORUNNA
OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried ;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning ;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said
And we spoke not a word of sorrow,
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
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
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he 'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
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 stone But we left him alone with his glory.
C. Wolfe
SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN
N the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor Hall,
An old man dwells, a little man,
I've heard he once was tall.
Full five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry ;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.
No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee,
When Echo bandied round and round
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,
He reeld and was stone-blind.
And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;
For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices.
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 ;
He is the sole survivor.
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,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger ;
But what avails the land to them
Which he can till no longer ?
Ost, working by her husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do ;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.
And, though you with your utmost skil
From labour could not wean them,
'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
Do his weak ankles swell.
My gentle reader, I perceive
How patiently you 've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.
O reader ! had
you
in Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle reader ! you would find A tale in everything. What more I have to say is short, And you must kindly take it : It is no tale ; but should you think, Perhaps a tale you 'll make it.
One summer-day I chanced to see
This old man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock totter'd in his hand ;
So vain was his endeavour
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