VER. (Rushing in with ALBERT.) The boy is safe! no hair of him is touched! ALB. Father, I'm safe!—your Albert's safe, dear father. Speak to me! Speak to me! (ALBERT opens his father's vest, and the arrow drops. TELL starts, fixes his eye on ALBERT, and clasps him to his breast.) TELL. My boy! - My boy! GES. For what Hid you that arrow in your breast? Speak, slave! LXXIV. — THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. MACAULAY. NASEBY is a small parish near Northampton, England, where the troops of Charles I. were totally defeated by the Parliamentary army under Fairfax in 1645. H, wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread? O, evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, And crimson was the juice, of the vintage that we trod! For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong, Who sat in the high places, and slew the saints of God. It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine; And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine. Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword, And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore, The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums, For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall. They are here! They rush on! We are broken! We are gone! Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. O Lord, put forth thy might! O Lord, defend the right! Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last. Stout Skippon hath a wound; the centre hath given ground; Hark! hark! what means this trampling of horsemen in our rear? Whose banner do I see, boys? 'Tis he, thank God! 't is he, boys! Bear up another minute; brave Oliver is here. Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dikes ; Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst, Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar; And he he turns, he flies: - shame on those cruel eyes That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war. LXXV. -THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE. AYTOUN. WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN was born in the county of Fife, in Scotland, in 1813. He was called to the Scotch bar in 1840, and in 1845 was elected to the professorship of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the University of Edinburgh, which he held until his death, August 4, 1865. He was a prominent contributor to "Blackwood's Magazine." In the month of February, 1692, a number of persons of the clan of Macdonald, residing in Glencoe, a glen on the western coast of Scotland, were cruelly and treacherously put to death, on the ground that their chief had not taken the oath of allegiance to the government of King William within the time prescribed by his proclamation. A full and interesting account of the massacre may be found in Macaulay's "History of England." The following poem is supposed to be spoken by the widow of one of the victims. The captain of the company of soldiers by whom the massacre was perpetrated was Campbell of Glenlyon. "The dauntless Græme" was the Marquis of Montrose. O not lift him from the bracken, leave him lying where D° he fell, Better bier ye cannot fashion: none beseems him half so well As the bare and broken heather, and the hard and trampled sod, Whence his angry soul ascended to the judgment-seat of God! Winding-sheet we cannot give him, seek no mantle for the dead, - Save the cold and spotless covering showered from heaven upon his head. Leave his broadsword as we found it, rent and broken with the blow That, before he died, avenged him on the foremost of the foe. Leave the blood upon his bosom, -wash not off that sacred stain; Let it stiffen on the tartan, let his wounds unclosed remain, Till the day when he shall show them at the throne of God on high, When the murderer and the murdered meet before their Judge's eye. Nay, ye should not weep, my children! leave it to the faint and weak; Sobs are but a woman's weapons, tears befit a maiden's cheek. Weep not, children of Macdonald! weep not thou, his orphan heir ; Not in shame, but stainless honor, lies thy slaughtered father there. Weep not; but when years are over, and thine arm is strong and sure, And thy foot is swift and steady on the mountain and the muir, Let thy heart be hard as iron, and thy wrath as fierce as fire, Till the hour when vengeance cometh for the race that slew thy sire! Till in deep and dark Glenlyon rise a louder shriek of woe, Than at midnight, from their eyry, scared the eagles of Glencoe ; Louder than the screams that mingled with the howling of the blast, When the murderers' steel was clashing, and the fires were rising fast; When thy noble father bounded to the rescue of his men, And the slogan of our kindred pealed throughout the startled glen; When the herd of frantic women stumbled through the midnight snow, With their fathers' houses blazing, and their dearest dead below! O, the horror of the tempest, as the flashing drift was blown, Crimsoned with the conflagration, and the roofs went thundering down! O, the prayers, the prayers and curses, that together winged their flight From the maddened hearts of many, through that long and woful night! Till the fires began to dwindle, and the shots grew faint and few, drawn, And the ghastly valley glimmered in the gray December dawn. Better had the morning never dawned upon our dark despair! Black amidst the common whiteness rose the spectral ruins there : But the sight of these was nothing more than wrings the wild dove's breast, When she searches for her offspring round the relics of her nest. For in many a spot the tartan peered above the wintry heap, Marking where a dead Macdonald lay within his frozen sleep. Tremblingly we scooped the covering from each kindred victim's head, And the living lips were burning on the cold ones of the dead. And I left them with their dearest, dearest charge had every one, Left the maiden with her lover, left the mother with her son. ! Woman's weakness shall not shame me, — why should I have tears to shed? Could I rain them down like water, O my hero! on thy head, Could the cry of lamentation wake thee from thy silent sleep, |