They loved, but their story we cannot

unfold;

They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;

They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;

They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died,ay! they died; and we things that are now,

Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,

Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,

Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,

Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the twink of an eye, 't is the draught of a breath,

From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,

O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

The feast was over, the board was cleared, The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,

And six little singing-boys, dear little souls!

In nice clean faces and nice white stoles,
Came, in order due,
Two by two,

Marching that grand refectory through!
A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed, and filled with water, as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and
Namur,

Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch

In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Poured lavender-water and eau-de-Co-
logne ;

And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope!
One little boy more
A napkin bore

Of the best white diaper fringed with pink, And a cardinal's hat marked in permanent ink.

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight Of these nice little boys dressed all in white;

From his finger he draws
His costly turquoise:

And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,

Deposits it straight

By the side of his plate,

While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait;

Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing,

That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring!

There's a cry and a shout,
And a deuce of a rout,

And nobody seems to know what they 're about,

But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out;

The friars are kneeling,
And hunting and feeling

The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.

The Cardinal drew

Off each plum-colored shoe,

And left his red stockings exposed to the view;

He peeps, and he feels

In the toes and the heels. They turn up the dishes, they turn up the plates,

They take up the poker and poke out the grates,

They turn up the rugs,
They examine the mugs;
But, no!- -no such thing, -

They can't find THE RING!

And the Abbot declared that "when

nobody twigged it,

151

His eye so dim,

So wasted each limb,

That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM!

That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing,

That's the thief that has got my Lord
Cardinal's RING!"

The poor little Jackdaw,
When the monks he saw,

Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;

prigged it!"

say,

"Pray be so good as to walk this way!" Slower and slower

He limped on before,

Till they came to the back of the belfry door,

Where the first thing they saw,

Midst the sticks and the straw, Was the RING in the nest of that little Jackdaw!

Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book,

And off that terrible curse he took ;
The mute expression

Served in lieu of confession, And, being thus coupled with full restitution,

The Jackdaw got plenary absolution !

When those words were heard

That poor little bird

Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,

really absurd:

He grew sleek and fat;

In addition to that,

A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!

His tail waggled more
Even than before;

But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,

No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair.

He hopped now about

With a gait devout;

At matins, at vespers, he never was out;
And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
He always seemed telling the Confessor's
beads.

If any one lied, or if any one swore,
Or slumbered in prayer-time and hap-
pened to snore,
That good Jackdaw
Would give a great "Caw!"

As much as to say, "Don't do so any more!"

While many remarked, as his manners

But none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf,
That trembles in the moon's pale ray;
Its hold is frail, its date is brief;

Restless, and soon to pass away! Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The winds bewail the leafless tree, But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand; Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand; Yet, as if grieving to efface All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea, But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

CHARLES WOLFE.

[1791-1823.]

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse 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 moonbeams' misty light, And the lantern dimly burning.