On the field of Killiecrankie,

When that stubborn fight was done!

IV.

And the evening star was shining
On Schehallion's distant head,
When we wiped our bloody broadswords,
And returned to count the dead.
There we found him gashed and gory,
Stretched upon the cumbered plain,

As he told us where to seek him,
In the thickest of the slain.
And a smile was on his visage,
For within his dying ear
Pealed the joyful note of triumph,

And the clansmen's clamorous cheer :

So, amidst the battle's thunder,

Shot, and steel, and scorching flame,

In the glory of his manhood

Passed the spirit of the Graeme !

V.

Open wide the vaults of Atholl,
Where the bones of heroes rest;
Open wide the hallowed portals
To receive another guest!
Last of Scots, and last of freemen,
Last of all that dauntless race
Who would rather die unsullied

Than outlive the land's disgrace!

O thou lion-hearted warrior!
Reck not of the after-time:
Honor may be deemed dishonor,
Loyalty be called a crime.
Sleep in peace with kindred ashes

Of the noble and the true,
Hands that never failed their country,
Hearts that never baseness knew.
Sleep!—and till the latest trumpet
Wakes the dead from earth and sea,
Scotland shall not boast a braver
Chieftain than our own Dundee!

WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN.

PAST AND PRESENT.

I REMEMBER, I remember

The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember

The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups -
Those flowers made of light!

1 WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN, born in 1813, was a member of the Edinburgh bar. He became professor of literature and belles-lettres in the University of Edinburgh, and editor of Blackwood's Magazine. Besides his fine Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, from which the two poems given in this collection are taken, he wrote a number of clever parodies under the name of "Bon Gaultier." He has also written on histor and literature. He died in 1865.

I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh

To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember

The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,

But now 't is little joy

To know I'm farther off from Heaven

Than when I was a boy.

THOMAS HOOD.1

1 THOMAS HOOD, the famous humorist, was born in 1798. He was placed at an early age in a merchant's counting-house, but soon abandoned it for literature. He wrote for and edited magazines, and was an early contributor to Punch. His life was a hard struggle with poverty and ill-health. He wrote nuch both in verse and in prose. His writings are chiefly humorous, but he had a strong pathetic vein, and some of his serious poems have attained an almost unbounded popularity. He died in 1845.

THE LOST LEADER.

JUST for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat,
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags

were they purple, his heart had been proud. We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

not thro' his not from his lyre;

presence;

Songs may inspirit us, Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins! let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part, the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him, strike gallantly Menace our heart ere we master his own;

Then let him receive the new knowledge, and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne! ROBERT BROWNING.1

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA.

NOBLY, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the northwest died away;

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz

Bay;

Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar

lay;

In the dimmest northeast distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray;

"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England? say,

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise

and pray,

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. ROBERT BROWNING.

1 ROBERT BROWNING, with the exception of Tennyson the most famous of the Victorian poets, was born in Camberwell, near London, in 1812. He was educated at the University of London, and published his first important poem, Paracelsus, in 1835. In 1846 he married the poetess Elizabeth Barrett. This poem of The Lost Leader refers in a manner to William Wordsworth, who changed his politics from the Liberal to the Tory side. Referring to these verses in later life, Browning said, "Though I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the 'very effigies' of such a moral and intellectual superiority." Browning died in Venice in 1889.