I felt not what my parents felt,

The doubt, the terror, the distress;
Nor vainly for my brother knelt,

My soul was spared that wretchedness.
One sentence told me in a breath
My brother's illness, and his death!

H. Wadsworth Longfellow.

Born 1807.

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS.*

A mist was driving down the British Channel,
The day was just begun,

And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,
And the white sails of ships;

And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hythe and Dover, Were all alert that day,

To see the French war-steamers speeding over,

When the fog cleared away.

* The Duke of Wellington.

Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of Navarre.

Ho! maidens of Vienna; Ho! matrons of Lucerne ; Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.

Ho! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles, That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls.

Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright;

Ho! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night.

For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,

And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valour of

the brave.

Then glory to his holy name, from whom all glories are; And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room;

And as he entered, darker grew and deeper
The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble,
But smote the Warden hoar;

Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble,
And groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without the surly cannon waited,
The sun rose bright o'er head ;

Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated
That a great man was dead!

Lord Byron.

Born 1788. Died 1824.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

THERE was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

The heart's-blood from the inward wound

Ebbs silently away.

And oft she turns from face to face,

A sharp and eager gaze,

As if the memory sought to trace
The sign of some lost dwelling-place
Beloved in happier days;

Ah, what the clue supplies

In the cold vigil of a hireling's eyes? Ah, sad in childless age to weep alone,

And start and gaze, to find no sorrow save our own! O Soul, thou speedest to thy rest away,

But not upon the pinions of the dove; When death draws nigh, how miserable they

Who have outlived all love!

As on the solemn verge of Night

Lingers a weary Moon,

She wanes, the last of every glorious light

That bathed with splendour her majestic noon:-
The stately stars that clustering o'er the isle
Lull'd into glittering rest the subject sea ;—
Gone the great Masters of Italian wile

False to the world beside, but true to thee !—
Burleigh, the subtlest builder of thy fame,-
The gliding craft of winding Walsingham ;-
They who exalted yet before thee bowed ;-
And that more dazzling chivalry—the Band
That made thy Court a Faëry Land,

In which thou wert enshrined to reign alone

The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,

Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise?

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! They come! They come !"

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose !
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:—
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils

The stirring memory of a thousand years,

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's

ears!

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,