Coventry Patmore.

Born 1823.

THE WIFE'S TRAGEDY.

MAN must be pleased; but him to please
Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf
Of his condoled necessities

She casts her best, she flings herself.
How often flings for nought! and yokes
Her heart to an icicle or whim,
Whose each impatient word provokes
Another, not from her, but him;
While she, too gentle even to force
His penitence by kind replies,
Waits by, expecting his remorse,
With pardon in her pitying eyes;
And if he once, by shame oppressed,
A comfortable word confers,

She leans and weeps against his breast,

And seems to think the sin was hers; And whilst his love has any life,

Or any eye to see her charms,

At any time, she's still his wife,
Dearly devoted to his arms;

She loves with love that cannot tire ;
And when, ah woe, she loves alone,
Through passionate duty love flames higher,
As grass grows taller round a stone.

Felicia Dorothea Hemans.

*

Born 1793. Died 1835.

MARGUERITE OF FRANCE.*

THE Moslem spears were gleaming
Round Damietta's towers,

Though a Christian banner from her wall
Waved free its lily-flowers.

Ay, proudly did the banner wave,

As queen of earth and air;

But faint hearts throbbed beneath its folds
In anguish and despair.

Deep, deep in Paynim dungeon.

Their kingly chieftain lay,

And low on many an eastern field

Their knighthood's best array.

'Twas mournful when at feasts they met,

The wine-cup round to send ;

Queen of St Louis. Whilst besieged by the Turks in Damietta, during the captivity of the king her husband, she there gave birth to a son, whom she named Tristan, in commemoration of her misfortunes. Information being conveyed to her, that the knights intrusted with the defence of the city had resolved on capitulation, she had them summoned to her apartment; and by her heroic words, so wrought upon their spirits, that they vowed to defend her and the Cross to the last extremity.

For each that touched it silently
Then missed a gallant friend!

And mournful was their vigil
On the beleaguered wall,

And dark their slumber, dark with dreams
Of slow defeat and fall.
Yet a few hearts of chivalry

Rose high to breast the storm,
And one-of all the loftiest there-
Thrilled in a woman's form.

A woman meekly bending

O'er the slumber of her child,
With her soft, sad eyes of weeping love,
As the Virgin Mother's mild.
Oh! roughly cradled was thy babe,

Midst the clash of spear and lance,

And a strange, wild bower was thine, young Fair Marguerite of France!

A dark and vaulted chamber,
Like a scene for wizard-spell,

Deep in the Saracenic gloom

Of the warrior citadel;

[queen!

And there midst arms the couch was spread,

And with banners curtained o'er,

For the daughter of the minstrel-land

The gay Provençal shore !

For the bright queen of St. Louis,
The star of court and hall!

But the deep strength of the gentle heart
Wakes to the tempest's call!

Her lord was in the Paynim's hold,

His soul with grief oppressed,

Yet calmly lay the desolate,

With her young babe on her breast!

There were voices in the city,

Voices of wrath and fear

"The walls grow weak, the strife is vain-
We will not perish here!

Yield! yield! and let the Crescent gleam
O'er tower and bastion high!
Our distant homes are beautiful—
We stay not here to die!"

They bore those fearful tidings

To the sad queen where she lay—
They told a tale of wavering hearts,
Of treason and dismay:

The blood rushed through her pearly cheek,

The sparkle to her eye

"Now call me hither those recreant knights
From the bands of Italy !"*

* The proposal to capitulate is attributed by the French historian to the Knights of Pisa.

Then through the vaulted chambers
Stern iron footsteps rang;
And heavily the sounding floor
Gave back the sabre's clang.
They stood around her-steel-clad men,
Moulded for storm and fight,
But they quailed before the loftier soul
In that pale aspect bright.

Yes! as before the falcon shrinks
The bird of meaner wing,

So shrank they from the imperial glance
Of her that fragile thing!

And her flute-like voice rose clear and high
Through the din of arms around—
Sweet, and yet stirring to the soul,

As a silver clarion's sound.

"The honour of the Lily

Is in your hands to keep,

And the banner of the Cross, for Him
Who died on Calvary's steep;

And the city which for Christian prayer
Hath heard the holy bell—

And is it these your hearts would yield
To the godless infidel?

"Then bring me here a breastplate

And a helm, before ye fly,