And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those
For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine," so I swore to the rose, "For ever and ever mine."

ROBERT BROWNING.

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon :

A mile or so away

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming-day;

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,

Legs wide, arms locked behind,

As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,

Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall"-

Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound

Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,

And held himself erect

By just his horse's mane, a boy :
You hardly could suspect-

(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)

You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace

We've got you Ratisbon !

The Marshal's in the market-place,
And you'll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his vans

Where I, to heart's desire,

Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently

Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle's eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes ;

"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said :

"I'm killed, sire!" And his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.

THE LOST LEADER.

JUST for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon 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!

Shakspere 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 !

We shall march prospering-not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us-not from his lyre;
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 devil's 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 !

WORK AND WORTH.

[From "Rabbi Ben Ezra."]

NOT on the vulgar mass

Called "work" must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

O'er which, from level stand,

The low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice :

But all, the world's coarse thumb

And finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature,

All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's

amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped : All I could never be,

All men ignored in me,

This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

INDEX.

Addison, Joseph, 127, 146, 152, 155, | Chaucer, Geoffrey, 10, 12, 22, 23, 24, 26,

Beaumont, Francis, 78, 85, 91, 100, Congreve, William, 142, 154.

Browne, Thomas, 75, 113, 114 ff., 116, Crashaw, Richard, 119, 123.

323

Fielding, Henry, 174 ff., 178, 209, 232, Jonson, Ben, 56, 68, 70, 76, 78, 87, 91,

Goldsmith, Oliver, 171, 177, 178, 179, Lewis, M. G., 209.

Gray, Thomas, 148, 164, 167, 168, 169, Lovelace, Richard, 124.

Johnson, Samuel, 76, 114, 119, 133, 148, Ordericus Vitalis, 14.