They lower'd him, with the sound

Of requiems, to repose, When from the throngs around

A solemn voice arose :

"Forbear, forbear!" it cried,

"In the holiest name forbear!

He hath conquer'd regions wide,

But he shall not slumber there.

"By the violated hearth

Which made way for yon proud shrine,

By the harvests which this earth

Hath borne to me and mine;

"By the home ev'n here o'erthrown, On my children's native spot,

Hence with his dark renown

Cumber our birth-place not!

"Will my sire's unransom'd field

O'er which your censers wave,

To the buried spoiler yield

Soft slumber in the grave?

"The tree before him fell

Which we cherish'd many a year,

But its deep root yet shall swell

And heave against his bier.

"The land that I have till'd,

Hath yet its brooding breast With my home's white ashes fill'dAnd it shall not give him rest.

"Here each proud column's bed

Hath been wet by weeping eyes,

Hence! and bestow your dead

Where no wrong against him cries!"

Shame glow'd on each dark face

Of those proud and steel-girt men,

And they bought with gold a place
For their leader's dust e'en then.

A little earth for him

Whose banner flew so far!

And a peasant's tale could dim

The name, a nation's star!

One deep voice thus arose

From a heart which wrongs had riven

Oh! who shall number those

That were but heard in Heaven? *

* For the particulars of this and other scarcely less remarkable circumstances which attended the obsequies of William the Conqueror, see Sismondi's Histoire des Français, vol. iv. p. 480.

THE SOUND OF THE SEA.

THOU art sounding on, thou mighty sea,

For ever and the same!

The ancient rocks yet ring to thee,
Whose thunders nought can tame.

Oh! many a glorious voice is gone,
From the rich bowers of earth,

And hush'd is many a lovely one
Of mournfulness or mirth.

The Dorian flute that sigh'd of yore
Along thy wave, is still ;
The harp of Judah peals no more

On Zion's awful hill.

And Memnon's lyre hath lost the chord
That breath'd the mystic tone,

And the songs, at Rome's high triumphs pour'd,
Are with her eagles flown.

And mute the Moorish horn, that rang

O'er stream and mountain free,

And the hymn the leagued Crusaders sang, Hath died in Galilee.

But thou art swelling on, thou deep,
Through many an olden clime,
Thy billowy anthem, ne'er to sleep
Until the close of time.

Thou liftest up thy solemn voice
To every wind and sky,

And all our earth's green shores rejoice
In that one harmony.

It fills the noontide's calm profound,
The sunset's heaven of gold;
And the still midnight hears the sound,
Ev'n as when first it roll'd.

Let there be silence, deep and strange,
Where sceptred cities rose!

Thou speak'st of one who doth not change-
-So may our hearts repose.