Page images
PDF
EPUB

Undo this necklace from my neck,

And take this bracelet ring,

And send me where my brother reigns, And I will fill thy hands

With store of ivory from the plains,

And gold dust from the sands."

"Not for thy ivory nor thy gold
Will I unbind thy chain;
That bloody hand shall never hold
The battle-spear again.

A price thy nation never gave

Shall yet be paid for thee;

For thou shalt be the Christian's slave, In land beyond the sea."

Then wept the warrior chief, and bade
To shred his locks away,

And, one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.

Thick were the platted locks, and long,
And deftly hidden there

Shone many a wedge of gold among
The dark and crisped hair.

"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold, Long kept for sorest need:

Take it thou askest sums untold
And say that I am freed.

Take it my wife, the long, long day,
Weeps by the cocoa-tree,

And my young children leave their play,

And ask in vain for me."

"I take thy gold, - but I have made
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife shall wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.

His heart was broken-crazed his brain
At once his eye grew wild:

He struggled fiercely with his chain,

and wept, and smiled;

Whispered,
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
And once, at shut of day,

They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyena's prey.

GOODY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL

YOUNG Harry was a lusty drover,
And who so stout of limb as he?
His cheeks were red as ruddy clover,
His voice was like the voice of three.
Auld Goody Blake was old and poor,
Ill fed she was, and thinly clad;
And any man who passed her door,
Might see how poor a hut she had.

Now when the frost was past enduring,
And made her poor old bones to ache,
Could anything be more alluring
Than an old hedge to Goody Blake?
And now and then it must be said,
When her old bones were cold and chill,
She left her fire, or left her bed,

To seek the hedge of Harry Gill.

Now Harry he had long suspected
This trespass of old Goody Blake,
And vowed that she should be detected,
And he on her would vengeance take.
And oft from his warm fire he 'd

go,

And to the fields his road would take,
And there, at night, in frost and snow,
He watched to seize old Goody Blake.

And once behind a rack of barley,
Thus looking out did Harry stand;
The moon was full and shining clearly,
And crisp with frost the stubble land.
He hears a noise he's all awake
Again! on tiptoe down the hill

BRYANT

He softly creeps

'Tis Goody Blake!

She's at the hedge of Harry Gill.

Right glad was he when he beheld her:
Stick after stick did Goody pull;
He stood behind a bush of elder,
Till she had filled her apron full.
When with her load she turned about,
The by-road back again to take;
He started forward with a shout,
And sprang upon poor Goody Blake.

And fiercely by the arm he took her,
And by the arm he held her fast,
And fiercely by the arm he shook her,
And cried, "I've caught you then at last!"
Then Goody, who had nothing said,
Her bundle from her lap let fall;
And kneeling on the sticks, she prayed
To God that is the Judge of all.

She prayed, her withered hand uprearing,
While Harry held her by the arm-
"God! who art never out of hearing,
O may he never more be warm!”
The cold, cold moon above her head,
Thus on her knees did Goody pray,
Young Harry heard what she had said,
And icy cold he turned away.

He went complaining all the morrow,
That he was cold and very chill:
His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,
Alas that day for Harry Gill!
That day he wore a riding coat,
But not a whit the warmer he:
Another was on Thursday brought,
And ere the sabbath he had three.

"T was all in vain, a useless matter,
And blankets were about him pinned :
Yet still his jaws and teeth they clatter,
Like a loose casement in the wind.
And Harry's flesh it fell away;
And all who see him say 't is plain,
That live as long as live he may,
He never will be warm again.

WORDSWORTH

WHAT'S HALLOWED GROUND?

WHAT 's hallowed ground? Has earth a clod
Its Maker meant not should be trod

By man, the image of his God,

Erect and free,

Unscourged by superstition's rod
To bow the knee?

That's hallowed ground

where, mourned and missed,

The lips repose our love has kissed;

But where's their memory's mansion? Is 't
Yon churchyard's bowers?

No in ourselves their souls exist,

A part of ours.

What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
"T is not the sculptured piles you heap:
In dews that heavens far distant weep

Their turf may bloom:

Or genii twine beneath the deep

Their coral tomb.

Is 't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies in heaven's sight,
The sword he draws:

What can alone ennoble fight?

A noble cause!

Give that and welcome war to brace

Her drums! and rend heaven's reeking space

The colors planted face to face,

The charging cheer,

Though Death's pale horse lead on the chase,
Shall still be dear.

!

What 's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth

Earth's compass round;

And your high-priesthood shall make earth

All hallowed ground!

CAMPBELL.

PLEASURES OF HOPE.

AT summer's eve, when heaven's aërial bow
Spans, with bright arch the glittering hills be low,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those hills of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
"T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain with its azure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way:
Thus, from afar, each dim discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;
And every form that fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.

What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her boasted power,
The pledge of joy's anticipated hour?
Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man,
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;
Or if she holds an image to the view,
"T is nature, pictured too severely true.

With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light
That pours remotest rapture on the sight;
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time,
Thy joyous youth began, but not to fade.
When all the sister planets have decayed, —
When wrapt in fire, the realms of ether glow,
And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at nature's funeral pile. CAMPBELA.

PATRIOTISM.

BREATHES there a man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

66

This is my own my

native land!"

« PreviousContinue »