What health to France, if France be she,
Whom martial progress only charms?
Yet tell her-better to be free

Than vanquish all the world in arms.
Her frantic city's flashing heats

But fire, to blast, the hopes of men. Why change the titles of your streets? You fools, you'll want them all again. Hands all round!

God the tyrant's cause confound!

To France, the wiser France, we drink, my friends, And the great name of England, round and round

Gigantic daughter of the West,

We drink to thee across the flood,
We know thee and we love thee best,
For art thou not of British blood?
Should war's mad blast again be blown,
Permit not thou the tyrant powers
To fight thy mother here alone,
But let thy broadsides roar with ours.
Hands all round!

God the tyrant's cause confound!

To our dear kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round

O speak to Europe through your guns!

They can be understood by kings.
You must not mix our Queen with those
That wish to keep their people fools;
Our freedom's foemen are her foes,
She comprehends the race she rules.
Hands all round!

God the tyrant's cause confound!

To our dear kinsman in the West, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.

THE WAR.

THERE is a sound of thunder afar,

Storm in the South that darkens the day,
Storm of battle and thunder of war,
Well, if it do not roll our way.

Form! form! Riflemen, form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen, form!

Be not deaf to the sound that warns!
Be not gull'd by a despot's plea!
Are figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns?
How should a despot set men free?
Form! form! Riflemen, form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen, form!

Let your Reforms for a moment go,
Look to your butts and take good aims.
Better a rotten borough or so,

Than a rotten fleet or a city in flames!

Form! form! :emen, form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen, form!

Form, be ready to do or die!

Form in Freedom's name and the Queen's! True, that we have a faithful ally,

But only the Devil knows what he means.

Form! form! Riflemen, form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen, form!

1865-1866.

I STOOD On a tower in the wet,
And New Year and Old Year met,
And winds were roaring and blowing;
And I said, "O years that meet in tears,
Have ye aught that is worth the knowing?
Science enough and exploring,
Wanderers coming and going,
Matter enough for deploring,

But anght that is worth the knowing?"
Seas at my feet were flowing,
Waves on the shingle pouring,
Old Year roaring and blowing,
And New Year blowing and roaring.

ON A SPITEFUL LETTER.

HERE, it is here-the close of the year,
And with it a spiteful letter.

My fame in song has done him much wrong,
For himself has done much better.

O foolish bard, is your lot so hard,
If men neglect your pages?

I think not much of yours or of mine:
I hear the roll of the ages.

This fall'n leaf, isn't fame as brief?

My rhymes may have been the stronger. Yet hate me not, but abide your lot; I last but a moment longer.

O faded leaf, isn't fame as brief?
What room is here for a hater?
Yet the yellow leaf hates the greener leaf,
For it haugs one moment later.

Greater than I-isn't that your cry?
And I shall live to see it.
Well, if it be so, so it is, you know;
And if it be so-so be it!

O summer leaf, isn't life as brief?
But this is the time of hollies.
And my heart, my heart is an evergreen:
I hate the spites and the follies.

PREFATORY SONNET TO THE NINE
TEENTH CENTURY."

THOSE that of late had fleeted far and fast
To touch all shores, now leaving to the skill
Of others their old craft seaworthy still,
Have charter'd this; where, mindful of the past,
Our true co-mates regather round the mast,
Of diverse tongue, but with a common wi
Here, in this roaring moon of daffodil
And crocus, to put forth and brave the blast;
For some, descending from the sacred peas
Of hoar high-templed Faith, have leagued again
Their lot with ours to rove the world about;
And some are wilder comrades, sworn to seek
If any golden harbor be for men

In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt.

MONTENEGRO.

THEY rose to where their sovran eagle sails,
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height,
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night
Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails,

And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight
By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales.
O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne
Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,
Great Tsernagora! never since thine own
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.

TO VICTOR HUGO.

VICTOR in Drama! Victor in Romance!

Cloud weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears! French of the French and lord of human tears! Child lover, bard, whose fame-lit laurels glance, Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance Beyond our strait their claim to be thy peers! Weird Titan, by thy wintry weight of years As yet unbroken! Stormy voice of France, Who dost not love our England, so they say; I know not! England, France, all men to be Will make one people ere man's race be run; And I, desiring that diviner day. Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy To younger England in the boy, my son.

ACHILLES OVER THE TRENCH.

ILIAD, Xvili., 202.

So saying, light-foot Iris pass'd away.
Then rose Achilles dear to Zeus; and round
The warrior's puissant shoulders Pallas flung
Her fringed regis, and around his head

The glorious goddess wreathed a golden cloud,
And from it lighted an all-shining flame.
As when a smoke from a city goes to heaven
Far off from out an island girt by foes,
All day the men contend in grievous war
From their own city, and with set of sun
Their fires flame thickly, and aloft the glare
Flies streaming, if perchance the neighbors round
May see, and sail to help them in the war;
So from his head the splendor went to heaven.
From wall to dyke he stept, he stood, nor join'd

18

The Achæans-honoring his wise mother's word-
There standing, shouted; Pallas far away
Call'd; and a boundless panic shook the foe.
For like the clear voice when a trumpet shrills,
Blown by the fierce beleaguerers of a town,
So rang the clear voice of Æakidės;
And when the brazen cry of Eakides
Was heard among the Trojans, all their hearts
Were troubled, and the full-maned horses whirl'd
The chariots backward, knowing griefs at hand;
And sheer-astounded were the charioteers
To see the dread, unweariable fire

That always o'er the great Peleion's head
Burnt, for the bright-eyed goddess made it burn.
Thrice from the dyke he sent his mighty shout,
Thrice backward reel'd the Trojans and allies;
And there and then twelve of their noblest died
Among their spears and chariots.

SCENE I.-ALDGATE RICHLY DECO

RATED.

CROWD. MARSHALMEN.

Marshalman. Stand back, keep a clear lane. When will her Majesty pass, sayst thou? why, now, even now; wherefore draw back your heads and your horns before I break them, and make what noise you will with your tongues, so it be not treason. Long live Queen Mary, the lawful and legitimate daughter of Harry the Eighth! Shout, knaves!

Citizens. Long live Queen Mary!

Second Gentleman. She looks comelier than ordinary to-day; but to my mind the Lady Elizabeth is the more noble and royal.

First Gentleman. I mean the Lady Elizabeth. Did you hear (I have a daughter in her service who reported it) that she met the Queen at Wanstead with five hundred horse, and the Queen (tho' some say they be much divided) took her hand, called her sweet sister, and kiss'd not her alone, but all the ladies of her following.

Second Gentleman. Ay, that was in her hour of joy, there will be plenty to sunder and unsister them again; this Gardiner for one, who is to be made Lord

Second Citizen. It means a bastard.

Third Citizen. Nay, it means true-born.

his cage to worry Cranmer.

First Gentleman. And furthermore, my daughter said that when there rose a talk of the late rebellion,

Second Citizen. No; it was the Lady Elizabeth. Third Citizen. That was after, man; that was after. First Citizen. Then which is the bastard? Second Citizen. Troth, they be both bastards by Act of Parliament and Council.

Third Citizen. Ay, the Parliament can make every true-born man of us a bastard. Old Nokes, can't it make thee a bastard? thou shouldst know, for thou art as white as three Christmasses.

Old Nokes (dreamily). Who's a-passing? King Edward or King Richard?

Third Citizen. No, old Nokes.

Old Nokes. It's Harry!

Third Citizen. It's Queen Mary.

Old Nokes. The blessed Mary's a-passing!

[Falls on his knees. Nokes. Let father alone, my masters! he's past your questioning.

Third Citizen. Answer thou for him, then! thou art no such cockerel thyself, for thou was born i' the tail end of old Harry the Seventh.

Nokes. Eh! that was afore bastard-making began. I was born true man at five in the forenoon i' the tail of old Harry, and so they can't make me a bastard.

Third Citizen. But if Parliament can make the Queen a bastard, why, it follows all the more that they can make thee one, who art fray'd i' the knees, and out at elbow, and bald o' the back, and bursten at the toes, and down at heels.

Nokes. I was born of a true man and a ring'd wife, and I can't argue upon it; but I and my old woman 'ud burn upon it, that would we.

Marshalman. What are you cackling of bastardy under the Queen's own nose? I'll have you flogg'd and burnt too, by the Rood I will!

First Citizen. He swears by the Rood. Whew!
Second Citizen. Hark! the trumpets.

[The Procession passes, MARY and ELIZABETH riding side by side, and disappears under the gate. Citizens. Long live Queen Mary! Down with all traitors! God save her Grace; and death to Northumberland! [Exeunt.

Manent Two GENTLEMEN.

the good Lady Jane as a poor innocent child who had but obeyed her father; and furthermore, she said that no one in her time should be burnt for heresy.

Second Gentleman. Well, sir, I look for happy times. First Gentleman. There is but one thing against them. I know not if you know.

Second Gentleman. I suppose you touch upon the rumor that Charles, the master of the world, has offer'd her his son Philip, the Pope and the Devil. I trust it is but a rumor.

First Gentleman. She is going now to the Tower to loose the prisoners there, and among them Courtenay, to be made Earl of Devon, of royal blood, of splendid feature, whom the council and all her people wish her to marry. May it be so, for we are many of us Catholics, but few Papists, and the Hot Gospellers will go mad upon it.

Second Gentleman. Was she not betroth'd in her babyhood to the Great Emperor himself? First Gentleman. Ay, but he's too old. Second Gentleman. And again to her cousin Reginald Pole, now Cardinal, but I hear that he too is full of aches and broken before his day.

First Gentleman. O, the Pope could dispense with his Cardinalate, and his achage, and his breakage, if that were all: but will you not follow the procession? Second Gentleman. No, I have seen enough for this day.

First Gentleman. Well, I shall follow; if I can get near enough I shall judge with my own eyes whether her Grace incline to this splendid scion of Plantage[Exeunt.

net.

No: Hooper, Ridley, Latimer will not fly.