"ALL BARDS, WHOSE HEARTS UNBLIGHTED HONOUR AND BELIEVE the presage," (longfellow)

66 SO PERISH THE OLD GODS ! OUT OF THE SEA OF TIME

RISES A NEW LAND OF SONG, FAIRER THAN THE OLD."-LONGFELLOW.

"HOLD ALOFT THEIR TORCHES LIGHTED, AS THEY ONWARD BEAR THE MESSAGE."-LONGFELLOW.

"SICK OF Herself is foLLY'S CHARACTER, AS WISDOM'S IS A MODEST SELF-APPLAUSE."-YOUNG.

NOT WITHOUT HOPE WE SUFFER AND WE MOURN."-WORDSWORTH.

"6 THE GOOD IN GRAVES AS HEAVENLY SEED ARE SOWN."-DAVENANT.

"LIFE DID NEVER TO ONE MAN ALLOW HIM TO DISCOVER WORLDS, AND CONQUER TOO."-COWLEY.

"ARE THERE NOT ASPIRATIONS IN EACH HEART after a better, brighter world THAN THIS

66 PRAISE TO THE BARD! HIS WORDS ARE DRIVEN

ENGLAND.

279

Welcome the sadness of the time,

And lay to heart this natural lore.

[RICHARD CHENevix Trench, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin, born 1807, a divine and poet of genuine powers, and author of numerous theological, philological, and poetical works.]

ENGLAND.

EACE, Freedom, Happiness, have loved to wait
On the fair islands, fenced by circling seas;

And ever of such favoured spots as these
Have the wise dreamers dreamed, who would create
That perfect model of a happy state

Which the world never saw.

Océana,

Utopia such, and Plato's isle,* that lay

Westward of Cades and the Great Sea's Gate.t
Dreams are they all, which yet have helped to make
That underneath fair politics we dwell,

Though marred in part by envy, faction, hate-
Dreams which are dear, dear England, for thy sake;
Who art, indeed, that sea-girt citadel,
And nearest image of that perfect state.

[RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH.]

* The poet alludes to the dreams of happy islands and perfect states, which have at all times dazzled the imaginations of men. "Oceana" is the name of a romance by James Harrington (1611-1677), portraying an ideal country, a realm of undisturbed bliss; "Utopia" is a similar romance, by Sir Thomas More (1480-1535); and the island described by Plato was called "Atlantis."

t Cades-i.e., Cadiz; and the Great Sea's Gate-Gibraltar.

LIKE FLOWER-SEEDS BY THE FAR WINDS SOWN."-HERRICK.

LONGINGS FOR BEINGS NOBLER IN EACH PART; THINGS MORE EXALTED, STEEPED IN DEEPER BLISS?"-R. NICOLL.

"ABSENCE SHOWS THE WORTH OF ALL FROM WHICH WE THEN REMOVE-FRIENDS, HOME, AND NATIVE EARTH."-L. E. L.

280

"WHY SHOULD WE FAINT AND FEAR TO LIVE ALONE,

XERXES AT THE HELLESPONT.

XERXES AT THE HELLESPONT.

JALM is now that stormy water; it has learned to
fear my wrath :

Lashed and fettered, now it yields me for my hosts

an easy path."

Seven long days did Persia's monarch, on the Hellespontine
shore,

Throned in state, behold his armies, without pause, defiling o'er;
Only on the eighth the rearward to the further side were past,
Then one haughty glance of triumph, far as eye could reach,
he cast:

Far as eye could reach he saw them, multitudes equipped for

war,

Medians with their bows and quivers, linkèd armour and tiar ;
From beneath the sun of Afric, from the snowy hills of Thrace,
And from India's utmost borders, nations gathered at one
place:

At a single mortal's bidding all this pomp of war unfurled—
All in league against the freedom and the one hope of the
world.

"What though once some petty trophies from my captains
thou hast won,

Think not, Greece, to see another such a day as Marathon :
Wilt thou dare await the conflict, or in battle hope to stand,
When the lord of sixty nations takes himself his cause in hand?
Lo! they come, and mighty rivers, which they drink of once,
are dried,

And the wealthiest cities beggared, that for them one meal
provide.
Power of number by their numbers infinite are overborne ;
Lo! I measure men by measure, as a husbandman his corn.

SINCE ALL ALONE, SO HEAVEN HAS WILled, we die?"—KEBLE.

"TO MARK THE STRUCTURE OF A PLANT OR TREE, AND ALL FAIR THINGS OF EARTH, HOW FAIR THEY BE."-CHARLES LAMB.

66 EACH IN HIS HIDDEN SPHERE OF JOY OR WOE

THE SPILT PEARLS.

281

Mine are all-this sceptre sways them; mine is all in every

And he named himself most happy, and he blessed himself in
heart :

Blessed himself; but on that blessing, tears abundant followed
straight,

For that moment thoughts came o'er him of man's painful brief

estate

Ere a hundred years were finished, where would all these

myriads be?

Hellespont would still be rolling his blue waters to the sea;
But of all these countless numbers not one living would be
found--

A dead host, with a dead monarch, silent in the silent ground.

[RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH.]

"WHAT ARE THE TROPHIES GAINED BY POwer, alone, WITH ALL ITS NOISE AND STRIFE,—

TO THAT MEEK WREATH, UNSTAINED, WON BY THE CHARITIES THAT GLADDEN LIFE?"-BARTON.

THE SPILT PEARLS.

IS courtiers of the Caliph crave—
"Oh, say how this may be,
That of thy slaves this Ethiop slave
Is best beloved of thee?

"For he is hideous as the night;
And when has ever chose

A nightingale, for its delight,
A hueless, scentless rose?"

The Caliph then-"No features fair

Nor comely mien are his :

Love is the beauty he doth wear,

And love his glory is.

OUR HERMIT SPIRITS DWELL, AND RANGE APART."-KEBLE.