Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare 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!

II.

We shall march prospering,—not thro' 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 triumph for devils, 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,
Aim at our heart ere we pierce through his own ;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne !

THE LOST MISTRESS.

I.

ALL's over, then-does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?

Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter

About your cottage eaves!

II.

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,

I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully
-You know the red turns gray.

III.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I'll resign:

IV.

For each glance of that eye so bright and black, Though I keep with heart's endeavour,— Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stays in my soul for ever!

V.

-Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.

I.

Oн, to be in England

Now that April 's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

II.

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows-
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge-
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song
twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA.

NOBLY, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the north-west died

away;

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;

"Here and here did England help me,-how can I help England?"-say,

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise

and pray,

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT ST. PRAXED'S

CHURCH.

[ROME, 15-.]

VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews-sons mine... ah God, I know not!
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,

Well

And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
St. Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
-Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,