"Quell the Scot,' exclaims the lance;
Bear me to the heart of France,
Is the longing of the shield;

Tell thy name, thou trembling field;
Field of death, where'er thou be,
Groan thou with our victory!

Happy day, and happy hour,

When our shepherd, in his power,

Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,

To his ancestors restored,

Like a re-appearing star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war!"

Alas! the fervent harper did not know

That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed, Who, long compelled in humble walks to go, Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed. Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the race,

Revenge and all ferocious thoughts were dead:
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.
Glad were the vales and every cottage-hearth;

The shepherd-lord was honoured more and more; And ages after he was laid in earth,

"The good Lord Clifford" was the name he bore.

To a Skylark.

Up with me, up with me into the clouds! For thy song, lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me, till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary,

And to-day my heart is weary;

Had I now the wings of a faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There's madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me, high and high,

To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,

And, though little troubled with sloth,

Drunken lark! thou wouldst be loath

To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain river, Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,

Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,
As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures when life's day is done.

88

To the Same.

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth, where cares abound?

Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? That nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

To the last point of vision, and beyond,

Mount, daring warbler! that love - prompted strain

('Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond,) Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine,

Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine:

Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam;

True to the kindred points of heaven and home!

The Redbreast and Butterfly.

ART thou the bird whom man loves best,
The pious bird with the scarlet breast,
Our little English Robin ;

The bird that comes about our doors
When autumn winds are sobbing?
Art thou the Peter of Norway boors?
Their Thomas in Finland,

And Russia far inland?

The bird who, by some name or other,
All men who know thee call their brother,
The darling of children and men?
Could father Adam open his eyes,

And see this sight beneath the skies,
He'd wish to close them again.

If the butterfly knew but his friend,
Hither his flight he would bend,
And find his way to me,

Under the branches of the tree:

In and out, he darts about;

Can this be the bird, to man so good,

That, after their bewildering,

Covered with leaves the little children,

So painfully in the wood?