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436

THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE.

He taught his scholars the rule of three,
Writing, and reading, and history too,
Taking the little ones on his knee,
For a kind old heart in his breast had he,

And the wants of the littlest child he knew:
"Learn while you're young," he often said,
"There is much to enjoy down here below;
Life for the living, and rest for the dead!"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane,
With roses and woodbine over the door;
His rooms were quiet, and neat, and plain,
But a spirit of comfort there held reign,

And made him forget he was old and poor;
"I need so little," he often said,

"And my friends and relatives here below Won't litigate over me when I am dead,” Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He smoked his pipe in the balmy air

Every night when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in his silvery hair,
Leaving its tenderest kisses there

On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old crown;
And, feeling the kisses, he smiled, and said,
""Tis a glorious world down here below;
Why wait for happiness till we are dead?"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He sat at his door one midsummer night,
After the sun had sunk in the west,
And the lingering beams of golden light
Made his kindly old face look warm and bright,
While the odorous night-wind whispered "Rest!”

Gently, gently he bowed his head. . . .

There were angels waiting for him, I know;
He was sure of happiness, living or dead,
This jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

JERUSALEM BY MOONLIGHT.

437

JERUSALEM BY MOONLIGHT.-DISRAELI.

THE

HE broad moon lingers on the summit of Mount Olivet, but its beam has long left the garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of Absalom, the waters of Kedron and the dark abyss of Jehoshaphat. Full falls its splendor, however, on the opposite city, vivid and defined in its silver blaze. A lofty wall, with turrets and towers, and frequent gates, undulates with the unequal ground which it covers, as it encircles the lost capital of Jehovah. It is a city of hills, far more famous than those of Rome: for all Europe has heard of Sion and of Calvary, while the Arab and the Assyrian, and the tribes and nations beyond, are ignorant of the Capitolain and Aventine Mounts.

The broad steep of Sion, crowned with the tower of David; nearer still, Mount Moriah, with the gorgeous temple of the God of Abraham, but built, alas! by the child of Hagar, and not by Sarah's chosen one; close to its cedars and its cypresses, its lofty spires and airy arches, the moonlight falls upon Bethesda's pool; farther on, entered by the gate of St. Stephen, the eye, though 'tis the noon of night, traces with ease the Street of Grief, a long, winding ascent to a vast cupolaed pile that now covers Calvary, called the Street of Grief, because there the most illustrious of the human as well as of the Hebrew race, the descendant of King David, and the divine Son of the most favored of women, twice sank under that burden of suffering and shame, which is now throughout all Christendom the emblem of triumph and of honor: passing over groups and masses of houses built of stone, with terraced roofs, or surmounted with small domes, we reach the hill of Salem, where Melchisedek built his mystic citadel; and still remains the hill of Scopas, where Titus gazed upon Jerusalem on the eve of his final assault. Titus destroyed the temple. The religion of Judea has in turn subverted the fanes which were raised to his father and to himself in their imperial capital; and the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is now worshipped before every altar in Rome.

The moon has sunk behind the Mount of Olives, and the stars in the darker sky shine doubly bright over the sacred city. The all-pervading stillness is broken by a breeze that seems to have

438

DEATH OF MARMION.

travelled over the plain of Sharon from the sea. It wails among the tombs, and sighs among the cypress-groves. The palm-tree trembles as it passes, as if it were a spirit of woe.

Is it the breeze that has travelled over the plain of Sharon from the sea? Or is it the haunting voice of prophets mourning over the city that they could not save? Their spirits surely would linger on the land where their Creator had deigned to dwell, and over whose impending fate Omnipotence had shed human tears. Who can but believe that, at the midnight hour, from the summit of the Ascension, the great departed of Israel assemble to gaze upon the battlements of their mystic city? There might be counted heroes and sages, who need shrink from no rivalry with the brightest and the wisest of other lands; but the lawgiver of the time of the Pharaohs, whose laws are still obeyed; the monarch whose reign has ceased for three thousand years, but whose wisdom is a proverb in all nations of the earth; the teacher whose doctrines have modelled civilized Europe; the greatest of legislators, the greatest of administrators, and the greatest of reformers; what race, extinct or living, can produce three such men as these? The last light is extinguished in the village of Bethany. The. wailing breeze has become a moaning wind; a white film spreads over the purple sky; the stars are veiled, the stars are hid; all becomes as dark as the waters of Kedron and the valley of Jehoshaphat. The tower of David merges into obscurity; no longer glitter the minarets of the mosque of Omar; Bethesda's angelic waters, the gate of Stephen, the street of sacred sorrow, the hill of Salem, and the heights of Scopas, can no longer be discerned. Alone in the increasing darkness, while the very line of the walls gradually eludes the eye, the church of the Holy Sepulchre is a beacon-light.

DEATH OF MARMION.-SIR WALTER SCOTT.

WTwo hot, eten, gore,

ITH that, straight up the hill there rode

Two horsemen, drenched with

And in their arms, a helpless load,

A wounded knight they bore.

His hand still strained the broken brand;

His arms were smeared with blood and sand;

DEATH OF MARMION.

Dragged from among the horses' feet,
With dinted shield, and helmet beat,
The falcon-crest and plumage gone;
Can that be haughty Marmion?

When doffed his casque, he felt free air,
Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare;

"Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where?
Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare?

Redeem my pennon! charge again!

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Cry: Marmion to the rescue!' Vain!
Last of my race, on battle-plain

That shout shall ne'er be heard again!
Yet my last thought is England's: fly!
Fitz-Eustace to Lord Surrey hie;
Tunstall lies dead upon the field,
His life-blood stains the spotless shield;
Edmund is down ;-my life is reft;
The Admiral alone is left.

Let Stanley charge with spur of fire-
With Chester charge, and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or victory and England's lost.

Must I bid twice? hence, varlets! fly!
Leave Marmion here alone--to die."

They parted, and alone he lay.

Clare drew her from the sight away,

Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan,
And half he murmured, "Is there none,
Of all my halls have nursed,

Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring,
Of blessed water from the spring,
To slake my dying thirst?"

Oh, woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!

439

440

DEATH OF MARMION.

Scarce were the piteous accents said,
When, with the Baron's casque, the maid
To the nigh streamlet ran :

Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears,
The plaintive voice alone she hears,
Sees but the dying man.

She filled the helm, and back she hied,
And with surprise and joy espied

A monk supporting Marmion's head;
A pious man, whom duty brought
To dubious verge of battle fought,
To shrive the dying, bless the dead.

Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave,
And as she stooped his brow to lave-
"Is it the hand of Clare?" he said,
"Or injured Constance bathes my head?
I would the fiend to whom belongs
The vengeance due to all her wrongs
Would spare me but a day!
For wasting fire, and dying groans,
And priests slain upon altar-stones,
Might bribe him for delay.

It may not be this dizzy trance--
Curse on yon base marauder's lance!
And doubly cursed my failing brand!
A sinful heart makes feeble hand."
Then, fainting, down to earth he sunk,
Supported by the trembling monk.

The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,
And-Stanley! was the cry.

A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:

With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!-

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.

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