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LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my head.
Not thrice your branching limes have blown
Since I beheld young Laurence dead.
Oh! your sweet eyes, your low replies:
A great enchantress you may be;
But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

When thus he met his mother's view,
She had the passions of her kind,

She spake some certain truths of you.
Indeed, I heard one bitter word

That scarce is fit for you to hear;
Her manners had not that repose

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall:
The guilt of blood is at your door:

You changed a wholesome heart to gall.
You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth,
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare,

And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,

From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.

Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:

You pine among your halls and towers:

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.

In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease,

You know so ill to deal with time,

You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,

If time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate, Nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yeoman go.

Tennyson.

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THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Nor a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And our lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin confined his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

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YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

We thought as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lowly pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;

But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the
grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
Of the enemy sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

Wolfe.

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

I.

YE mariners of England!

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved a thousand

The battle and the breeze!

years,

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep

While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

II.

The spirits of

your

fathers

Shall start from every wave;

For the deck it was their field of fame,
And ocean was their grave;
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

III.

Britannia needs no bulwark-
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak,
She quells the floods below,

As they roar on the shore

When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow.

IV.

The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.

Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.

Campbell.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE CHURCHYARD OF

RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE.

"It is good for us to be here if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." -Matt. xvii. 4.

METHINKS it is good to be here:

If thou wilt, let us build-but for whom?
Not Elias nor Moses appear,

But the shadows of eve that encompass the gloom,
The abode of the dead, and the place of the tomb.

Shall we build to Ambition? Oh, no! Affrighted he shrinketh away;

For, see! they would pin him below,

In a small narrow cave and begirt with cold clay,
To the meanest of reptiles a peer

and a prey.

To Beauty? Ah, no!—she forgets
The charms which she wielded before-
Nor knows the foul worm that he frets

The skin which but yesterday fools could adore,
For the smoothness it held, or the tint which it wore.

Shall we build to the purple of PrideThe trappings which dizen the proud?

Alas! they are all laid aside—

And here's neither dress nor adornment allow'd,
But the long winding-sheet, and the fringe of the shroud.

Who hid, in their turn have been hid—

The treasures are squander'd again— And here in the grave are all metals forbid,

But the tinsel that shone on the dark coffin-lid.