Silent were all in the royal hall;

Not a breath was heard until
A footstep fell like death's slow knell,
And every heart stood still.

A squire kneel'd lowly on the floor,

66

And he spake in humble tone,

Henry of England breathes no more:

Thine are the crown and throne."

A sudden change o'er the prince's brow
Like a cloud's swift shadow swept ;
The strength of his heart forsook him now,
He hid his face and wept.

Oh, greatly marvell'd Sicily's king
When the hero's tears he saw;
From a warrior-soul those tears did spring,
And the king stood mute with awe;
But at last he spake: "O valorous prince,
Right strangely hast thou done :
Thou didst shed no tear for thy daughter

dear;

Thou weepedst not for thy son.

But now thine aged sire is dead,

Like a worn-out pilgrim sleeping,

Though he leaves a crown for thy royal

head,

Thou like a child art weeping."

His noble face did Prince Edward raise,
And his tears became him now,
Like dew-drops' sheen on the laurel green
When it binds a conqueror's brow.

"Ah, king," he said, "when infants die,

We mourn but for a day;

For God can restore as many more,

Lovely and loved as they :

But when a noble father dies,

Our tears pour forth like rain;
Once from high Heaven is a father given,
Once-and, oh, never again!"

The Squirrel-Hunt.

HEN, as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food,

Sits partly on a bough his brown nuts

cracking,

And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,
Till, with their crooks and bags, a pack of boys,
To share with him, advance with so great noise,
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbouring oak,
Thence to a beach, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst through the quagmires and red-water splashes
The boys run dabbling through thick and thin;
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;
This, torn and tatter'd, hath with much ado
Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe;

This drops his hat; that headlong falls for haste;
Another loudly cries for being last.

With sticks, and stones, and many a sounding