70

THE NEW FOREST. Where morn and eve to simple prayer,

With thankful hearts, they knelt; Places all brighten’d with the joy

Of sweet domestic years,
And spots made holy by the flow

Of unforgotten tears.
And the gardens are uprooted,

And the walls cast down around;
It is all a spacious wilderness-

The king's great hunting-ground ! While hopeless, homeless, shelterless,

Those exiles wander on;
And most of them lie down to die

Ere many days are gone.
O Forest! green New Forest !

Home of the bird and breeze,
With all thy soft and sweeping glades,

And long dim aisles of trees ; Like some ancestral palace,

Thou standest proud and fair ; Yet is each tree a monument

To Death and lone Despair ! And thou, relentless tyrant !

Ride forth and chase the deer,
With a heart that never melted yet

To pity or to fear.
But for all these broken spirits,

And for all these wasted homes,
God will avenge the fatherless-

The day of reckoning comes !

THE NEW FOREST.
To hunt rode fierce King Rufus

Upon a holy morn;
The Church had summon'd him to pray,

But he held the Church in scorn.
Sir Walter Tyrrel rode with him,

And drew his good bow-string; He drew the string to smite a deer,

But his arrow smote the king. Down from his startled charger

The death-struck monarch falls ; Sir Walter fled afar for fear,

And turn’d not at his calls.
On the spot where his strong hand had made

So many desolate,
He died with none to pity him --

Such was the tyrant's fate.
None mourn’d for cruel Rufus :

With pomp they buried him,
But no heart grieved beside his bier,

No kindly eye grew dim;
But poor men lifted up their heads,

And clasp'd their hands and said,
“ Thank God, the ruthless Conqueror

And his stern son are dead !”
Remember, oh, remember,

Ye who shudder at my lay,
These cruel men were children once,

As ye are now were they :
They sported round a mother's seat,

They prayed beside her knee ;

72

IIOHENLINDEN.

She gazed into their cloudless eyes,

And ask’d, “What will they be ?" Alas, unhappy mothers !

If ye could then have known
How crime would make each soft young heart

As cold and hard as stone ;
Ye would have wish'd them in their graves,

Ere life had pass'd its spring.
Ah, friends, keep watch upon your hearts ;-

Sin is a fearful thing.

6. M.

HOHENLINDEN.
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow

Of Iser rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light

The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast array'd,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neigh'd

To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rush'd the steed to battle driven,
And louder than the bolts of heaven

Far flash'd the red artillery.

73

THE HOME OF THE SPIRIT.
But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stainèd snow;
And bloodier yet the torrent flow

Of Iser rolling rapidly.
'Tis morn,—but scarce yon level sun
Car pierce the war-clouds rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun

Shout in their sulphurous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave !
Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry !
Few, few shall part where many meet ;
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet

Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

CAMPBELL.

THE HOME OF THE SPIRIT.
ANSWER me, burning stars of night,

Where is the spirit gone,
That past the reach of human sight,

As a swift breeze hath flown?
And the stars answer'd me: “We roll

In light and power on high,
But of the never-dying soul

Ask that which cannot die.”

74

THE HOME OF THE SPIRIT.
O many-toned and chainless wind,

Thou art a wanderer free;
Tell me if thou its place can’st find,

Far over mount and sea ?
And the wind murmur'd in reply:

“The blue deep I have cross'd,
And met its barks and billows high,

But not what thou hast lost."
Ye clouds that gorgeously repose

Around the setting sun,
Answer ; have ye a home for those

Whose earthly race is run?
The bright clouds answer'd: “We depart,

We vanish from the sky;
Ask what is deathless in thy heart,

For that which cannot die.”
Speak, then, thou voice of God within,

Thou of the deep low tone ;
Answer me through life's restless din-

Where is the spirit flown?
And the voice answer'd : “Be thou still

Enough to know is given,
Clouds, winds, and stars their part fulfil ;

Thine is to trust in Heaven.'

MRS. HEMANS.