"Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground-
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!
"Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.
"Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
"Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew—
None invincible as they."
Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rushed to battle, fought, and died,
Dying, hurled them at the foe.
Ruffians, pitiless as proud!
Heaven awards the vengeance due :
Empire is on us bestowed,
Shame and ruin wait for you!
THE LOSS OF THE "ROYAL GEORGE."
TOLL for the brave !
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore.
Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel,
And laid her on her side.
A land breeze shook the shrouds
And she was overset ;
Down went the "Royal George"
With all her crew complete!
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone:
His last sea fight is fought,
His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle,
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak,
She ran upon no rock.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down,
With twice four hundred men.
Weigh the vessel up,
Once dreaded by our foes,
And mingle with our cup
The tear that England owes.
Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again
Full charged with England's thunder,
And plough the distant main.
THE sea, the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round.
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, oh! how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
And whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west wind doth blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.
The waves were white, and red the morn
In the noisy hour when I was born;
The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold,
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean child.
I have lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change;
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea.
-Barry Cornwall.
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