Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had—a tear;

He gain'd from Heaven-'twas all he wish'd
No farther seek his merits to disclose,

—a friend,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode-
There they alike in trembling hope repose-
The bosom of his Father and his God!

Gray.

"

The Battle of Blenheim.

It was a summer's evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done;
And he, before his cottage door,
Was sitting in the sun;

And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet,

In playing there, had found;

He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round?

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,

And, with a natural sigh,

"Tis some poor fellow's scull,” said he,

Who fell in the great victory!

"I find them in the garden,

For there's many here about;
And often, when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out:
For many thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in that great victory!"

“Now, tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up,
With wonder-waiting eyes;

"Now, tell us all about the war,

And what they kill'd each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
Who put the French to rout:
But what they kill'd each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory!
"My father lived at Blenheim then,

Yon little stream hard by;

They burn'd his dwelling to the ground,

And he was forced to fly:

So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head!

"With fire and sword, the country round Was wasted far and wide;

And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby died!-

But things like that you know must be
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun!

But things like that you know, must be

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,

And our good prince Eugene." "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay-nay-my little girl," quoth he,

66

It was a famous victory!

"And everybody praised the Duke

Who this great fight did win." "But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin.

66

Why, that I cannot tell," said he, "But 'twas a famous victory!"

The Wreck of the Hesperus.

Ir was the schooner Hesperus,
That sail'd the wintry sea;

Southey

And the skipper had taken his little daughter

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper stood beside the helm,
With his pipe in his mouth;

And watched how the veering flaw did blow,
The smoke, now West, now South.

Then up, and spake an old sailor
Had sail'd the Spanish main,

"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane!

66

Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to night no moon we see!"

The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he!

Colder and colder blew the wind,
A gale from the North-east;
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows froth'd like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain,

The vessel in its strength,

She shudder'd and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leap'd her cable's length!

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so;

66

For I can weather the roughest gale,

That ever wind did blow!"

He wrapp'd her warm in his seaman's coat,

Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,

And bound her to the mast.

“O father, I hear the church-bells ring!

0, зау what may it be?"

"Tis a fog-hill, on a rock-bound coast!" And he steer'd for the open sea.

"O father, I hear the sound of guns! O, say what it may be?"

"Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

66

"O, father, I see a gleaming light!

O, say what may it be?"

But the father answer'd never a word!
A frozen corpse was he!

Lash'd to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the glancing snow,
On his fix'd and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasp'd her hands and pray'd, That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who still'd the wave
On the lake of Galilee.

And, fast through the midnight, cold and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept
Towards the reef of Norman's wo.

And ever, the fitful gusts between,
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck;

And a whooping billow swept the crew,
Like icicles, from her deck!

She struck, where the white and fleecy waves,
Look'd soft as carded wool;

But the cruel rocks they gor'd her side,
Like the horns of an angry bull!
Her rattling shrouds, all sheath'd in ice,
With the masts, went by the board,
Like a vessel of glass, she strove and sank!
No! No! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast!

To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lash'd close to a drifting mast!

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,

The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise!

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from death like this,
On the reef of Norman's wo!

Longfellow.

On the Death of Sheridan.

YES! Grief will have way! but the fast-falling tear
Shall be mingled with deep execrations on those,
Who could bask in that Spirit's meridian career,
And yet leave it, thus lonely and dark, at its close-

Whose vanity flew round him, only while fed

By the odour his fame, in its summer-time, gave-
Whose vanity, now, with quick scent for the dead,
Like the Ghole of the East, comes to feed at his grave!

O, it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
And spirits so mean in the great and High-born,
To think what a long line of titles may follow
The relics of him, who died friendless and lorn!

How proud they can press to the fun'ral array

Of one whom they shunn'd, in his sickness and sorrow; How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by Nobles to-morrow! And thou, too, whose life, a sick Epicure's dream, Incoherent and gross!-even grosser had pass'd, Were it not for that cordial and soul-giving beam, Which his friendship and wit o'er thy nothingness cast. No, not for the wealth of the land, that supplies thee With millions, to heap upon Foppery's shrine; No, not for the riches of all who despise thee

Though this would make Europe's whole opulence mine; Would I suffer what, e'en in the heart that thou hast, All mean as it is, must have consciously burn'd, When the pittance, which shame had wrung from thee at last,

And which found all his wants at an end, was return'd.