And Lord of the Cinque Ports. Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,

No drum-beat from the wall, No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure,

Awaken with its call!

No more, surveying with an eye impartial

The long line of the coast, Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal Be seen upon

his

post! For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,

In sombre harness mailed, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,

The rampart wall had scaled.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,

The dark and silent room, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,

The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissem ble,

But smote the Warden hoar; Ah! what a blow! that made all Eng land tremble

from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,

The sun rose bright o'erhead; Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated That a great man was dead.

Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,

The richest and rarest of all dowers? Who shall tell us? No one speaks; No color shoots into those cheeks,

Either of anger or of pride, At the rude question we have asked; Nor will the mystery be unmasked

By those who are sleeping at her side. Hereafter? And do you think to look On the terrible pages of that Book

To find her failings, faults, and errors? Ah, you will then have other cares, In your own shortcomings and despairs, In your own secret sins and terrors !

THE EMPEROR'S BIRD'S-
NEST.

ONCE the Emperor Charles of Spain,
With his swarthy, grave commanders,
I forget in what campaign,
Long besieged, in mud and rain,

Some old frontier town of Flanders. Up and down the dreary camp,

In great boots of Spanish leather, Striding with a measured tramp,

These Hidalgos, dull and damp, Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.

Thus as to and fro they went,

Over upland and through hollow,
Giving their impatience vent,
Perched upon the Emperor's tent,
In her nest, they spied a swallow.
Yes, it was a swallow's nest,

Built of clay and hair of horses,
Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest,
Found on hedge-rows east and west,
After skirmish of the forces.
Then an old Hidalgo said,

As he twirled his gray mustachio,
"Sure this swallow overhead
Thinks the Emperor's tent a shed,
And the Emperor but a Macho!"
Hearing his imperial name

Coupled with those words of malice, Half in anger, half in shame, Forth the great campaigner came Slowly from his canvas palace. "Let no hand the bird molest," Said he solemnly, "nor hurt her!" Adding then, by way of jest, "Golondrina is my guest,

'Tis the wife of some deserter ! " Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft, Through the camp was spread the

rumor,

And the soldiers, as they quaffed
Flemish beer at dinner, laughed
At the Emperor's pleasant humor.

So unharmed and unafraid

Sat the swallow still and brooded,
Till the constant cannonade
Through the walls a breach had made
And the siege was thus concluded.

Then the army, elsewhere bent,
Struck its tents as if disbanding,
Only not the Emperor's tent,
For he ordered, ere he went,
Very curtly, "Leave it standing!"

So it stood there all alone,

Loosely flapping, torn and tattered, Till the brood was fledged and flown, Singing o'er those walls of stone

Which the cannon-shot had shattered.

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves.

Close by the street of this fair seaport town,

Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down!

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep

Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,

While underneath these leafy tents they keep

The long, mysterious Exodus of
Death.

And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,

That pave with level flags their burial-place,

Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down

And broken by Moses at the moun

tain's base.

The very names recorded here are strange,

Of foreign accent, and of different climes; Alvares and Rivera interchange With Abraham and Jacob of old times.

"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"

The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace";

Then added, in the certainty of faith, "And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease."

OLIVER BASSELIN.

IN the Valley of the Vire
Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
And beneath the window-sill,
On the stone,

These words alone:
"Oliver Basselin lived here."
Far above it, on the steep,
Ruined stands the old Château ;]
Nothing but the donjon-keep
Left for shelter or for show.
Its vacant eyes
Stare at the skies,

Stare at the valley green and deep.

Once a convent, old and brown,

Looked, but ah! it looks no more, From the neighboring hillside down On the rushing and the roar Of the stream

Whose sunny gleam
Cheers the little Norman town.
In that darksome mill of stone,

To the water's dash and din,
Careless, humble, and unknown,
Sang the poet Basselin
Songs that fill

That ancient mill

With a splendor of its own.