Thou art where friend meets friend,

Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend
The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set; but all-

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Mrs. Hemans.

RULE BRITANNIA.1

WHEN Britain first at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule, Britannia, rule the waves,
Britons never will be slaves!"

The nations not so blessed as thee,
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame :
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame-
But work their woe and thy renown.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main:
And every shore it circles thine.

(1) Allowing for some exaggeration-and what British heart will not make the allowance?-this truly national song well deserves its fame. The third stanza is particularly noble. Its greatest fault is the want of a more direct and explicit reference to God, as the source of all power and prosperity.

The Muses, still' with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair:

Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair:
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves,
Britons never will be slaves!"

THE PALACE OF ICE.

No forest fell,

Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,

2

Thomson.

When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent its stores
To enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods,
And make thy marble of the glassy wave.

In such a palace poetry might place

The armoury of Winter; where his troops,
The gloomy clouds, find weapons-arrowy sleet,
Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail,
And snow, that often blinds the traveller's course,
And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.
Silently as a dream the fabric rose;

No sound of hammer or of saw was there;
Ice upon ice, the well adjusted parts
Were soon conjoined, no other cement asked
Than water interfused to make them one.
Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues,
Illumined every side: a watery light

Gleamed through the clear transparency, that seemed
Another moon new risen, or meteor fallen
From heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene.
So stood the brittle prodigy; though smooth
And slippery the materials, yet frost-bound 5

(1) Still-ever (see note 2, p. 64).

(2) Imperial mistress, &c.-The celebrated Catherine, Empress of Russia. (3) Silently, &c.-This fine line reminds us both of Milton's Pandemonium rising "like an exhalation" (see p. 323), and of the beautiful passage in Heber's "Palestine," referring to the building of the Temple:

"No workman steel, no ponderous axes rung;

Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung ;-
Majestic silence."

(4) Lambent from the Latin lambens, licking; touching lightly, as if with the tongue.

(5) Yet frost-bound-i. e. yet when bound together by the frost.

Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within,
That royal residence might well befit,

For grandeur or for use.

Long wavy wreaths
Of flowers, that feared no enemy but warmth,
Blushed on the panels. Mirror needed none
Where all was vitreous; but in order due
Convivial table and commodious seat

(What seemed at least commodious seat) were there;
Sofa and couch, and high-built throne august.
The same lubricity was found in all,

And all was moist to the warm touch; a scene
Of evanescent glory, once a stream,
And soon to slide into a stream again.
Alas! 'twas but a mortifying stroke
Of undesigned severity, that glanced
(Made by a monarch) on her own estate,
On human grandeur, and the courts of kings.
"Twas transient in its nature, as in show
'Twas durable; as worthless, as it seemed
Intrinsically precious; to the foot

Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.

Cowper.

THE BELLS.2

I.

HEAR the sledges with the bells

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!"

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

(1) Alas, &c.-This abrupt and striking transition to the moral bearings of the subject is in Cowper's most characteristic manner.

(2) This remarkable composition is presented as a rare specimen of the music of poetry-a sort of literary curiosity; marked, it is true, by many defects and imperfections, but abounding, nevertheless, in very choice beauties and graces. Let it be read aloud, carefully and spiritedly, and it will plead its own cause. It was written by a young American of highly promising talents, whose wretched career of dissipation was closed by an early death, in the year 1849.

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,'

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding-bells,

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden notes,
And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells-

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!2
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

(1) Runic rhyme-The Runes were the most ancient Scandinavian alphabetical characters, and so much admired in an age of ignorance that even magical qualities were attributed to them-hence Runic often means magical or mysterious. (2) Notice here, and in other parts of the poem, the use made by the writer of "apt alliteration's artful aid."

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire—
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire

And a resolute endeavour
Now-now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar !
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—

Of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone !

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats