Thy father's pride and hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope !) With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint— (Where did he learn that squint ?) Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off, with another shove !) Dear nurseling of the hymeneal nest! (Are those torn clothes his best!) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life(He's got a knife!) Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, My elfin John! Toss the light ball-bestride the stick (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty opening rose! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) I cannot write, unless he's sent above!) THE DEATH-BED. We watched her breathing thro' the night, As in her breast the wave of life So silently we seemed to speak, As we had lent her half our powers Our very hopes belied our fears, For when the morn came dim and sad, Her quiet eyelids closed-she had LORD MACAULAY. [THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, Oct. 25, 1800, and died at Holly Lodge, Campden Hill, Dec. 28, 1859. His Lays of Ancient Rome were published in 1843; other ballads and poems were written from time to time, his earliest published piece, an Epitaph on Henry Marty, being dated 1812.] 'You are very right in admiring Macaulay,' wrote Miss Elizabeth Barrett to Mr. Horne in 1843; 'he has a noble, clear, metallic note in his soul, and makes us ready by it for battle. I very much admire Mr. Macaulay, and could scarcely read his ballads and keep lying down. They seemed to draw me up to my feet as the mesmeric powers are said to do. This testimony from so competent a judge as Mrs. Browning is all the more valuable because, great as is still the popularity of the Lays with the mass of those who read poetry, the higher critical authorities have pronounced against them, and are even teaching us to wonder whether they can be called poetry at all. They find in the Lays the same faults which mar the author's prose-commonplaceness of ideas, cheapness of sentiment and imagery, made to prevail by dint of the writer's irresistible command of a new rhetorical force; in a word, eloquent Philistinism. Against this too exclusive judgment it is well to set Miss Barrett's frank recognition of the power, the spirit, the vividness of historical imagination that informs all Macaulay's writing. One of her epithets, which she uses honoris causâ, we may accept as fairly characterising the evil element in his mindthe epithet metallic. His ballads have the clear resonance of the trumpet they have its hardness too. The Lays are in everybody's hands: and they do not lend themselves easily to selection. We have preferred to print the less known Naseby, written in 1824; and the pathetic Epitaph on a Facobite a work of the author's maturity. EDITOR. 1 Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, vol. i. p. 166. THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. (By Obadiah Bind-their-kings-in-chains-and-their-nobles-withlinks-of-iron, Sergeant in Ireton's Regiment.) Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod; It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine, And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine. Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword, And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore, For God! for the Cause! for the Church! for the Laws! The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums, They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your ranks; For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall. They are here! They rush on! We are broken! We are gone! Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. O Lord, put forth thy might! O Lord, defend the right ! Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last. Stout Skippon hath a wound; the centre hath given ground: Hark! hark!-What means the trampling of horsemen on our rear? Whose banner do I see, boys? 'Tis he, thank God, 'tis he, boys. Bear up another minute: brave Oliver is here. Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war! Ho! comrades, scour the plain; and, ere ye strip the slain, The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the poor. Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold, When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day; And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chambers in the rocks, Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey. Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven and he and fate, And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades, Your perfumed satin clothes, your catches and your oaths, Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your spades? Down, down, for ever down with the mitre and the crown, With the Belial of the Court, and the Mammon of the Pope; There is woe in Oxford Halls: there is wail in Durham's Stalls: The Jesuit smites his bosom: the Bishop rends his cope. |