Old bent soldiers, crippled veterans, Sigh and hobble, sad, footsore, Jostled by the chariot-horses

Of this woman-Pompadour. Through the levée (poet, marquis, Wistful for the opening door), With a rippling sweep of satin, Sail'd the queenly Pompadour.

Sighs by dozens, as she proudly

Glides, so confident and sure,

berds

In went Madame Pompadour.

Starving abbé, wounded marshal,
Speculator, lean and poor,

Cringe and shrink before the creatures
Of this harlot Pompadour.

"Rose in sunshine! Summer lily!"
Cries a poet at the door,
Squeezed and trampled by the lacqueys
Of the witching Pompadour.

"Bathed in milk and fed on roses!"
Sighs a pimp behind the door,
Jamm'd and bullied by the courtiers
Of this strumpet Pompadour.
"Rose of Sharon!" chants an abbé,

Fat and with the voice of four,
Black silk stockings soil'd by varlets
Of this Rahab Pompadour.

"Neck so swan-like,-Dea certe !

Fit for monarchs to adore!" "Clear the way!" was still the echo, "For this Venus-Pompadour." Open!-with the jar of thunder

Fly the portals,-clocks strike four; With a burst of drums and trumpets Come the king and Pompadour.

GEORGE WALTER THOrnbury.

LOUIS XV.

THE king with all his kingly train
Had left his Pompadour behind,
And forth he rode in Senart's wood,
The royal beasts of chase to find.
That day by chance the monarch mused,
And, turning suddenly away,

And glad of human sound was he, For, truth to say, he found himself

A weight from which he fain would flee. But that which he would ne'er have guess'd

Before him now most plainly came; The man upon his weary back

A coffin bore of rudest frame.

"Why, who art thou?" exclaimed the king,

"And what is that I see thee bear?" "I am a laborer in the wood,

And 'tis a coffin for Pierre.
Close by the royal hunting-lodge
You may have often seen him toil;
But he will never work again,

And I for him must dig the soil."
The laborer ne'er had seen the king,
And this he thought was but a man,
Who made at first a moment's pause,
And then anew his talk began:
"I think I do remember now,—

He had a dark and glancing eye, And I have seen his slender arm With wondrous blows the pickaxe ply. "Pray tell me, friend, what accident Can thus have kill'd our good Pierre ?" "Oh, nothing more than usual, sir, He died of living upon air. "Twas hunger kill'd the poor good man, Who long on empty hopes relied; He could not pay gabell and tax,

And feed his children, so he died." The man stopp'd short, and then went

The king look'd hard upon the man,
And afterward the coffin eyed;
Then spurr'd to ask of Pompadour
How came it that the peasants died.

JOHN STERLING.

WARREN'S ADDRESS.

STAND! the ground's your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?
What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!

Ask it,-ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you!-they're afire!

And, before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come !—and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail
Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, and die we must:
But, oh where can dust to dust

Be consign'd so well,

As where Heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyr'd patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head
Of his deeds to tell?

JOHN PIERPONT.

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-
five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said " Good-night," and with muffled oar

Silently row'd to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war;

A phantom ship, with each mast and

spar

Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified

By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,

Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack-door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the
shore.

Then he climb'd the tower of the Old
North Church,

By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him
made

Masses and moving shapes of shade,-
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

year.

In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapp'd in silence so deep and still

march

By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal
light,-

One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,

The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell

Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread

Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,-
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurr'd, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walk'd Paul Re-

vere.

Now he patted his horse's side,

Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamp'd the earth,
And turn'd and tighten'd his saddle-
girth;

But mostly he watch'd with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he
turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he pass'd,
And the meeting-house windows, blank
and bare,

Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord

town.

He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,

And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

dark,

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

read,

How the British regulars fired and fled,— How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane,

Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere, And so through the night went his cry of alarm

As the swift

Storm-drift

With hot sweeping anger,
Came the horseguards' clangor
On our flanks;

Then higher, higher, higher,
Burn'd the old-fashion'd fire

Through the ranks!

Then the old-fashion'd colonel Gallop'd through the white infernal Powder-cloud;

And his broad sword was swinging, And his brazen throat was ringing Trumpet loud.

Then the blue Bullets flew,

And the trooper-jackets redden At the touch of the leaden

Rifle-breath;

And rounder, rounder, rounder
Roar'd the iron six-pounder,
Hurling death!

GUY HUMPHREY MCMASTER.

LA TRICOTEUSE.

THE fourteenth of July had come,
And round the guillotine
The thieves and beggars, rank by rank,
Moved the red flags between.
A crimson heart, upon a pole,-
The long march had begun;
But still the little smiling child

Sat knitting in the sun.

The red caps of those men of France

Shook like a poppy-field; Three women's heads, with gory hair, The standard-bearers wield. Cursing, with song and battle-hymn,

Five butchers dragg'd a gun;
Yet still the little maid sat there,
A-knitting in the sun.

An axe was painted on the flags,
A broken throne and crown,
A ragged coat, upon a lance,

Hung in foul black shreds down.
"More heads!" the seething rabble cry,
And now the drums begun;
But still the little fair-hair'd child
Sat knitting in the sun.

And every time a head roll'd off,

They roll like winter seas,

And, with a tossing up of caps,

Shouts shook the Tuileries. Whizz-went the heavy chopper down, And then the drums begun; But still the little smiling child Sat knitting in the sun.

The Jacobins, ten thousand strong,

And every man a sword;

The red caps, with the tricolors,

Led on the noisy horde. "The Sans Culottes to-day are strong,"

The gossips say, and run;
But still the little maid sits there,
A-knitting in the sun.

Then the slow death-cart moved along;
And, singing patriot songs,

A pale, doom'd poet bowing comes

And cheers the swaying throngs. Oh, when the axe swept shining down, The mad drums all begun ; But, smiling still, the little child

Sat knitting in the sun.

"Le marquis," linen snowy white,
The powder in his hair,
Waving his scented handkerchief,
Looks down with careless stare.
A whirr, a chop-another head-
Hurrah! the work's begun;
But still the little child sat there,
A-knitting in the sun.

A stir, and through the parting crowd
The people's friends are come;
Marat and Robespierre-" Vivat!
Roll thunder from the drum."
The one a wild beast's hungry eye,