THE LOST Leader.

I.

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags-were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
-He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II.

We shall march prospering,-not thro' his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,-not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There will be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

(1845.)

DAVID SINGING BEFORE SAUL

(From Saul.)

VIII.

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart; And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles 'gan

dart

From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start,
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.
So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect.
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked,
As I sang,-

IX.

'Oh, our manhood's prime vigour ! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy! Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou

didst guard

When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward?
Didst thou kiss the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung
The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her faint tongue
Joining in while it could to the witness, "Let one more attest,
I have lived, seen God's hand thro' a lifetime, and all was for

best "?

Then they sung thro' their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest.

And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence

grew

Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true :

And the friends of thy boyhood—that boyhood of wonder and hope,
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope,―
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine;
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine!
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like
the throe

That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go) High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,-all

Brought to blaze on the head of one creature-King Saul!'

X.

And lo, with that leap of my spirit,-heart, hand, harp and voice, Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice Saul's fame in the light it was made for-as when, dare I say, The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through its array, And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot—'Saul!' cried I, and stopped, And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped

By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim, And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone, While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone

A year's snow bound about for a breastplate,-leaves grasp of the sheet?

Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet, And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain

of old,

With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold:
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest-all hail, there
they are!

-Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest
For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder thrilled
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled
At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware.
(1845.)

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

I.

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

II.

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS.

I.

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles,

On the solitary pastures where our sheep

Half-asleep

Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop

As they crop

Was the site once of a city great and gay,

(So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince,

Ages since,

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far

Peace or war.

(1845.)

II.

Now, the country does not even boast a tree,

As you see,

To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills

Intersect and give a name to, (else they run

Into one)

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all,

Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed Twelve abreast.

III.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass

Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone-

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced

As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames

Viewed the games.