And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves.
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves-
Over the unreturning brave;―alas,

Ere evening, to be trodden like the grass

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure; when this fiery mass

Of living valour, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low !

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;

Last eve, in Beauty's circle proudly gay;

The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,-
The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day,
Battle's magnificently stern array.

The thunder-clouds close o'er it: which when rent,
The earth is covered thick with other clay,

Which her own clay shall cover-heaped and pent;
Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent!

XXXIII.—THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.

(SAMUEL FERGUSON, M.R.I.A.)

COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 'tis at a white heat now;

The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's brow

The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round,

All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare; Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,

And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe ;

It rises, roars, rends all outright,-O Vulcan, what a glow ! "Tis blinding white, tis blasting bright, the high sun shines not so!

The high sun sees not on the earth such fiery, fearful show; The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe;

As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow

Sinks on the anvil-all about the faces fiery grow— "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out-leap out:" bang, bang, the sledges go:

Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low; A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strow

The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains

flow;

And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant "Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!
Let's forge a goodly Anchor, a bower thick and broad;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,
And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road;
The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured
From stem to stern, sea after sea, the mainmast by the

board;

The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains;

But courage still, brave mariners, the bower still remains; And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch skyhigh,

Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothinghere am I!"

Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime !

But, while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we;

Strike in, strike in, the sparks begin to dull their rustling red!

Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be

sped;

Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of

clay;

Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here,

For the Yeo-heave-o, and the Heave-away, and the sighing seaman's cheer;

When, weighing slow, at eve they go-far, far from love and home,

And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;

A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast.
O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,
What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep
green sea!

O deep-sea diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?

The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the

whales,

And feel the churn'd sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails!

Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory

horn;

To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn,
And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to

scorn ;

To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles

He lies, a lubber anchorage, for sudden shallowed miles; Till snorting like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls, Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far-astonished shoals Of his back-browsing ocean-calves;- —or haply in a cove, Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undinè's love,

To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands, To wrestle with the sea-serpent upon cerulean sands.

O broad-armed Fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?

The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line:

And night by night 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day,

Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play;

But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave― A fisher's joy is to destroy,-thine office is to save.

O lodger in the sea-kings' halls, couldst thou but understand

Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band,

Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee

bend,

With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend

Oh, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps around thee,

Thine iron side would swell with pride, thou'dst leap within the sea!

Give honour to their memories who left the pleasant strand,

To shed their blood so freely for the love of FatherlandWho left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard

grave

So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave—
Oh, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,
Honour him for their memory, whose bones he goes
among !

XXXIV. THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL.

(ANON.)

This poem on the "Day of the Funeral" of the late Duke of Wellington in 1852, was published anonymously. It was dated from "Oriel College, Oxford." "The Duke of Wellington left to his countrymen a great legacy-greater even than his glory. He left them the contemplation of his character. I will not say his conduct revived the sense of duty in England. I will not say that of our country. But that his conduct inspired public life with a purer and more masculine tone I cannot doubt. His career rebukes restless vanity, and reprimands the irregular ebullitions of a morbid egotism. I doubt not that, among all orders of Englishmen-from those with the highest responsibilities of our society to those who perform the humblest duties-I dare say there is not a man who in his toil and his perplexity has not sometimes thought of the Duke, and found in his example support and solace. Though he lived so much in the hearts and minds of his countrymen-though he occupied such eminent posts and fulfilled such august duties-it was not till he died that we felt what a place he filled in the feelings and thoughts of the people of England. Never was the influence of real greatness more completely asserted than on his decease. In an age whose boast of intellectual equality flatters all our self-complacencies, the world suddenly acknowledged that it had lost the greatest of men; in an age of utility, the most industrious and commonsense people in the world could find no vent for their woe and no representative for their sorrow but the solemnity of a pageant; and we-we who have met here for such different purposes-to investigate the sources of the wealth of nations, to enter into statistical research, and to encounter each other in fiscal controversy-we present to the world the most sublime and touching spectacle that human circumstances can well produce-the spectacle of a senate mourning a hero!"-Disraeli's Speech on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.

No sounds of labour vexed the quiet air

From morn till eve.

The people all stood still,

And earth won back a sabbath. There were none

Who cared to buy and sell, and make a gain,
For one whole day. All felt as they had lost
A father, and were fain to keep within,
Silent, or speaking little. Such a day
An old man sees but once in all his time.

The simplest peasant in the land that day
Knew somewhat of his country's grief. He heard
The knell of England's hero from the tower
Of the old church, and asked the cause, and sighed.
The vet'ran who had bled on some far field,
Fought o'er the battle for the thousandth time
With quaint addition; and the little child,