'Tis the star of earth, deny it who can,
The island home of an Englishman.
There's a flag that waves o'er every sea,
No matter when or where;
And to treat that flag as aught but the free
Is more than the strongest dare.
For the lion spirits that tread the deck
Have carried the palm of the brave;
And that flag may sink with a shot-torn wreck,
But never float over a slave.
Its honor is stainless, deny it who can,
And this is the flag of an Englishman.
There's a heart that leaps with burning glow
The wronged and the weak to defend ;
And strikes as soon for a trampled foe
As it does for a soul-bound friend.
It nurtures a deep and honest love,
The passions of faith and pride,
And yearns with the fondness of a dove
For the light of its own fireside.
'T is a rich, rough gem, deny it who can,
And this is the heart of an Englishman.
The Briton may traverse the pole or the zone,
And boldly claim his right;
For he calls such a vast domain his own
That the sun never sets on his might.
Let the haughty stranger seek to know
The place of his home and birth,
And a flush will pour from cheek to brow
While he tells his native earth.
For a glorious charter, deny it who can,
Is breathed in the words "I'm an Englishman."
THERE'S A STAR IN THE WEST.
THERE's a star in the West that shall never go down
Till the records of valor decay;
We must worship its light, though it is not our own,
For Liberty burst in its ray.
Shall the name of a Washington ever be heard By a freeman, and thrill not his breast?
Is there one out of bondage that hails not the word,
As the Bethlehem Star of the West?
"War, war to the knife! be enthralled or ye die,"
Was the echo that woke in his land; But it was not his voice that promoted the cry, Nor his madness that kindled the brand. He raised not his arm, he defied not his foes, While a leaf of the olive remained, Till, goaded with insult, his spirit arose, Like a long-baited lion unchained.
He struck with firm courage the blows of the brave,
But sighed o'er the carnage that spread; He indignantly trampled the yoke of the slave, But wept for the thousands that bled. Though he threw back the fetters and headed the strife,
Till Man's charter was fairly restored,
Yet he prayed for the moment when Freedom and Life
Would no longer be pressed by the sword.
Oh, his laurels were pure, and his patriot name
In the page of the future shall dwell,
And be seen in all annals, the foremost in fame,
By the side of a Hofer and Tell.
The truthful and honest, the wise and the good,
Among Britons have nobly confessed
That his was the glory and ours was the blood
Of the deeply-stained field of the West.
IT IS THE SONG MY MOTHER SINGS.
Ir is the song my mother sings,
And gladly do I list the strain;
I never hear it but it brings
The wish to hear it sung again.
She breathed it to me long ago,
To lull me to my baby rest;
And as she murmured soft and low,
I slept in peace upon her breast.
O gentle song, thou hast a throng
Of angel-tones within thy spell;
I feel that I shall love thee long,
And fear I love thee far too well.
For though I turn to hear thee now, With doting glance of warm delight, In after-years I know not how
Thy plaintive notes may dim my sight. That mother's voice will then be still; I hear it falter day by day
It soundeth like a fountain-rill
That trembles ere it cease to play. And then this heart, thou simple song, Will find an anguish in thy spell; 'T will wish it could not love so long, Or had not loved thee half so well.
TWILIGHT shade is calmly falling
Round about the dew-robed flowers;
Philomel's lone song is calling
Lovers to their fairy bowers;
Echo, on the zephyrs gliding,
Bears a voice that seems to say,
"Ears and hearts, come list my tiding;
This has been a wedding-day!".
Hark! the merry chimes are pealing,
Soft and glad the music swells;
Gaily on the night-wind stealing,
Sweetly sound the wedding-bells.
Every simple breast rejoices;
Laughter rides upon the gale;
Happy hearts and happy voices
Dwell within the lowly vale.
Oh, how sweet, on zephyrs gliding,
Sound the bells that seem to say, "Ears and hearts, come list my tiding;
This has been a wedding-day!" Hark! the merry chimes are pealing, Soft and glad the music swells; Gaily on the night-wind stealing, Sweetly sound the wedding-bells.
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH was born in Liverpool, January 1, 1819. In early youth he came to the United States with his father, who was called hither by business. In 1828 he was sent to school at Rugby, where he soon became noted for his scholarship, and was one of the best contributors to the "Rugby Magazine." In due time he entered Oxford, where he gained a scholarship, and afterward a fellowship. There he wrote "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich, a Longvacation Pastoral," published in 1848. In that year he gave up his fellowship, and travelled on the Continent.
After his return to England he was appointed principal of University Hall, and Professor of English Literature, in University College, London. He resigned his professorship in 1852, and re
A YOUTH Was I, an elder friend with me,
'Twas in September o'er the autumnal sea
We went, the wild Atlantic Ocean o'er,
Two among many the strong steamer bore.
Delight it was to feel that wondrous force That held us steady to our purposed course, The burning, resolute, victorious will, 'Gainst winds and waves that strive unwavering still;
Delight it was with each returning day
To learn the ship had won upon her way
Her sum of miles-delight were mornings gray
And gorgeous eves-nor was it less delight,
On each more temperate and favoring night,
Friend with familiar or with new-found friend,
To pace the deck, and o'er the bulwarks bend,
And the night-watches in long converse spend,
While still new subjects and new thoughts would
rise
Amid the silence of the seas and skies.
Among the mingled multitude, a few, Some three or four, toward us early drew; We proved each other with a day or two. Night after night some three or four we walked, And talked, and talked, and infinitely talked.
Of the New England ancient blood was one; His youthful spurs in letters he had won, Unspoilt by that to Europe late had comeHope long deferred-and went, unspoilt by Europe, home.
moved to Cambridge, Mass., where he spent a year as a private tutor. In 1853 he went home, was appointed to a place in the Education Department of the Privy Council, settled in London, and married. He worked very hard at the duties of his office for eight years, when his health gave way, and he made a tour on the Continent, hoping to restore it, but he died in Florence, Italy, November 13, 1861.
He had published in 1859 a revision of Dryden's translation of Plutarch. His "Amours de Voyage," a narrative poem, appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1858, and a collection of his poems, with a memoir by Charles Eliot Norton, was published in Boston in 1862. His widow has edited his complete works, with a life and a portrait (London, 1869).
What racy tales of Yankee-land he had!
Up-country girl, up-country farmer lad,
The regnant clergy of the time of old,
In wig and gown-tales not to be retold
By me; I could but spoil were I to tell;
Himself must do it, who can do it well.
An English clergyman came, spick and span,
In black and white-a large, well-favored man,
Fifty years old, as near as one could guess;
He looked the dignitary more or less.
A rural dean, I said, he was, at least,
Canon, perhaps; at many a good man's feast
A guest had been among the choicest there.
Manly his voice, and manly was his air;
At the first sight you felt he had not known
The things pertaining to his cloth alone;
Chairman of the Quarter Sessions had he been?
Serious and calm, 't was plain he much had
Had miscellaneous, large experience had
Of human acts, good, half and half, and bad.
Serious and calm, yet lurked, I know not why,
At times a softness in his voice and eye.
Some shade of ill a prosperous life had crossed;
Married no doubt; a wife or child had lost?
He never told us why he crossed the sea.
My guardian friend was now, at thirty-three,
A rising lawyer-ever, at the best,
Slow rises worth in lawyer's gown compressed-
Succeeding now, yet just and only just,
His new success he never seemed to trust.
By nature he to gentlest thoughts inclined,
To most severe had disciplined his mind.
He held it duty to be half unkind;
Bitter, they said who but the exterior knew.
In friendship never was a friend so true;
The feeling, if it did not greatly grow,
Endured, and was not wholly hid below;
He now o'ertasked at school, a serious boy,
A sort of after-boyhood to enjoy
Appeared-in vigor and in spirit high
And manly grown, but kept the boy's soft eye,
And full of blood, and strong and light of limb,
To him 't was pleasure now to ride, to swim;
The peaks, the glens, the torrents tempted him.
Restless he seemed, long distances would walk,
And lively was and vehement in talk.
A wandering life his life had lately been;
teach-Books he had read, the world had little seen.
One native frailty haunted him-a touch
Of something introspective overmuch.
With all his eager motions still there went
A self-correcting and ascetic bent,
The unwelcome fact he did not shrink to tell,
The good, if fact, he recognized as well,
Stout to maintain, if not the first to see.
In conversation who so great as he?
Leading but seldom, always sure to guide;
To false or silly if 't was borne aside,
His quick correction silent he expressed, [best.
And stopped you short, and forced you to your
Often, I think, he suffered from some pain
Of mind, that on the body worked again ·
One felt it in his sort of half disdain,
Impatient not, but acrid in his speech:
The world with him her lesson failed to
To take things easily, and let them go.
He, for what special fitness I scarce know,
For which good quality, or if for all,
With less of reservation and recall
And speedier favor than I e'er had seen,
Took, as we called him, to the rural dean.
As grew the gourd, as grew the stalk of bean,
So swift it seemed betwixt these differing two
A stately trunk of confidence upgrew.
Of marriage long one night they held discourse,
Regarding it in different ways, of course.
Marriage is discipline, the wise had said,
A needful human discipline to wed;
Novels of course depict it final bliss,
Say, had it ever really once been this?
Our Yankee friend (whom, ere the night was
done,
We called New England or the Pilgrim Son),
A little tired, made bold to interfere.
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Appeal," he said, "to me: my sentence hear.
You'll reason on till night and reason fail;
My judgment is you each shall tell a tale.
And as on marriage you cannot agree,
Of love and marriage let the stories be."
Sentence delivered, as the younger man,
My lawyer-friend was called on, and began.
A YOUTH and maid upon a summer night,
That from the obvious good still led astray,
And set him travelling on the longest way-
Seen in these scattered notes, their date that
claim
When first his feeling, conscious, sought a name.
"Beside the wishing-gate which so they name,
'Mid Northern hills, to me this fancy came;
A wish I formed, my wish I thus expressed:
Would I could wish my wishes all to rest,
And know to wish the wish that were the best!
O for some winnowing wind, to the empty air
This chaff of easy sympathies to bear
Far off, and leave me of myself aware!
While thus this over-health deludes me still,
So willing that I know not what I will,
O for some friend, or more than friend, austere,
To make me know myself and make me fear!
O for some touch too noble to be kind,
To awake to life the mind within the mind!"
"O charms, seductions, and divine delights All through the radiant yellow summer nights, Dreams hardly dreams, that yield or e'er they're done
To the bright fact, my day, my risen sun!
O promise and fulfilment, both in one!
O bliss already bliss which naught hath shared,
Whose glory no fruition has impaired !
Upon the lawn, while yet the skies were light-And emblem of my state, thou coming day,
Edmund and Emma, let their names be these-
Among the shrubs, within the circling trees,
Joined in a game with boys and girls at play.
For games perhaps too old a little they:
In April she her eighteenth year begun,
And twenty he, and near to twenty-one.
A game it was of running and of noise,
He as a boy with other girls and boys
(Her sisters and her brothers) took the fun;
And when her turn, she marked not, came to run,
"Emma!" he called, then knew that he was
With all thy hours unspent to pass away,
Why do I wait? what more propose to know?
Where the sweet mandate bids me, let me go.
My conscience in my impulse let me find,
Justification in the moving mind,
Law in the strong desire; or yet behind
Say is there aught the spell that has not heard―
A something that refuses to be stirred ?"
Knew that her name to him did not belong.
Her look and manner proved his feeling true;
A child no more, her womanhood she knew:
Half was the color mounted on her face,
Her tardy movement had an adult grace.
Vexed with himself, and shamed, he felt the more
A kind of joy he ne'er had felt before;
'Twas beautiful with her to be a man:
Something there was that from this date began.
Two years elapsed, and he who went and came,
Changing in much, in this appeared the same;
"In other regions has my being heard
Of a strange language the diviner word?
Has some forgotten life the exemplar shown?
Elsewhere such high communion have I known
As dooms me here, in this, to live alone?
Then love, that shouldest blind me, let me, love,
Nothing behold beyond thee or above:
Ye impulses that should be strong and wild,
Beguile me, if I am to be beguiled!
Or are there modes of love, and different kinds,
Proportioned to the sizes of our minds?
There are who say thus. I held there was one,
One love, one Deity, one central sun;
As he resistless brings the expanding day,
So love should come on his victorious way.
If light at all, can light indeed be there,
Yet only permeate half the ambient air?
Can the high noon be regnant in the sky,
Yet half the land in light and half in darkness lie?
Can love, if love, be occupant in part,
Hold, as it were, some chambers in the heart-
Tenant at will of so much of the soul,
Not lord and mighty master of the whole?
There are who say, and say that it is well:
Opinion all; of knowledge none can tell."
"Montaigne, I know, in a realm high above Places the seat of friendship over love: 'Tis not in love that we should think to find The lofty fellowship of mind with mind; Love's not a joy where soul and soul unite, Rather a wondrous animal delight; And as in spring for one consummate hour The world of vegetation turns to flower, The birds with liveliest plumage trim their wing,
And all the woodland listens as they sing,
When spring is o'er and summer days are sped,
The songs are silent and the blossoms dead;
E'en so of man and woman is the bliss.
O but I will not tamely yield to this!
I think it only shows us in the end,
Montaigne was happy in a noble friend,
Had not the fortune of a noble wife;
He lived, I think, a poor, ignoble life,
And wrote of petty pleasures, petty pain:
I do not greatly think about Montaigne."
"How charming to be with her! Yet, indeed,
After a while I find a blank succeed:
After a while she little has to say;
I'm silent too, although I wish to stay.
What would it be all day, day after day?
Ah, but I ask, I do not doubt, too much;
I think of love as if it should be such
As to fulfil and occupy in whole
The naught-else-seeking, naught-essaying soul.
Yet such a change, so entire I feel 't would be,
So potent, so omnipotent with me,
My former self I never should recall—
Indeed, I think it must be all in all."
"I thought that Love was winged; without a sound
His purple pinions bore him o'er the ground;
Wafted without an effort here or there
He came and we too trod as if in air:
But panting, toiling, clambering up the hill,
Am I to assist him? I put forth my will
To upbear his lagging footsteps, lame and slow,
And help him on and tell him where to go,
And ease him of his quiver and his bow?"
"Erotion! I saw it in a book: Why did I notice it, why did I look ? Yea, is it so, ye powers that see above? I do not love, I want, I try to love! This is not love, but lack of love instead. Merciless thought! I would I had been dead, Or e'er the phrase had come into my head."
She also wrote; and here may find a place Of her and of her thoughts some slender trace:
"He is not vain; if proud, he quells his pride, And somehow really likes to be defied; Rejoices if you humble him: indeed, Gives way at once, and leaves you to succeed.
"Easy it were with such a mind to play, And foolish not to do so, some would say; One almost smiles to look and see the way: But come what will, I will not play a part; Indeed, I dare not condescend to art.
"Easy 't were not, perhaps, with him to live; He looks for more than any one can give: So dulled at times and disappointed; still Expecting what depends not of my will: My inspiration comes not at my call; Seek me as I am, if seek you do at all."
"Like him I do, and think of him I must; But more-I dare not and I cannot trust.
This more he brings-say, is it more or less Than that which fruitage never came to bless, The old wild-flower of love-in-idleness?
"Me when he leaves, and others when he sees,
What is my fate, who am not there to please?
Me he has left; already may have seen
One who for me forgotten here has been,
And he, the while, is balancing between.
If the heart spoke, the heart I know were
bound:
What if it utter an uncertain sound?
"Absence were hard; yet let the trial be, His nature's aim and purpose he would free, And in the world his course of action see. O should he lose, not learn-pervert his scope! O should I lose! and yet to win I hope. I win not now; his way if now I went, Brief joy I gave, for years of discontent."
"Gone, is it true? but oft he went before,
And came again before a month was o'er.
Gone. Though I could not venture upon art,
It was, perhaps, a foolish pride in part;
He had such ready fancies in his head,
And really was so easy to be led ;
One might have failed, and yet I feel 't was
pride,
And can't but half repent I never tried.
Gone, is it true? but he again will come:
Wandering he loves, and loves returning home."
Gone, it was true; nor came so soon again;
Came, after travelling, pleasure half, half pain;
Came, but a half of Europe first o'erran;
Came, found his father was a ruined man.
Rich they had been, and rich was Emma too,
Heiress of wealth she knew not, Edmund knew.
Farewell to her!-In a new home obscure,
Food for his helpless parents to secure,
From early morning to advancing dark
He toiled and labored as a merchant's clerk.
Three years his heavy load he bore, nor quailed,
Then all his health, though scarce his spirit,
failed;
Friends interposed, insisted it must be,
Enforced their help, and sent him to the sea.
Wandering about, with little here to do, His old thoughts mingling dimly with his new, Wandering one morn, he met upon the shore, Her whom he quitted five long years before. Alas! why quitted? Say that charms are naught, Nor grace, nor beauty worth one serious thought; Was there no mystic virtue in the sense That joined your boyish, girlish innocence? Is constancy a thing to throw away, And loving faithfulness a chance of every day? Alas! why quitted? Is she changed? But now The weight of intellect is in her brow; Changed, or but truer seen, one sees in her Something to wake the soul, the interior sense to stir.
Alone they met, from alien eyes away: The high shore hid them in a tiny bay. Alone was he, was she; in sweet surprise They met, before they knew it, in their eyes; In his, a wondering admiration glowed, In hers, a world of tenderness o'erflowed. In a brief moment all was known and seen That of slow years the wearying work had been: Morn's early, odorous breath perchance, in sooth, Awoke the old natural feeling of their youth; The sea perchance and solitude had charms. They met I know not-in each other's arms. Why linger now-why waste the sands of life? A few sweet weeks and they were man and wife. To his old frailty do not be severe, His latest,theory with patience hear:
"I sought not, truly, would to seek disdain, A kind, soft pillow for a wearying pain, Fatigues and cares to lighten, to relieve: Yet love is fellow-service, I believe.
"No, truly no, it was not to obtain, Though that perchance were happiness, were gain,
A tender breast to fall upon and weep,
A heart the secrets of my heart to keep,
To share my hopes and in my griefs to grieve:
Yet love is fellow-service, I believe.
"Yet in the eye of life's all-seeing sun
We shall behold a something we have done,
Shall, of the work together we have wrought,
Beyond our aspiration and our thought,
Some not unworthy issue yet receive-
For love is fellow-service, I believe."
THE tale, we said, instructive was, but short;
Could he not give another of the sort?
He feared his second might his first repeat,
And Aristotle teaches, change is sweet.
"But come, our younger friend in this dim
night
Under his bushel must not hide his light.
Elders forget what younger know too well,
And he has doubtless much that he can tell."
I said I'd had but little time to live,
Experience none or confidence could give.
"But I can tell to-morrow, if you please,
My last year's journey toward the Pyrenees."
To-morrow came-and evening, when it closed,
The penalty of speech on me imposed.
A LA BANQUETTE; OR, A MODERN PILGRIMAGE
I WAITED at La Quenille, ten miles or more From the old Roman sources of Mont Dore; Travellers to Tulle this way are forced to go, An old high-road from Lyons to Bordeaux. From Tulle to Brives the swift Corrèze descends,
At Brives you 've railway, and your trouble ends.
A little bourg La Quenille: and from the height
The mountaius of Auvergne are all in sight-
Green pastoral heights, that once in lava flowed,
Of primal fire the product and abode-
And all the plateaus, and the lines that trace
Where in deep dells the waters find their place.
Far to the south, above the lofty plain,
The Plomb de Cantal lifts his towering train.
A little after one, with little fail,
Down drove the diligence that bears the mail,
The courier therefore called, in whose banquette
A place I got, and thankful was to get:
The new postilion climbed his seat, Allez !
Off broke the four cart-horses on the way:
Westward we roll o'er heathy backs of hills,
Crossing the future rivers in the rills;
Bare table-lands are these, and sparsely sown,
Turning their waters south to the Dordogne.
Close-packed we were, and little at our ease, The conducteur impatient with the squeeze; Not tall he seemed, but bulky round about, His cap and jacket made him look more stout. In grande tenue he rode of conducteur.
Black eyes he had, black his moustaches were,
Shaven his chin, his hair and whiskers cropped;
A ready man; at Ussel, when we stopped,
For me and for himself bread, meat, and wine
He got the courier did not wait to dine;
To appease our hunger and allay our drouth,
We ate and took the bottle at the mouth;
One draught I had, the rest entire had he,
For wine his body had capacity.
A peasant in his country blouse was there:
He told me of the Conseil and the Maire.
Their Maire, he said, could neither write nor
read,
And yet could keep the registers, indeed;
The Conseil had resigned-I know not what-
Good actions here are easily forgot:
He in the quarante-huit had something done,
Were things but fair, some notice should have
Another youth there was, a soldier he,
A soldier ceasing with to-day to be;
Three years had served, for three bad bought
release,
From war returning to the arts of peace;
To Tulle he went, as his department's town,
To-morrow morn to pay his money down.
In Italy, his second year begun,
This youth had served, when Italy was won.
He told of Montebello, and the fight
That ended fiercely with the close of night;
There was he wounded, fell, and thought to die.
Two Austrian cones had passed into his thigh;
One traversed it, the other, left behind,
In hospital the doctor had to find.
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