Hurra! Hurra! the Esquimaux

Across the ice fields steal:

God give them grace for their charity! —
Ye pray for the silly seal.

Sir John, where are the English fields,
And where are the English trees,
And where are the little English flowers
That open in the breeze?

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
You shall see the fields again,

And smell the scent of the opening flowers,
The grass, and the waving grain.

Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?

My Mary waits for me.

Oh! when shall I see my old mother,

And pray at her trembling knee?

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
Think not such thoughts again.
But a tear froze slowly on his cheek:
He thought of Lady Jane.

Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,

The ice grows more and more; More settled stare the wolf and bear, More patient than before.

O, think you, good Sir John Franklin,
We'll ever see the land?
'Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
Without a helping hand.

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'Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here,
So far from help or home,

To starve and freeze on this lonely sea:
I ween the lords of the Admiralty

Would rather send than come.

We have done what man has never done
The truth is founded, the secret won —
We passed the Northern Sea!

DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER

CLOSE his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon, or set of sun,

Hand of man, or kiss of woman?

Lay him low, lay him low,

པ་

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VERY few American literary men have led such a restless and laborious life as Bayard Taylor. He was born and brought up in a small Quaker town in Pennsylvania.. From his early youth he was ambitious to be a poet and to travel. His verses began to appear in newspapers when he was sixteen, and he published a volume of poems before he was twenty. He tramped through Europe for two years, enduring many hardships, and wrote a popular book about his experiences. He also lived the life of a gold digger in California. Whatever he saw or experienced he put into newspaper articles or books of travel; and few men traveled so much. Many novels and several volumes of verse also came from his pen. He was tireless, quick-witted, versatile, and had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances among the brighter spirits of his time. In 1878 he was appointed United States minister to Germany, where he died not long after his arrival, having heroically endured great physical pain.

BEDOUIN SONG

FROM the Desert I come to thee

On a stallion shod with fire;

And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,

And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,

With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

Look from thy window and see

My passion and my pain;

I lie on the sands below,

And I faint in thy disdain.

Let the night winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,

And melt thee to hear the vow

Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,

By the fever in my breast,

To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more

Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

AMERICA

FROM THE NATIONAL ODE, JULY 4, 1876

FORESEEN in the vision of sages,
Foretold when martyrs bled,

She was born of the longing of ages,

By the truth of the noble dead

And the faith of the living fed!
No blood in her lightest veins
Frets at remembered chains,

Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head.
In her form and features still

The unblenching Puritan will,
Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace,
The Quaker truth and sweetness,
And the strength of the danger-girdled race
Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness.
From the homes of all, where her being began,

She took what she gave to Man;
Justice, that knew no station,

Belief, as soul decreed,

Free air for aspiration,

Free force for independent deed!

She takes, but to give again,

As the sea returns the rivers in rain;
And gathers the chosen of her seed
From the hunted of every crown and creed.

Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine;
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine;
Her France pursues some stream divine;
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine;
Her Italy waits by the western brine;
And, broad-based under all,

Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood,
As rich in fortitude

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