When young and old in circle

Around the firebrands close;

When the girls are weaving baskets, And the lads are shaping bows;

When the goodman mends his armor,
And trims his helmet's plume;
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom;
With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told,

How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

SEMPRONIUS'S SPEECH FOR WAR.

My voice is still for war.

Gods can a Roman senate long debate
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?
No; let us rise at once, gird on our swords,
And at the head of our remaining troops
Attack the foe, break through the thick array
Of his thronged legions, and charge home upon
him.

Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest,
May reach his heart, and free the world from bond-
age.

Rise! Fathers, rise! 'tis Rome demands your help:
Rise, and revenge her slaughtered citizens,
Or share their fate! The corpse of half her senate
Manures the fields of Thessaly, while we
Sit here deliberating, in cold debates,
If we should sacrifice our lives to honor,
Or wear them out in servitude and chains.
Rouse up, for shame! Our brothers of Pharsalia
Point out their wounds, and cry aloud, — “To
battle!"

Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unrevenged among us.

JOSEPH ADDISON.

"T is because resentment ties

All the terrors of our tongues.

"Rome shall perish- write that word
In the blood that she has spilt-
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

"Rome, for empire far renowned,

Tramples on a thousand states; Soon her pride shall kiss the ground, Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

"Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.

"Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.

WILLIAM COWPER.

BOADICEA.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,

Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage and full of grief.

"Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,

HERMANN AND THUSNELDA.

[Hermann, or, as the Roman historians call him, Arminius, was a chieftain of the Cheruscans, a tribe in Northern Germany. After serving in Illyria, and there learning the Roman arts of warfare, he came back to his native country, and fought successfully for its independence. He defeated beside a defile near Detmold, in Westphalia, the Roman legions under Varus, with a slaughter so mortify. ing that the Proconsul is said to have killed himself, and Augustus to have received the catastrophe with indecorous expressions of grief.]

HA! there comes he, with sweat, with blood of Romans,

And with dust of the fight all stained! O, never Saw I Hermann so lovely!

Never such fire in his eyes!

Come! I tremble for joy; hand me the Eagle, And the red, dripping sword! come, breathe, and rest thee;

Rest thee here in my bosom;
Rest from the terrible fight!

Was struck-struck like a dog - by one who wore
The badge of Ursini ! because, forsooth,
He tossed not high his ready cap in air,
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts,
At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men,
And suffer such dishonor? men, and wash not

I have known deeper wrongs. I that speak to

ye

I had a brother once, a gracious boy,

Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,
Of sweet and quiet joy; there was the look
|Of Heaven upon his face which limners give
To the beloved disciple. How I loved
That gracious boy! younger by fifteen years,
Brother at once and son ! He left my side, -
A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour
The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried
For vengeance! Rouse, ye Romans! Rouse,
ye slaves!

Have ye brave sons ?- Look in the next fierce brawl

father

Cold and silent in death? O, had Augustus Only headed his army,

He should lie bloodier there!"

Let me lift up thy hair; 't is sinking, Hermann; Proudly thy locks should curl above the crown

now!

Sigmar is with the immortals!
Follow, and mourn him no more!

KLOPSTOCK. Translation of
CHARLES T. BROOKS.

To see them live, torn from your arms, disdained,
Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice,
Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome,
That sate on her seven hills, and from her throne
Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans.
Why, in that elder day to be a Roman
Was greater than a king! And once again—
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus ! -once again I swear
The eternal city shall be free!

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

RIENZI TO THE ROMANS.

FRIENDS!

I came not here to talk. Ye know too well
The story of our thraldom. We are slaves!
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! he sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave! Not such as, swept along
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame,
But base, ignoble slaves! - slaves to a horde
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots; lords
Rich in some dozen paltry villages,
Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great
In that strange spell, a name! Each hour, dark
fraud,

Or open rapine, or protected murder,
Cries out against them. But this very day
An honest man, my neighbor, there he stands,—

MAKE WAY FOR LIBERTY!

[On the exploit of Arnold Winkelried at the battle of Sempach, in which the Swiss, fighting for their independence, totally defeated the Austrians, in the fourteenth century.]

"MAKE way for Liberty! he cried; Made way for Liberty, and died!

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, A living wall, a human wood!

A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown ;
A rampart all assaults to bear,

Till time to dust their frames should wear;
A wood, like that enchanted grove
In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
Where every silent tree possessed
A spirit prisoned in its breast,
Which the first stroke of coming strife
Would startle into hideous life;

So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears,

Whose polished points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers' splendors run
Along the billows to the sun.

Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their native land:
Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And forged their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords,
And what insurgent rage had gained
In many a mortal fray maintained;
Marshalled once more at Freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall,

Where he who conquered, he who fell,
Was deemed a dead, or living Tell!
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe'er his arrows flew
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod
Which his awakening footstep trod.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burnt within,
The battle trembled to begin;

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was nowhere found,
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 't were suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet,
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes the homes of slaves ?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanging chains above their head?

It must not be this day, this hour,
Annihilates the oppressor's power;
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield, -
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.

Few were the number she could boast;
But every freeman was a host,
And felt as though himself were he
On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one indeed;
Behold him, Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.

Unmarked he stood amid the throng, In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face,
And by the motion of his form
Anticipate the bursting storm,
And by the uplifting of his brow
Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But 't was no sooner thought than done, The field was in a moment won :

"Make way for Liberty!" he cried, Then ran, with arms extended wide, As if his dearest friend to clasp ; Ten spears he swept within his grasp.

"Make way for Liberty!" he cried; Their keen points met from side to side; He bowed amongst them like a tree, And thus made way for Liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly; "Make way for Liberty !" they cry, And through the Austrian phalanx dart, As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart; While, instantaneous as his fall, Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all : An earthquake could not overthrow A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free; Thus death made way for Liberty!

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

SWITZERLAND.

WILLIAM TELL.

With what a pride look up to heaven,

ONCE Switzerland was free!
I used to walk these hills,
And bless God that it was so! It was free
From end to end, from cliff to lake 't was free!
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plough our valleys, without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow
In very presence of the regal sun!

How happy was I in it, then! I loved
Its very storms. Ay, often have I sat
In my boat at night, when midway o'er the lake,
The stars went out, and down the mountain

Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold,

When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day;

And to-morrow shall the fox from her chambers in the rocks

Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey.

Where be your tongues, that late mocked at heaven and hell and fate?

And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades?

Your perfumed satin clothes, your catches and your oaths?

Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your spades?

Down! down! forever down, with the mitre and the crown!

With the Belial of the court, and the Mammon

of the Pope!

There is woe in Oxford halls, there is wail in Durham's stalls;

The Jesuit smites his bosom, the bishop rends

his cope.

And she of the seven hills shall mourn her children's ills,

And tremble when she thinks on the edge of England's sword;

And the kings of earth in fear shall shudder

when they hear

What the hand of God hath wrought for the houses and the word!

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.