Lords and Princes by Philip's favour :
We by birthright are noble born!
Freemen born of the blood of freemen,
Sons of Cressy and Flodden are we :
We shall sunder them, fire, and plunder them,—
English boats on the English sea!
And our oath we swear

By the name we bear,

By England's Queen, and England free and fair,—
Her's ever, and her's still, come life, come death:
God save Elizabeth!

Drake and Frobisher, Hawkins and Howard,
Raleigh, Cavendish, Cecil and Brooke,
Hang like wasps by the flagships tower'd,
Sting their way through the thrice-piled oak :-
Let them range their seven-mile crescent,
Giant galleons, canvass wide!

Ours will harry them, board, and carry them,
Plucking the plumes of the Spanish pride.
For our oath we swear

By the name we bear,

By England's Queen, and England free and fair,— Her's ever, and her's still, come life, come death : God save Elizabeth!

-Has God risen in wrath and scatter'd, Have his tempests smote them in scorn? Past the Orcades, dumb and tatter'd,

'Mong sea-beasts do they drift forlorn?

We were as lions hungry for battle;

God has made our battle his own!

God has scatter'd them, sunk, and shatter'd them :
Give the glory to him alone!

While our oath we swear

By the name we bear,

By England's Queen, and England free and fair,Her's ever, and her's still, come life, come death : God save Elizabeth!

THERE are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.-Shakspeare.

WAR.-Byron.

HARK!-heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath? Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote; Nor sav'd your brethren ere they sank beneath Tyrants and tyrants' slaves?-the fires of death, The bale-fires flash on high :--írom rock to rock Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ; Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon :
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon
Flashing afar,- and at his iron feet

Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done;

For on this morn three potent nations meet,

To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see

(For one who hath no friend, no brother there,)

Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery,

Their various arms that glitter in the air!

What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey. All join the chase, but few the triumph share : The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array.

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high.
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies,
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
Are met-as if at home they could not die-
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,

And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

BALAKLAVA.-Archbishop Trench.

MANY a deed of faithful daring may obtain no record

here,

Wrought where none could see or note it, save the one Almighty Seer.

Many a deed, awhile remembered, out of memory needs must fall,

Covered, as the years roll onward, by oblivion's creeping pall:

But there are which never, never, to oblivion can give

room,

Till in flame earth's records perish, till the thunderpeal of doom.

And of these through all the ages married to immortal

fame,

One is linked, and linked for ever, Balaklava, with thy

name;

With thine armies three that wond'ring stood at gaze and held their breath,

With thy fatal lists of honour, and thy tournament of death.

O our brothers that are sleeping, weary with your great day's strife,

On that bleak Crimean headland, noble prodigals of life, Eyes which ne'er beheld you living, these have dearly mourned you dead,

All your squandered wealth of valour, all the lavish blood ye shed.

And in our eyes tears are springing; but we bid them back again;

None shall say, to see us weeping, that we hold your offering vain ;

That for nothing, in our sentence, did that holocaust arise,

With a battle-field for altar, and with you for sacrifice. Not for nought; to more than warriors armed as you for mortal fray,

Unto each that in life's battle waits his Captain's word

ye say

'What by duty's voice is bidden, there where duty's star may guide,

Thither follow, that accomplish, whatsoever else betide.' This ye taught; and this your lesson solemnly in blood ye sealed:

Heroes, martyrs, are the harvest Balaklava's heights shall yield.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.-Lord Lytton.

FROM Heaven what fancy stole

The dream of some good spirit, aye at hand,
The seraph whispering to th' exile soul
Tales of its native land?

Who to the cradle gave

The unseen watcher by the mother's side,
Born with the birth, companion to the grave,
The holy angel-guide?

Is it a fable?—“No,'

I hear LOVE answer from the sunlit air,

Still where my presence gilds the darkness-know
Life's angel-guide is there?' —

Is it a fable? Hark,

FAITH hymns from deeps beyond the palest star,
'I am the pilot to thy wandering bark

Thy guide to shores afar.'

Is it a fable?- sweet

From wave, from air, from every forest tree,
The murmur spoke, 'Each thing thine eyes can greet
An angel-guide can be.

'From myriads take thy choice,

In all that lives a guide to God is given;
Ever thou hear'st some angel guardian's voice
When Nature speaks of Heaven!'

THE GLADIATOR.-Byron.

I SEE before me the Gladiator lie :
He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low-

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and now

The arena swims around him he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday-

All this rush'd with his blood-Shall he expire
And unavenged?—Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.—Browning.

OH, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

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

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England-now!

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!