"The blessings happy monarchs have, be thine, O

But now before her people's face she bendeth hers anew, And calls them, while she vows, to be her witness thereunto.

She vowed to rule, and in that oath, her childhood put away—

She doth maintain her womanhood, in vowing love

to-day.

O, lovely lady!-let her vow!—such lips become such

VOWS,-

And fairer goeth bridal wreath than crown with vernal brows!

O, lovely lady!-let her vow!-yea, let her vow to love!

And though she be no less a queen-with purples hung

above,

The pageant of a court behind, the royal kin around, And woven gold to catch her looks turned maidenly

to ground,

Yetmay the bride-veil hide from her a little of that state, While loving hopes, for retinues, about her sweetness

wait!

SHE VOWS to love, who vowed to rule the chosen at

her side

Let none say, God preserve the queen

Bless the bride !

!—but rather,

None blow the trump, none bend the knee, none vio

late the dream

Wherein no monarch, but a wife, she to herself may

seem!

VOL. II.-22

Or, if ye say, Preserve the queen!-oh, breathe it

inward low

She is a woman and beloved!--and 'tis enough but so! Count it enough, thou noble prince, who tak'st her by the hand,

And claimest for thy lady-love, our lady of the land !— And since, Prince Albert, men have called thy spirit high and rare,

And true to truth and brave for truth, as some at Augsburg were,

We charge thee, by thy lofty thoughts, and by thy poet-mind,

Which not by glory and degree takes measure of man

kind,

Esteem that wedded hand less dear for sceptre than

for ring,

And hold her uncrowned womanhood to be the royal thing!

And

now, upon our queen's last vow, what blessings shall we pray?

None straitened to a shallow crown, will suit our lips

to-day.

Behold, they must be free as love--they must be broad as free-

Even to the borders of heaven's light and earth's humanity!

Long live she!-send up loyal shouts—and true hearts pray between,

"The blessings happy PEASANTS have, be thine, O crowned queen!"

CROWNED AND BURIED.

NAPOLEON!-years ago, and that great word,
Compact of human breath in hate and dread
And exultation, skied us overhead-

An atmosphere whose lightning was the sword,
Scathing the cedars of the world,—drawn down
In burnings, by the metal of a crown.

Napoleon! Nations, while they cursed that name,
Shook at their own curse; and while others bore
Its sound, as of a trumpet, on before,
Brass-fronted legions justified its fame-
And dying men, on trampled battle-sods,
Near their last silence, uttered it for God's.

Napoleon! Sages, with high foreheads drooped,
Did use it for a problem; children small
Leapt up to greet it, as at manhood's call:
Priests blessed it from their altars overstooped
By meek-eyed Christs,-and widows with a moan
Spake it, when questioned why they sat alone.

That name consumed the silence of the snows
In Alpine keeping, holy and cloud-hid!
The mimic eagles dared what Nature's did,
And over-rushed her mountainous repose
In search of eyries: and the Egyptian river
Mingled the same word with its grand 'For ever.'

That name was shouted near the pyramídal
Egyptian tombs, whose mummied habitants,
Packed to humanity's significance,

Motioned it back with stillness! Shouts as idle
As hireling artists' work of myrrh and spice,
Which swathed last glories round the Ptolemies.

The world's face changed to hear it! Kingly men
Came down, in chidden babes' bewilderment,
From autocratic places-each content

With sprinkled ashes for anointing !—then
The people laughed or wondered for the nonce,
To see one throne a composite of thrones

Napoleon! And the torrid vastitude
Of India felt, in throbbings of the air,

That name which scattered by disastrous blare
All Europe's bound-lines,-drawn afresh in blood!
Napoleon-from the Russias, west to Spain!
And Austria trembled-till we heard her chain.

And Germany was 'ware--and Italy,
Oblivious of old fames-her laurel-locked,
High-ghosted Cæsars passing uninvoked,—
Did crumble her own ruins with her knee,
To serve a newer !-Ay! and Frenchmen cast
A future from them, nobler than her past.

For, verily, though France augustly rose
With that raised NAME, and did assume by such
The purple of the world,-none gave so much

As she, in purchase-to speak plain, in loss-
Whose hands, to freedom stretched, dropped paralyzed
To wield a sword, or fit an undersized

King's crown to a great man's head! And though along
Her Paris' streets, did float on frequent streams
Of triumph, pictured or emmarbled dreams,
Dreampt right by genius in a world gone wrong,-
No dream, of all so won, was fair to see
As the lost vision of her liberty.

Napoleon! 'twas a high name lifted high!
It met at last God's thunder sent to clear
Our compassing and covering atmosphere,
And
open a clear sight, beyond the sky,

Of supreme empire! this of earth's was done-
And kings crept out again to feel the sun.

The kings crept out-the peoples sat at home,
And finding the long-invocated peace

A pall embroidered with worn images

Of rights divine, too scant to cover doom
Such as they suffered,-cursed the corn that grew
Rankly, to bitter bread, on Waterloo !

A deep gloom centered in the deep repose-
The nations stood up mute to count their dead-
And he who owned the NAME which vibrated
Through silence, trusting to his noblest foes,
When earth was all too gray for chivalry-
Died of their mercies, 'mid the desert sea.