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 honour 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,
It glows with faith and pride,
And yearns with the fondness of a dove
To the light of its own fireside.

'Tis a rich rough gem, deny it who can!
And this is the heart of an Englishman.

STANZAS TO THE YOUNG.

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."

STANZAS TO THE YOUNG.

-Eliza Cook.

LONG have the wisest lips confessed
That minstrels' ones are far from wrong,
Who point a moral in a jest,

Or yield a sermon in a song.

So be it! Listen, ye who will,

And though my harp be roughly strung, Yet never shall its lightest thrill

Offend the old or taint the young.

Mark me! I ne'er presume to teach
The man of wisdom, gray and sage;
'Tis to the growing I would preach,
From moral text and simple page.

First, I would bid thee cherish Truth,
As leading star in virtue's train;
Folly may pass, nor tarnish youth,

But Falsehood leaves a poison stain.

Keep watch, nor let the burning tide

Of Impulse break from all control. The best of hearts needs pilot guide To steer it clear from Error's shoal.

One wave of Passion's boiling flood
May all the sea of life disturb,
And steeds of good but fiery blood

Will rush on death without a curb.

43

The coward wretch whose hand and heart

Can bear to torture aught below,

Is ever first to quail and start

From slightest pain or equal foe.

Be not too ready to condemn

The wrong thy brothers may have done :

Ere ye too harshly censure them

For human faults, ask-Have I none?

THE SABBATH BELL.

Live that thy young and glowing heart
Can think of death without a sigh;
And be assured that life is best

Which finds us least afraid to die.

-Eliza Cook.

THE SABBATH BELL.

PEAL on, peal on! I love to hear
The old church ding-dong, soft and clear;
The welcome sounds are doubly blest
With future hope and earthly rest.
Yet were no calling changes found
To spread their cheering echoes round,
There's not a place where man may dwell,
But he can hear a Sabbath bell.

Go to the woods, when winter's song
Howls like a famished wolf along;
Or when the south winds scarcely turn
The light leaves of the trembling fern.
Although no cloister chimes ring there,
The heart is called to faith and prayer;
For all creation's voices tell

The tidings of the Sabbath bell.

45

Go to the billows: let them pour
In gentle calm or headlong roar ;
Let the vast ocean be thy home,
Thou 'lt find a God upon the foam.
In rippling swell or stormy roll,
The crystal waves shall wake thy soul,
And thou shalt feel the hallowed spell
Of the wide waters' Sabbath bell.

The lark upon his skyward way,
The robin on the hedgerow spray,
The bee within the wild thyme's bloom,
The owl amid the cypress gloom—
All sing, in every varied tone,
A vesper to the Great Unknown;
Above-below-one chorus swells
Of God's unnumbered Sabbath bells.

--Eliza Cook.

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 'Tis 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.