And Scotland's pride and prowess Was sunk and overthrown: The Covenant went down. ON AN EVENT IN ENGLISH HISTORY, WHICH TOOK PLACE IN DECEMBER 1660. "On Saturday (December 8) the Most Honourable House of Peers concurred with the Commons in the order for digging up of the carcasses of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, John Bradshaw, and Thomas Pride, and carrying them on an hurdle to Tyburn, where they are to be first hang'd up in their coffins, and then buried under the gallows."-Parliamentary Intelligencer, December 10th, 1660. Ay, hang his carcass up at Tyburn, fools! And England bow her head and drop a tear For him whose bones your hate dishonours there, DE PROFUNDIS. grass; How long have I lived here, sir? Ten years next Michaelmas, Through all the hours of daylight and far into the night, Till the hand would drop, and the room would swim before our failing sight, Here that poor lad and I have worked, translating boots and shoes, And my dear wife, that's dead there, worked with us at old clothes. Ah, sir, you don't know how we strove to keep our home together, For our bit of food and clothing, and coal in winter weather; I once went to the parish and asked a little aid, And the sour relieving officer gave a four-pound loaf of bread, But I would sooner die, sir, in hunger, cold, and grief, stones. You see this skinny arm, sir, yet it's an English limb; My poor heart's blood is English, and these tired eyes, now dim With over-work and hunger, used once to smile with joy When I roamed long since the Cheshire fields in spring-time when a boy. It's hard not to feel bitter when the rich go sweeping by, Without a kindly thought or wish for thousands such as I, When they cheapen down our labour, and drive us off the soil, And leave us nought in England but this life of want and toil. I've stood beside their open gates, and gazed across the lawn, And seen the grand old house and grounds in the soft and dewy dawn, And as the gates swung to again, and left me in the road, I felt how far away it was from my poor dark abode. I've heard that out of all the earth, in England here alone, Our children would find room there, and grow up tall and strong, And their hearts would not be soured with a sense of English wrong. They would learn in home what heaven means, and not grow up as now, With little thought save that of hunger, and their bitter lot below. I don't know where the fault is, nor where to find the cure, own, And some that it's the will of God the poor should always groan. I've wondered if God made the world, or if, as I've heard say, It doesn't kill us quickly, but its gripe is slow and sure; It's in the soul and bones and blood and stomach of the poor; It pinches us in childhood, and in our bit of youth Our hearts grow often sore and sick with the gnawing of its tooth. We don't know what the word life means, it's just a lingering death, Till weakness over-masters pain, and in mercy stops our breath ; Then unhonoured, but at rest, we possess the church-yard clay, And life, mayhap, begins for us in a land that's far away. THE ASCENT OF THE PURPLE MOUNTAIN. The way no true and earnest search could miss, It might be won. Such strength can hope instil, From head to foot in shining mail of proof, Gleamed in his right hand on the wondering throng From that ethereal blade, whose brightness they abhorred. The night-breeze swept aside the golden hair The soft yet mighty loveliness, and well His brow was crowned with intellect and grace, Of wisdom's presence told, and fancy's spell, And all the virtues high which in pure minds do dwell, The sombre pines their gloomy shadows shed And hissed across the path. He stopped to lace He passed within the gloom; all chill he felt And smitten by the vapours, sinks and dies; No ray of light could pierce the gloomy pall, A golden lamp whose bright and steadfast blaze |