“I used to hear the traveler's voice,

As here he passed along;
Or maiden's, as she loitered home,

Singing her evening song.
No traveler's voice may now be heard,

In fear he hastens by ;
But I have heard the village maid

In vain for succor cry.

• I used to see the youths row down,

And watch the dripping oar,
As pleasantly their viol's tones

Came softened to the shore.
King Henry, many a blackened corpse

I now see floating down
Thou bloody man! repent in time,

And leave this leaguered town."

" I shall go on,” king Henry cried,

“And conquer this good land;
Seest thou not, herinit, that the Lord

Hath. given it to my hand ?".
The hermit heard king Henry speak,

And angrily looked down ;-
His face was gentle, and, for that,

More solemn was his frown.

“Thou conqueror king, repent in time,

Or dread the coming wo;
For, Henry, thou hast heard the threat,

And soon shall feel the blow !"
King Henry forced a careless smile,

As the hermit went his way;
But Henry soon remembered him

Upon his dying day

a

11.

THE WOUNDED SOLDIER.-Anonymous.

The sun had just retired; the dews of eve

Their glow-worm lustre scattered o'er the vale ; T'he lonely nightingale began to grieve,

Telling, with many a pause, her tenderest tale.

"Twas then, where peasant footsteps marked the way,

A wounded soldier feebly moved along; Nor aught regarded he the softening ray,

Nor the melodious bird's expressive song.

On crutches borne, his mangled limbs he drew,

Unsightly remnants of the battle's rage ; While pity, in his youthful form might view

A helpless prematurity of age.

Then, as with strange contortions, laboring slow,

He gained the summit of his native hill,
And saw the well-known prospect spread below,

The farm, the cot, the hamlet and the mill ;

In spite of fortitude, one struggling sigh

Shook the firm texture of his tortured heart; And from his hollow and dejected eye

One trembling tear hung ready to depart.

“How changed,” he cried, “is the fair scene to me,

Since last across this narrow path I went! The soaring lark felt not superior glee,

Nor any human breast more true content.

“Oh hapless day! when, at a neighboring wake,

The gaudy sergeant caught my wondering eye ; And as his tongue of war and honor spake,

I felt a wish—to conquer or to die!

“ Then, while he bound the ribands on my brow,

He talk'd of captains kind, and generals good;
Said, a whole nation would

my
fame

avow,
And bounty called the purchase of my blood.

“ Yet I refused that bounty,—I disdained

To sell my service in a righteous cause ; And such, (to my dull sense it was explained)

The cause of monarchs, justice and the laws.

“The rattling drums beat loud, the fifes began,My king and country seem'd to ask

my

aid ; Through every vein the thrilling ardor ran, — I left my humble cot, my village maid.

"Ob hapless day! torn from my Lucy's eharmo,

1 thence was hurried to a scene of strife, To painful marches, and the din of arms

The wreck of reason, and the waste of life.

“In lothsome vessels now with crowds confined,

Now led with hosts to slaughter in the field ;Now backward driven, like leaves before the wind,

Too weak to stand, and yet ashamed to yield;

“ Till oft-repeated victories inspired

With tenfold fury the indignant foe; Who ruthless still advanced as we retired,

And laid our boasted, proudest honors low.

Through frozen deserts then compelled to fly,

Our est legions moldered fast away ;Thousands, of wounds and sickness left to die,

While hovering ravens marked them for their prey.

66 Oh! be this warfare of the world accursed!

The son now weeps not on the father's bier; But gray-haired, (for nature is reversed)

Drops o'er his children's grave an icy tear."

He spoke ;-and now by varying passions tossed,

He reached the threshold of his father's shed; Who knew not of his fate, yet mourned him lost

Amid the number of the unnamed dead.

Soon as they heard' his well-remembered voice,

A ray of rapture chased habitual care; “Our Henry lives—we may again rejoice;"

And Lucy sweetly blushed, for she was there.

But when he entered in such horrid guise

His mother shrieked, and dropped upon the floor; His father looked to heaven with streaming eyes,

And his dear Lucy sunk-to rise no more!

12. ANDREW JONES.- -Wordsworth.

“I hate that Andrew Jones; he'll breed His children up to waste and pillage ;

I wish the press-gang or the drum,

With its tantara sounds would come, And sweep him from the village !"

I said not this, because he loves
Through the long day to swear and tipple,

But for the poor dear sake of one

To whom a foul deed he had done, A friendless man-a traveling cripple!

a

For this poor crawling, helpless wretch,
Some horseman who was passing by,

A penny on the ground had thrown;

But the poor cripple was alone
And could not stoop-no help was nigh.

Inch thick the dust lay on the ground,
For it had long been droughty weather,

So with his staff, the cripple wrought

Among the dust, till he had brought The half-pennies together.

It chanced that Andrew passed that way, Just at the time; and there he found

The cripple at the midday heat,

Standing alone, and at his feet He saw the penny on the ground.

He stooped and took the penny up,
And when the cripple nearer drew,

Quoth Andrew, “under half a crown

What a man finds is all his own, And so my friend, good day to you.”.

And hence I said that Andrew's boys
Will all be trained to waste and pillage ;

And wished the press-gang or the drum,

With its tantara sounds would come, : And sweep him from the village.

13.

THE WIDOWED MOTHER.

-Wilson.

Beside her babe, who sweetly slept,
A widowed mother sat and wept
O'er
years

of love gone by; And as the sobs thick-gathering came, She murmured her dead husband's name

'Mid that sad lullaby.

Well might that lullaby be sad,
For not one single friend she had

On this cold-hearted earth :
The sea will not give back its prey,-
And they were wrapt in foreign clay

Who gave the orphan birth.

Steadfastly as a star doth look
Upon a little murmuring brook,

She gazed upon the bosom And fair brow of her sleeping son" Oh merciful heaven! when I am gone,

Thine is this earthly blossom."

While thus she sat, a sunbeam broke
Into the room :--the babe awoke,

And from his cradle smiled!
Ah me! what kindling smiles met there!
I knew not whether was more fair,

The mother or the child !

With joy fresh-sprung from short alarms,
The smiler stretched his rosy arms,

And to her bosom leapt-
All tears at once were swept away,
And said a face as bright as day,

“Forgive me that I wept !"

Sufferings there are from nature sprung,
Ear hath not heard, nor poet's tongue

May venture to declare;
But this, as holy writ, is sure-
The griefs she bids us here endure:

She can herself repair !