THE AMERICAN EAGLE.

With spreading wing, untired and strong,
That dares a soaring far and long,
That mounts aloft, nor looks below,
And will not quail though tempests blow.

The admiration of the earth,

In grand simplicity she stands ;
Like thee, the storms beheld her birth,
And she was nursed by rugged hands;
But, past the fierce and furious war,
Her rising fame new glory brings,
For kings and nobles come from far
To seek the shelter of her wings.
And like thee, rider of the cloud,
She mounts the heavens, serene and proud,
Great in a pure and noble fame,
Great in her spotless champion's name,
And destined in her day to be
Mighty as Rome-more nobly free.

My native land! my native land!

To whom my thoughts will fondly turn;
For her the warmest hopes expand,

For her the heart with fears will yearn.
Oh! may she keep her eye, like thee,
Proud eagle of the rocky wild,
Fixed on the sun of liberty,

By rank, by faction, unbeguiled;
Remembering still the rugged road

Our venerable fathers trod,

When they through toil and danger pressed,
To gain their glorious bequest,

And from each lip the caution fell

To those who followed, "Guard it well."

55

TO THE

AUTHOR OF "POETICAL SKETCHES."

BY MISS LANDON.

THERE is a dear and lovely power
Dwells in the silence of the flower,
When the buds meet the caress
Of the bee in their loneliness :-
In the song the green leaves sing
When they waken and wave in spring;
In the voice of the April bird-
The first air music the year hath heard;
In the deep and glorious light
Of the thousand stars at night:
In the dreaming of the moon,
Bright in her solitary noon;
In the tones of the plaining brook;
In the light of a first-love look;
In each bright and beautiful thing
With aught of fine imagining,
That power is dwelling. Now need I
Name the bright spell of Poësy?

And, graceful Bard, it has breathed on thee
A breath of the life, which is melody,
And given thy lute the touching strain
Which the heart but hears to echo again!
Mine is not the hand that flings

Living or lasting offerings:

Wear thy laurel-not mine the lay

Can either give or take away.

Others may praise thy harp,-for me

To praise, were only mockery;

The tribute I offer is such a one,

As the young bird would pour if the sun

Or the air were pleasant: thanks, not praise,

Oh, not to laud, but to feel thy lays!

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

BY THE REV. C. WOLFE.

Nor a drum was heard-not a funeral note,
While his corse to the ramparts we hurried
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero was buried!

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him, But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him!
But nothing he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

58

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock told the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
Of the enemy sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory: We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory.

THE WAR OF THE LEAGUE.

BY THOMAS MACAULEY.

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!

And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of

Navarre!

Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,

Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, oh pleasant land of France!

And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,

Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.

As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our

joy,

For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.

Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the
chance of war,

Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry, and King Henry of
Navarre.

THE WAR OF THE LEAGUE.

59

Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn

of day,

We saw the army of the League drawn out in long

array;

With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish

spears.

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land!

And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand;

And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood,

And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;

And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate

of war,

To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.

The King is come to marshal us, in all his armour drest, And he has bound a snow-white plume, upon his gallant crest.

He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye; He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.

Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,

Down all our line, a deafening shout, “God save our Lord the King,"

“An if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he

may,

For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray,— Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war,

And be your oriflamme, to-day, the helmet of Navarre."