Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave, Watches breast-high and steady From under the rock, her bold sister Swum half-way already. Fortù, shall we sail there together And see from the sides Quite new rocks show their faces-new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, Just a loop to admit the quick lizards; Then, stand there and hear The birds' quiet singing, that tells us What life is, so clear! The secret they sang to Ulysses, When, ages ago, He heard and he knew this life's secret, I hear and I know! Ah, see! The sun breaks o'er Calvano- And flutters it o'er the mount's summit All is over! Look out, see the gipsy, Our tinker and smith, Has arrived, set up bellows and forge, And down-squatted forthwith To his hammering, under the wall there; One eye keeps aloof The urchins that itch to be putting His jews'-harps to proof, While the other, thro' locks of curled wire, Is watching how sleek Shines the hog, come to share in the windfalls -An abbot's own cheek! All is over! Wake up and come out now, And see the fine things got in order At Church for the show Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening; Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse The Dominican brother, these three weeks, Was getting by heart. Not a post nor a pillar but 's dizened With red and blue papers; All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar But the great masterpiece is the scaffold All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber, Who, when the priest 's hoarse, Will strike us up something that 's brisk And then will the flaxen-wigged Image Thro' the plain, while in gallant procession And all round the glad church lie old bottles With gunpowder stopped, Which will be, when the Image re-enters, Religiously popped. And at night from the crest of Calvano Great bonfires will hang, On the plain will the trumpets join chorus, And more poppers bang! At all events, come-to the garden, As far as the wall, See me tap with a hoe on the plaster Till out there shall fall A scorpion with wide angry nippers! "Such trifles "-you say? Fortù, in my England at home, Men meet gravely to-day And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws Is righteous and wise -If 'tis proper, Scirocco should vanish In black from the skies! THE LOST LEADER. I. JUST for a handful of silver he left us, They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, Rags-were they purple, his heart had been proud! Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! II. We shall march prospering,-not thro' his presence; Best fight on well, for we taught him,-strike gallantly, THE LOST MISTRESS. I. ALL's over, then-does truth sound bitter Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter II. And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, One day more bursts them open fully III. To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest ? May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we,-well, friends the merest Keep much that I'll resign: IV. For each glance of that eye so bright and black, V. -Yet I will but say what mere friends say, I will hold your hand but as long as all may, HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD. OH, to be in England Now that April 's there, 1. And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough II. And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows- And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, The buttercups, the little children's dower, HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA. NOBLY, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the north-west died away; and gray; "Here and here did England help me,-how can I help England?"-say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. |