Till somebody, prerogatived

With reason, reasoned: Why he dived,
His brain would show us, I should say.

"John, go and catch-or, if needs be,
Purchase that animal for me!

By vivisection, at expense

Of half-an-hour and eighteen pence,
How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

CAVALIER TUNES.

I.

MARCHING ALONG.

I.

KENTISH Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

II.

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!
Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup

Till you're

(Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

III.

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell.

Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!
England, good cheer! Rupert is near!
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here.
(Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

IV.

Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!
Hold by the right, you double your might:
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,
(Chorus) March we along, fifty-score strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

II.

GIVE A ROUSE.

I.

KING CHARLES, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!

II.

Who gave me the goods that went since?
Who raised me the house that sank once?
Who helped me to gold that I spent since?
Who found me in wine you drank once?

(Chorus) King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!

III.

To whom used my boy George quaff else,

By the old fool's side that begot him?

For whom did he cheer and laugh else,

While Noll's damned troopers shot him?

(Chorus) King Charles, and who'll do him right now? King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now, King Charles!

III.

BOOT AND SADDLE.

I.

BOOT, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray,
(Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

II.

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say ;
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray,
God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay-
(Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!”

66

III.

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,

Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Round-heads' array:

Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay, (Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away?

IV.

Who? My wife Gertrude: that, honest and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counselors; what counsel they?
(Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

BEFORE.
I.

LET them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far.
God must judge the couple: leave them as they are
-Whichever one's the guiltless, to his glory,
And whichever one the guilt's with, to my story!

II.

Why, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough, Strike no arm out farther, stick and stink as now,

Leaving right and wrong to settle the embroilment,
Heaven with snaky hell, in torture and entoilment ?

III.

Who's the culprit of them? How must he conceive
God--the queen he caps to, laughing in his sleeve,
"Tis but decent to profess one's self beneath her:
Still, one must not be too much in earnest, either: "

IV.

Better sin the whole sin, sure that God observes ;
Then go live his life out! Life will try his nerves,
When the sky, which noticed all, makes no disclosure,
And the earth keeps up her terrible composure.

V.

Let him pace at pleasure, past the walls of rose,
Pluck their fruits when grape-trees graze him as he goes!
For he 'gins to guess the purpose of the garden,
With the sly mute thing, beside there, for a warden.

VI.

What's the leopard-dog-thing, constant at his side,
A leer and lie in every eye of its obsequious hide ?
When will come an end to all the mock obeisance,
And the price appear that pays for the misfeasance?

VII.

So much for the culprit. Who's the martyred man?
Let him bear one stroke more, for be sure he can!
He that strove thus evil's lump with good to leaven,
Let him give his blood at last and get his heaven!

VIII.

All or nothing, stake it! Trusts he God or no?
Thus far and no farther? farther? be it so!
Now, enough of your chicane of prudent pauses,
Sage provisos, sub-intents, and saving-clauses !

IX.

Ah, "forgive" you bid him? While God's champion lives,
Wrong shall be resisted: dead, why, he forgives.

But you must not end my friend ere you begin him :
Evil stands not crowned on earth, while breath is in him.

X.

Once more-Will the wronger, at this last of all,

Dare to say, "I did wrong," rising in his fall?

No?-Let go, then! Both the fighters to their places! While I count three, step you back as many paces!

AFTER.

TAKE the cloak from his face, and at first
Let the corpse do its worst!

How he lies in his rights of a man.
Death has done all death can.

And, absorbed in the new life he leads,

He recks not, he heeds

Nor his wrong nor my vengeance: both strike
On his senses alike,

And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.

Ha, what avails death to erase
His offense, my disgrace?

I would we were boys as of old
In the field, by the fold:

His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn
Were so easily borne!

I stand here now, he lies in his place:
Cover the face!

HERVÉ RIEL.

I.

ON the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred and ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French,--woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.

II.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship Damfreville;
Close on him fled, great and small
Twenty-two good ships in all;

And they signaled to the place

"Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still,

Here's the English can and will!"

III.

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board; “Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass? laughed they :