THE SONG OF THE WESTERN
MEN

A GOOD Sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!

King James's men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do.

And have they fix'd the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!

Out spake their captain brave and bold, A merry wight was he :

"If London Tower were Michael's hold, We'll set Trelawny free !

"We'll cross the Tamar, land to land, The Severn is no stay,

With one and all,' and hand in hand,

And who shall bid us nay?

"And when we come to London Wall,

A pleasant sight to view, Come forth! come forth, ye cowards all, Here's men as good as you!

"Trelawny he's in keep and hold, Trelawny he may die;

But here's twenty thousand Cornish bold, Will know the reason why!"

MAWGAN OF MELHUACH

'TWAS a fierce night when old Mawgan died,

Men shudder'd to hear the rolling tide : The wreckers fled fast from the awful shore, They had heard strange voices amid the

roar.

"Out with the boat there," some one cried, "Will he never come? we shall lose the tide: His berth is trim and his cabin stor'd, He's a weary long time coming on board."

The old man struggled upon the bed: He knew the words that the voices said; Wildly he shriek'd as his eyes grew dim, "He was dead! he was dead! when I buried him."

Hark yet again to the devilish roar,
"He was nimbler once with a ship on shore;
Come! come! old man, 't is a vain delay,
We must make the offing by break of day."

Hard was the struggle, but at the last, With a stormy pang old Mawgan past, And away, away, beneath their sight, Gleam'd the red sail at pitch of night.

FEATHERSTONE'S DOOM TWIST thou and twine! in light and gloom A spell is on thine hand;

The wind shall be thy changeful loom,
Thy web the shifting sand.

Twine from this hour, in ceaseless toil,
On Blackrock's sullen shore;
Till cordage of the sand shall coil
Where crested surges roar.

'Tis for that hour, when, from the wave, Near voices wildly cried;

When thy stern hand no succor gave,
The cable at thy side.

Twist thou and twine! in light and gloom
The spell is on thine hand;

The wind shall be thy changeful loom,
Thy web the shifting sand.

"PATER VESTER PASCIT ILLA" OUR bark is on the waters wide around The wandering wave; above, the lonely sky. Hush! a young sea-bird floats, and that quick cry

Shrieks to the levell'd weapon's echoing sound,

Grasps its lank wing, and on, with reckless bound!

Yet, creature of the surf, a sheltering breast
To-night shall haunt in vain thy far-off nest,
A call unanswer'd search the rocky ground.
Lord of leviathan! when Ocean heard
Thy gathering voice, and sought his native
breeze;

When whales first plunged with life, and

He hears that sound, and dreams of home
Soothe the wild orphan of the foam.
"Come to thy God in time!"
Thus saith their pealing chime :
Youth, manhood, old age past,
"Come to thy God at last.”

But why are Bottreau's echoes still?
Her tower stands proudly on the hill;

Yet the strange chough that home hath found,

The lamb lies sleeping on the ground.
"Come to thy God in time !"
Should be her answering chime :
"Come to thy God at last!"
Should echo on the blast.

The ship rode down with courses free,
The daughter of a distant sea :
Her sheet was loose, her anchor stor❜d,
The merry Bottreau bells on board.
"Come to thy God in time !"
Rung out Tintadgel chime;
Youth, manhood, old age past,
"Come to thy God at last!"

The pilot heard his native bells Hang on the breeze in fitful swells; "Thank God," with reverent brow he cried, "We make the shore with evening's tide." "Come to thy God in time !" It was his marriage chime : Youth, manhood, old age past, His bell must ring at last.

“Thank God, thou whining knave, on land, But thank, at sea, the steersman's hand," The captain's voice above the gale: "Thank the good ship and ready sail." "Come to thy God in time !" Sad grew the boding chime :

"Come to thy God at last!" Boom'd heavy on the blast.

Uprose that sea! as if it heard

The mighty Master's signal-word : What thrills the captain's whitening lip ? The death-groans of his sinking ship. "Come to thy God in time !" Swung deep the funeral chime : Grace, mercy, kindness past, "Come to thy God at last!

Long did the rescued pilot tell

When gray hairs o'er his forehead fell,
While those around would hear and weep —
That fearful judgment of the deep.
"Come to thy God in time !"
He read his native chime :
Youth, manhood, old age past,
His bell rung out at last.

Still when the storm of Bottreau's waves
Is wakening in his weedy caves,
Those bells, that sullen surges hide,
Peal their deep notes beneath the tide :
"Come to thy God in time!"
Thus saith the ocean chime :
Storm, billow, whirlwind past,
"Come to thy God at last!"

TO ALFRED TENNYSON THEY told me in their shadowy phrase, Caught from a tale gone by,

That Arthur, King of Cornish praise, Died not, and would not die.

Dreams had they, that in fairy bowers
Their living warrior lies,
Or wears a garland of the flowers
That grow in Paradise.

I read the rune with deeper ken,
And thus the myth I trace:

A bard should rise, mid future men,
The mightiest of his race.

He would great Arthur's deeds rehearse
On gray Dundagel's shore;

And so the King in laurell'd verse
Shall live, and die no more!

THE CARDINAL'S SOLILOQUY FROM RICHELIEU; OR, THE CONSPIRACY"

Rich. [reading]. "In silence, and at night, the Conscience feels

That life should soar to nobler ends than Power."

So sayest thou, sage and sober moralist! But wert thou tried? Sublime Philosophy, Thou art the Patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven,

And bright with beckoning angels-but, alas!

We see thee, like the Patriarch, but in dreams,

By the first step, dull-slumbering on the earth.

Upon the dark and stormy tides where life Gives battle to the elements, and man Wrestles with man for some slight plank, whose weight

Will bear but one, while round the desperate wretch

The hungry billows roar, and the fierce Fate, Like some huge monster, dim-seen through the surf,

Waits him who drops;-ye safe and formal men,

Who write the deeds, and with unfeverish hand

Weigh in nice scales the motives of the Great,

Ye cannot know what ye have never tried!
History preserves only the fleshless bones
Of what we are, and by the mocking skull
The would-be wise pretend to guess the
features.

Without the roundness and the glow of life
How hideous is the skeleton! Without
The colorings and humanities that clothe
Our errors, the anatomists of schools
Can make our memory hideous.

I have wrought
Great uses out of evil tools, and they
In the time to come may bask beneath the
light

Which I have stolen from the angry gods, And warn their sons against the glorious

theft,

Forgetful of the darkness which it broke.
I have shed blood, but I have had no foes
Save those the State had; if my wrath was
deadly,

'Tis that I felt my country in my veins, And smote her sons as Brutus smote his

own.

And yet I am not happy blanch'd and sear'd

Before my time; breathing an air of hate, And seeing daggers in the eyes of men, And wasting powers that shake the thrones of earth

In contest with the insects; bearding kings And brav'd by lackies; murder at my bed; And lone amidst the multitudinous web, With the dread Three, that are the Fates who hold

In one slight bark upon the shoreless sea; The yoked steer, after his day of toil, Forgets the goad, and rests: to me alike Or day or night — Ambition has no rest! Shall I resign? who can resign himself? For custom is ourself; as drink and food Become our bone and flesh, the aliments Nurturing our nobler part, the mind, thoughts, dreams,

Passions, and aims, in the revolving cycle Of the great alchemy, at length are made Our mind itself; and yet the sweets of leisure,

An honor'd home far from these base intrigues,

An eyrie on the heaven-kiss'd heights of wisdom.

[Taking up the book. Speak to me, moralist!—I'll heed thy

counsel.

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE

COME hither, Evan Cameron !
Come, stand beside my knee :
I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.
There's shouting on the mountain-side,
There's war within the blast ;
Old faces look upon me,

Old forms go trooping past:
I hear the pibroch wailing
Amidst the din of fight,
And my dim spirit wakes again
Upon the verge of night.

'T was I that led the Highland host
Through wild Lochaber's snows,
What time the plaided clans came down
To battle with Montrose.

I've told thee how the Southrons fell
Beneath the broad claymore,
And how we smote the Campbell clan
By Inverlochy's shore.

I've told thee how we swept Dundee,
And tam'd the Lindsays' pride ;
But never have I told thee yet
How the great Marquis died.

A traitor sold him to his foes

O deed of deathless shame!

I charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet
With one of Assynt's name
Be it upon the mountain's side,
Or yet within the glen,
Stand he in martial gear alone,
Or back'd by armed men

Face him, as thou wouldst face the man
Who wrong'd thy sire's renown;
Remember of what blood thou art,
And strike the caitiff down!

They brought him to the Watergate,
Hard bound with hempen span,
As though they held a lion there,
And not a fenceless man.
They set him high upon a cart,
The hangman rode below,
They drew his hands behind his back
And bar'd his noble brow.
Then, as a hound is slipp'd from leash,
They cheer'd the common throng,

And blew the note with yell and shout And bade him pass along.

It would have made a brave man's heart
Grow sad and sick that day,

To watch the keen malignant eyes
Bent down on that array.
There stood the Whig west-country lords,
In balcony and bow;

There sat their gaunt and wither'd dames,
And their daughters all a-row.
And every open window

Was full as full might be

With black-rob'd Covenanting carles,
That goodly sport to see!

But when he came, though pale and wan,
He look'd so great and high,
So noble was his manly front,
So calm his steadfast eye,
The rabble rout forbore to shout,
And each man held his breath,
For well they knew the hero's soul
Was face to face with death.
And then a mournful shudder

Through all the people crept,
And some that came to scoff at him
Now turn'd aside and wept.

But onwards always onwards,
In silence and in gloom,
The dreary pageant labor'd,

Till it reach'd the house of doom.
Then first a woman's voice was heard
In jeer and laughter loud,
And an angry cry and a hiss arose

From the heart of the tossing crowd: Then as the Graeme look'd upwards, He saw the ugly smile

Of him who sold his king for gold,
The master-fiend Argyle !

The Marquis gaz'd a moment,
And nothing did he say,

But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale
And he turn'd his eyes away.
The painted harlot by his side,

She shook through every limb,
For a roar like thunder swept the street,
And hands were clench'd at him;
And a Saxon soldier cried aloud,
"Back, coward, from thy place!