The merry Homes of England! What gladsome looks of household love Meet, in the ruddy light! There woman's voice flows forth in song, Or lips move tunefully along The blessed Homes of England! Is laid the holy quietness That breathes from Sabbath-hours! Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime Floats through their woods at morn ; All other sounds, in that still time, Of breeze and leaf are born. The Cottage Homes of England! They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks, Through glowing orchards forth they peep, Each from its nook of leaves, And fearless there the lowly sleep, As the bird beneath their eaves. The free, fair Homes of England! *Originally published in Blackwood's Magazine. 21 THE SICILIAN CAPTIVE. -I dreamt thou wert A captive in thy hopelessness; afar of fire and slaughter; I can see thee wasting, L. E. L. THE champions had come from their fields of war, They had brought back the spoils of a hundred shores, They sat at their feast round the Norse-king's board, By the glare of the torch-light the mead was pour'd, The hearth was heap'd with the pine-boughs high, And it flung a red radiance on shields thrown by. The Scalds had chanted in Runic rhyme, Their songs of the sword and the olden time, Had breath'd from the walls where the bright spears hung. But the swell was gone from the quivering string, And a captive girl, at the warriors' call, Stood forth in the midst of that frowning hall. Lonely she stood :-in her mournful eyes Stately she stood-though her fragile frame And a deep flush pass'd like a crimson haze, O'er her marble cheek by the pine-fire's blaze; No soft hue caught from the south-wind's breath, But a token of fever, at strife with death She had been torn from her home away, That haunt the exile by foreign streams. They bade her sing of her distant land- Faint was the strain, in its first wild flow, |