May our commerce, our fame, and our glory increase,
Made rich by a blessing the blessing of peace;
For 'twas purchased, as gratitude's tongue must admit,
By our Wellington's sword, through the councils of Pitt!
(FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO CANTO THE FIRST OF MARMION, BY SCOTT.)
To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead nature hears,
And in her glory re-appears.
But oh! my country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise
;
The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasped the victor's steel?
The vernal sun new light bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallowed tomb!
Deep graved in every British heart,
O, never let those names depart!
Say to your sons,-Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Where'er his country's foes were found,
Was heard the fated thunder's sound;
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Rolled, blazed, destroyed,-and was no more.
Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launch'd that thunderbolt of war
On Egyyt, Haffina, Trafalgar :
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain's weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's sins an early grave.
Had'st thou but liv'd, though stripp'd of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
Then while on Britain's thousand plains,
One unpolluted Church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still upon the hallowed day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray ;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,-
He who preserved them, PIT, lies here!
The Church of our Fathers.
Half screen'd by its trees in the Sabbath's calm smile,
The Church of our Fathers, how meekly it stands !
O villagers, gaze on the old hallowed pile-
It was dear to their hearts, it was raised by their hands.
Who loves not the ground where they worshipp'd their God?
Who loves not the ground where their ashes repose?
Dear even the daisy that blooms on the sod,
For dear is the dust out of which it arose !
Then say, shall the temple our forefathers built,
Which the storms of long ages have battered in vain,
Be abandoned by us from supineness or guilt,
O say, shall it fall by the rash and profane?
Go, perish the impious hand that would take
One shred from its altar, one stone from its towers!
The pure blood of martyrs have flowed for its
And its fall-if it fall-shall be reddened with ours!
When Trafalgar's tremendous fight was won, And Freedom sacrificed her favourite son; Britannia, throned upon the heaving sea, Stained with her tears the pomp of victory; And gladly would have flung a way the fame Her hero gained, his spirit to reclaim !
As oft in life so in his last bequest,
The Patriot and the Papist stand confess'd;
The worthless trunk reclaims its native home,
The heart is where it ever was-at Rome.
Peel's Apostacy.
orange had a peel of yore,
So bright, so smooth, so fine of pore ;
So glossy, and so wondrous firm,
That England scarce could find a term
Of penegyric strong enough
Its essence and its fame to puff.
So much admired, it needs must go,
From hand to hand, from high to low;
Till even by Majesty 'twas graced,
And in a Cabinet was placed.
But, ah! the hot polluted air,
Of foul corruption which was there;
And all its pent up rotten store,
Withered the Orange to its core ;
Till now the once bright Peel is seen
By mildew turned to foulest green!
Hail sacred walls! while circling years shall flow,
Or genial suns illume this vale below;
While sparkling stars diffuse their distant light,
And cheer with fainter beams the sable night—
While yon blue arch with sun or stars shall shine,
Be thine the triumph as the woe was thine;
May all thy citizens supremely blest,
Unite the hero's with the patriot's breast,
And like their sires unrivalled in renown,
Maintain our liberties, our church, and crown.
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
PARIS, AUGUST 24TH, 1572.
St. Bartholomew's day! we have noted the time,
So fearfully dark in the annals of crime,
When France saw her thousands who worshipp'd the
Lord,
Fall, hewn to the ground by Rome's treacherous sword;
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