Go, when the sabbath bell is heard*
Up through the wilds to float,

When the dark old woods and caves are stirr'd

To gladness by the note;

When forth, along their thousand rills,
The mountain people come,
Join thou their worship on those hills
Of glorious martyrdom.

And while the song of praise ascends,
And while the torrent's voice
Like the swell of many an organ blends,
Then let thy soul rejoice!

Rejoice, that human heart, through scorn,

Through shame, through death, made strong, Before the rocks and heavens have borne

Witness of God so long!

THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS.

"Sing aloud Old songs, the precious music of the heart." Wordsworth.

SING them upon the sunny hills,
When days are long and bright,
And the blue gleam of shining rills
Is loveliest to the sight,

Sing them along the misty moor,
Where ancient hunters roved,

And swell them through the torrent's roar-
The songs our fathers loved!

The songs their souls rejoiced to hear
When harps were in the hall,

And each proud note made lance and spear
Thrill on the banner'd wall:

*See 'Gilley's Researches among the mountains of Piedmont,' for an interesting description of a sabbath day in the upper regions of the Vaudois. The inhabitants of those Protestant valleys, who like the Swiss, repair with their flocks and herds to the summits of the hills during the summer, are followed thither by their pastors, and at that season of the year assemble on that sacred day, to wor ship in the open air.

The songs that through our valleys green,
Sent on from age to age,
Like, his own river's voice, have been
The peasant's heritage.

The reaper sings them when the vale
Is fill'd with plumy sheaves;
The woodman, by the starlight pale
Cheer'd homeward through the leaves:
And unto them the glancing oars
A joyous measure keep,

Where the dark rocks that crest our shores
Dash back the foaming deep.

So let it be a light they shed

O'er each old fount and grove;
A memory of the gentle dead,
A spell of lingering love:
Murmuring the names of mighty men,
They bid our streams roll on,
And link high thoughts to every glen
Where valiant deeds were done.

Teach them your children round the hearth,
When evening-fires burn clear,
And in the fields of harvest-mirth,
And on the hills of deer!

So shall each unforgotten word,
When far those loved ones roam,
Call back the hearts that once it stirr'd
To childhood's holy home.

The green woods of their native land
Shall whisper in the strain,
The voices of their household band

Shall sweetly speak again;
The heathery heights in vision rise

Where like the stag they rovedSing to your sons those melodies, The songs your father loved.

VOL. II.

10

THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

LOWLY upon his bier

The royal conqueror lay,
Baron and chief stood near
Silent in war-array.

Down the long minster's aisle,

Crowds mutely gazing stream'd,
Altar and tomb the while,

Through mists of incense gleam'd:

And by the torch's blaze

The stately priest had said
High words of power and praise,
To the glory of the dead.

They lower'd him, with the sound
Of requiems, to repose,
When from the throngs around
A solemn voice arose :
"Forbear, forbear!" it cried,

"In the holiest name forbear!
He hath conquer'd regions wide,

But he shall not slumber there.

"By the violated hearth

Which made way for yon proud shrine,
By the harvests which this earth,
Hath borne to me and mine;

"By the home ev'n here o'erthrown,
On my children's native spot,-
Hence! with his dark renown

Cumber our birth-place not!
"Will my sire's unransom'd field

Q'er which your censers wave,
To the buried spoiler yield

Soft slumber in the grave?

"The tree before him fell

Which we cherish'd many a year,
But its deep root yet shall swell
And heave against his bier.
"The land that I have till'd,

Hath yet its brooding breast
With my home's white ashes fill'd-
And it shall not give him rest.
"Here each proud column's bed

Hath been wet by weeping eyes,-
Hence and bestow your dead

Where no wrong against him cries!"
Shame glow'd on each dark face

Of those proud and steel-girt men,
And they bought with gold a place

For their leader's dust e'en then.

A little earth for him

Whose banner flew so far!
And a peasant's tale could dim
The name, a nation's star!

One deep voice thus arose

From a heart which wongs had riven-
Oh! who shall number those

That were but heard in Heaven? *

* For the particulars of this and other scarcely less remarkable circumstances which attended the obsequies of William the Conqueror, see Sismondi's Histoire des Francais, vol. iv. p. 480.

THE SOUND OF THE SEA.

THOU art sounding on, thou mighty sea,
For ever and the same!
The ancient rocks yet ring to thee,

Whose thunders naught can tame.
Oh! many a glorious voice is gone,

From the rich bowers of earth, And hush'd is many a lovely one

Of mournfulness or mirth.

The Dorian flute that sigh'd of yore
Along thy wave, is still;

The harp of Judah peals no more
On Zion's awful hill.

And Memnon's lyre hath lost the chord
That breath'd the mystic tone,

And the songs at Rome's high triumphs pour'd,
Are with her eagles flown.

And mute the Moorish horn, that rang

O'er stream and mountain free,

And the hymn the leagued Crusaders sang,
Hath died in Galilee.

But thou art swelling on, thou deep,
Through many an olden clime,
Thy billowy anthem, ne'er to sleep
Until the close of time.

Thou Itftest up thy solemn voice
To every wind and sky,

And all our earth's green shores rejoice
In that one harmony.

It fills the noontide's calm profound,
The sunset's heaven of gold;
And the still midnight hears the spund,
Ev'n as when first it rolled.

Let there be silence, deep and strange,
Where sceptred cities rose!

Thou speak'st of one who doth not clrange-
-So may our hearts repose.