For like thee he loved to gaze
On the works of peaceful days,
Shared a happy people's blessing,
Loved his country and his God,
Acting, not alone professing,
Honour's stainless pathway trod;

And, like thee, in peace he died,
Wept and honoured far and wide,
In the flower of manhood's pride!

ALFRED THE GREAT.

A Poem

BY

LAWRENCE B. MOLLOY.

ALFRED THE GREAT.

"A thousand years the earth cried, where art thou?
And then the shadows of thy coming fell

On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow;

And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen."
SHELLEY'S ODE TO LIBERTY.

As from the rocks that yonder mountain crown
The fierce free torrent dashes madly down,
Now leaves the steep and greets the grassy plain,
And glances onward toward the distant main,
Where fair-haired morning, herald of the day,
Gilds the grey cliffs, and strikes along the bay:
E'en such a birth-hour did our history know,
In such a varied stream our history flow,
And through the years rolled on its broad'ning way
Toward the far glories of the golden day.

But say what genial sun first loosed the snow, And bade the glittering torrent downward flow; Say whose the hand that swept the mist aside, That veiled the brightness of that earlier tide.

We know thee, Alfred, by the crown that glows
Amid the victor wreath that binds thy brows;
And by that clarion voice oft rolled on high
To lead thy warriors on to victory :

But loftier praise than deeds of might can give
Shall bid for thee a brighter memory live:
'He built his country's law '-a nobler name
Than chieftain's glory, or than conqueror's fame.

Winter's dread kingdom, came the foemen forth:
O'er England's fertile fields, from shore to shore,
In robber bands the rude invaders pour;
Fair lies the plain before them, and behind
O'er black'ning desert wails the moaning wind.
See where in bristling ranks they rush to war!
The mystic raven spreads his wings afar;—
That wondrous banner which the sisters wove
By the dark river in the war-god's grove ;
At the dread spell the moon to darkness grew,
Up from his crag the screaming eagle flew,
And the scared wolf forsook his bloody den
In the still shadows of the startled glen.-
Heard ye the shout of battle wake the land,
The clang of steel, the clash of mailed hand?
In battle's dreadful close for land and life
The Saxon warriors urge the desperate strife:
Vain the king's knightly prowess! On they come
Wild as the wolves that haunt their northern home.
Borne back, o'erwhelmed, behold thy squadrons die,
Till dark-eyed night goes up along the sky,
And the pale moon streams o'er the fatal field,
On broken helmet, and on shattered shield.

*

Who bows his head in yonder frowning pile,

Where silence broods round Æthelingey's isle,