SONGS FROM THE BETROTHED

Published in 1825.

I

'SOLDIER, WAKE!'

From Chapter xix.

SOLDIER, wake! the day is peeping,
Honor ne'er was won in sleeping;
Never when the sunbeams still
Lay unreflected on the hill:
Tis when they are glinted back
From axe and armor, spear and jack,
That they promise future story
Many a page of deathless glory.
Shields that are the foeman's terror,
Ever are the morning's mirror.

Arm and up! the morning beam
Hatn called the rustic to his team,
Hath called the falc'ner to the lake,
Hath called the huntsman to the brake;
The early student ponders o'er
His dusty tomes of ancient lore.
Soldier, wake! thy harvest, fame;
Thy study, conquest; war, thy game.
Shield, that would be foeman's terror,
Still should gleam the morning's mirror.

Poor hire repays the rustic's pain;
More paltry still the sportsman's gain:
Vainest of all, the student's theme
Ends in some metaphysic dream:
Yet each is up, and each has toiled,
Since first the peep of dawn has smiled:
And each is eagerer in his aim
Than he who barters life for fame.
Up, up, and arm thee, son of terror !
Be thy bright shield the morning's mirror.

II

WOMAN'S FAITH

From Chapter xx.

WOMAN'S faith, and woman's trust:
Write the characters in dust,
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
And each evanescent letter
Shall be clearer, firmer, better,

And more permanent, I ween,
Than the things those letters mean.

I have strained the spider's thread
'Gainst the promise of a maid;
I have weighed a grain of sand
'Gainst her plight of heart and hand;
I told my true love of the token,
How her faith proved light, and her word
was broken:

Again her word and truth she plight,
And I believed them again ere night.

III

'I ASKED OF MY HARP'

From Chapter xxxi. A lay, of which we can offer only a few fragments, literally translated from the ancient language in which they were chanted, premising that they are in that excursive symbolical style of poetry, which Taliessin, Llewarch Hen, and other bards, bad derived perhaps from the time of the Druids.' I ASKED of my harp, 'Who hath injured thy chords?''

And she replied, The crooked finger, which I mocked in my tune.'

-a blade

A blade of silver may be bended of steel abideth: Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance endureth.

The sweet taste of mead passeth from the lips,

But they are long corroded by the juice of wormwood;

The lamb is brought to the shambles, but the wolf rangeth the mountain; Kindness fadeth away, but vengeauce endureth.

I asked the red-hot iron, when it glim mered on the anvil, 'Wherefore glowest thou longer than the fire-brand?'

'I was born in the dark mine, and the brand in the pleasant greenwood.' Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance endureth.

I asked the green oak of the assembly, wherefore its boughs were dry and seared like the horns of the stag?

it the more,

and shame;

GLEE FOR KING CHARLES
From Chapter XX.

BRING the bowl which you boast,
Fill it up to the brim;

'Tis to him we love most,

And to all who love him Brave gallants, stand up,

And avaunt ye, base carles! Were there death in the cup,

Here's a health to King Charles !

Though he wanders through dangers,
Unaided, unknown,
Dependent on strangers,
Estranged from his own;
Though 't is under our breath
Amidst forfeits and perils,
Here's to honor and faith,
And a health to King Charles !

Let such honors abound

As the time can afford, The knee on the ground,

And the hand on the sword;