For many a year in holy peace he stood,

The tallest of a noble brotherhood;

At length a godly king bestow'd their trunks
On a fraternity of studious monks,—

Good men, that wore the penitential weed.
Unquiet times of such meek men have need.

70

Long was the age-some thought an age too muchThat I was hallowed from a woman's touch.

I was a mere discomfort of a chair;

Monk did not sit in me, and did not dare :

75

My wooden arms had never clasped the fair.

My bones were stiff to plague the bones of others. The long bare legs of those long-praying brothers In me have left a dell, a hollow dint,

Beyond the date of reminiscent print.

But when bluff Harry rent the British rose
From the old stalk on which her sister grows,
When Luther's trumpet with a voice of storm
Defied the Pope and bid the Church reform,
Then I, alas! was but a bit of wood;

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85

For those who leaned on me, and those that stood,

Or knelt beside me in accustom'd prayer,

Became the pensioners of earth and air.

Poor wanderers, doom'd from doubting souls to crave
The shelter and the food which late they gave.
While I last note of a forgotten ditty,

No more a thing of worship, scarce of pity—
Am fain to rest unconsecrated now,
Like a pale votary forced to break her vow,
The humble inmate of a genial room,
Far from monastic pomp, monastic gloom.
I will not say how many men have sat
Between my arms to slumber or to chat;
What flying maid, what panting fugitive,
What sinner breathing the last word-forgive;

What lady-love, that dotes on babe so fresh,
And feels the life in its soft dimpling flesh;
Nor what besides of sorrow or of mirth
I may have witness'd by the glowing hearth.
'Tis true-(I fear not to reveal the truth)—
My later days were gayer than my youth;
Yet may my age for aye respected be,

For one good woman's sake that sat on me.

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105

TO THE MAGPIE.

WHAT shall we say of thee, pert, perking Mag, Whose every motion seems to fish for praise, Whose whole existence is a game at brag?

Art thou a stranger quite to poet's lays,

With black and white thy pretty self adorning, Like a blithe widow in her second mourning?

Thou wert the pet bird of the God of wine,

And dear thou art, and should'st be very dear, To that great Son of Jove whose mighty line, After long strife, and many a toilsome year, Regain'd at last their lawful heritage,

And reign'd in southern Greece for many an age.

For great Alcides never had a home

No wonder if his loves were vagabond.

Once in a hollow vale he chanced to roam,

And of a village maid grew sudden fond. What shall we say ?—the buxom village lass Became the mother of Echmacoras.*

The brawny sire, as usual, went his way,
New loves to woo-new monsters to destroy.
But the poor mother-she that went astray—
All husbandless, with her unfathered boy-
What can she do? Her ruthless father's curse
Bids her conceal a small sin with a worse.

She wrapt her baby in a lion's skin,
The lion's skin her roving lover gave,

And left the helpless witness of her sin

As

In the dark wood. Ye happy wood-nymphs, save, ye would keep your innocence secure,

The helpless thing-like you-so sweet and pure.

Nought that the poet feigned in happiest mood,
Or pagan priest invented in his trade,

* Æchmacoras, fil. Herculis, ex vitiatâ Phillone, filiâ Alcimedontis Herois; qui cùm in lucem editus fuisset, ab Alcimedonte, unà cùm matre Phillone, in proximo monte feris expositus fuit: ibi vagientem infantem cùm pica imitaretur, ad hujus avis vocem, quòd puerilem esse credidisset, Hercules fortè illàc iter habens conversus, puellam et a se genitum puerum agnovit, ambosque vinculis liberavit.-Pausan. in Arcadic. (Hofmanni Lex. Univ.)

Was ever half so beautiful or good

As the kind things that Nature's self hath made : O'er the poor babe the magpie chatters still, Soothes with its wings, and feeds it with its bill.

Ere long the strenuous foe of Hydra came—
He came in pride of some new conquest won;
But when he saw how pale the hapless dame,

The childless mother, by himself undone,
Enraged he rushed into the forest wild,
To seek the pledge of love, the hapless child.

I will not say how loud the thickets crash'd,
For he would never step an inch aside;
Or how far off the timid lions lash'd

Their sides; or how, less wild, the serpents eyed The trampling terror. Nought he cared for thisFor lion's inward growl, or serpent's smothered hiss

But ever onward he pursued the cry,

The still repeated one note of the bird,

That faithful sat where that poor babe did lie.
Still he pursued the note, and never err'd ;
And there he found them both-the babe and Mag-
In the dark wood, beneath the mossy crag.