Brother at once and son! He left my side,
A summer bloom on his fair cheek; a smile
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour
That pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried
For vengeance! Rouse, ye Romans! Rouse, ye slaves!
Have ye brave sons? Look in the next fierce brawl
To see them die. Have ye fair daughters? Look
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,
Dishonored; and if ye dare call for justice,
Be answered by the lash.

Yet this is Rome

That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne
Of beauty ruled the world! and we are Romans.
Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman

Was greater than a king!

And once again,—

Hear me, ye walls that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus! Once again, I swear,
The eternal city shall be free.

-Mitford.

CXXXV. THE OLD FISHERMAN'S PRAYER.

THERE was a poor old man

Who sat and listened to the raging sea,
And heard it thunder, lunging at the cliffs
As like to tear them down. He lay at night;
And "
Lord have mercy on the lads," said he,
"That sailed at noon, though they be none of mine;
For when the gale gets up, and when the wind
Flings at the window, when it beats the roof,

And lulls and stops and rouses up again,
And cuts the crest clean off the plunging wave,
And scatters it like feathers up the field,

Why then I think of my two lads: my lads

That would have worked and never let me want.

And never let me take the parish pay.

No, none of mine; my lads were drowned at sea,
My two, before the most of these were born.

I know how sharp that cuts, since my poor wife
Walked up and down, and still walked up and down,
And I walked after, and one could not hear

A word the other said, for wind and sea

That raged and beat and thundered in the night,—
The awfulest, the longest, lightest night

That ever parents had to spend. A moon
That shone like daylight on the breaking wave.
Ah, me! and other men have lost their lads,
And other women wiped their poor dead mouths,
And got them home and dried them in the house,
And seen the drift-wood lie along the coast,
That was a tidy boat but one day back,
And seen next tide the neighbors gather it
To lay it on their fires.

And able-bodied, loved my work, but now
I am a useless hull; 'tis time I sunk;
I am in all men's way; I trouble them;
I am a trouble to myself, but yet

I feel for mariners of stormy nights,

And feel for wives that watch ashore. Ay, ay,
If I had learning, I would pray the Lord
To bring them in; but I am no scholar, no;
Book-learning is a world too hard for me;
But I am bold to say, 'O Lord, good Lord,
I am a broken-down poor man, a fool

To speak to Thee; but in the Book 'tis writ,

As I hear say from others that can read,

How, when Thou camest, Thou didst love the sea,
And live with fisherfolk, whereby 't is sure

Thou knowest all the peril they go through,
And all their trouble.

"As for me, good Lord,

I have no boat; I am too old, too old;

My lads are drowned; I buried my poor wife;

My little lassies died so long ago

That mostly I forget what they were like:
Thou knowest, Lord, they were such little ones;
I know they went to Thee, but I forget
Their faces, though I missed them sore.

I was a strong man; I have drawn good food
And made good money out of Thy great sea;
But yet I cried for them at nights; and now,
Although I be so old, I miss my lads,
And there be many folk this stormy night
Heavy with fear for theirs. Merciful Lord,
Comfort them; save their honest boys, their pride,
And let them hear next ebb the blessedest,
Best sound, the boat-keels grating on the sand.

"I can not pray with finer words; I know
Nothing; I have no learning, can not learn,
Too old, too old. They say I want for nought.
I have the parish pay; but I am dull

Of hearing, and the fire scarce warms me through.

God save me, I have been a sinful man.

And save the lives of them that still can work,

For they are good to me; ay, good to me.

But, Lord, I am a trouble! and I sit,

And I am lonesome, and the nights are few
That any think to come and draw a chair,

And sit in my poor place and talk awhile.
Why should they come, forsooth? Only the wind
Knocks at my door-Oh, long and loud it knocks,
The only thing God made that has a mind
To enter in.''

Yea, thus the old man spake; These were the last words of his aged mouth; But One did knock. One came to sup with him, That humble, weak old man; knocked at his door In the rough pauses of the laboring wind. I tell you that One knocked while it was dark,

Save where the foaming passions had made white
Those livid, seething billows. What he said

In that poor place, where He did walk awhile,
I can not tell; but this I am assured,

That when the neighbors came the morrow morn,
What time the wind had bated, and the sun
Shone on the old man's floor, they saw the smile
He passed away in, and they said, "He looks
As he had awoke and seen the face of Christ,
And with that rapturous smile held out his arms
To come to Him!"

-Jean Ingelow.

CXXXVI.-LAY OF THE MADMAN.

MANY a year hath passed away,
Many a dark and dismal year,

Since last I roamed in the light of day,
Or mingled my own with another's tear;
Woe to the daughters and sons of men—
Woe to them all when I roam again!

Here have I watched in this dungeon cell,
Longer than Memory's tongue can tell;
Here have I shrieked, in my wild despair,

When the damned fiends from their prison came,
Sported and gamboled, and mocked me here,
With their eyes of fire and their tongues of flame,
Shouting forever and aye my name!

And I strove in vain to burst my chain,
And longed to be free as the winds again,
That I might spring in the wizard ring,
And scatter them back to their hellish den!
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all, when I roam again!

How long have I been in this dungeon here,
Little I know, and nothing I care;

What to me is the day or night,
Summer's heat, or autumn sere,
Spring-tide flowers, or winter's blight,
Pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear?
Time! what care I for thy flight?
Joy! I spurn thee with disdain!
Nothing love I but this clanking chain
Once I broke from its iron hold,

Nothing I said, but silent and bold,

Like the shepherd that watches his gentle fold,
Like the tiger that crouches in mountain lair,
Hours upon hours so watched I here,

Till one of the fiends that had come to bring.
Herbs from the valley and drink from the spring,
Stalked through my dungeon entrance in!
Ha! how he shrieked to see me free-
Ho! how he trembled and knelt to me,
He, who had mocked me many a day,
And barred me out from its cheerful ray-
Gods! how I shouted to see him pray!

I wreathed my hands in the demon's hair,
And choked his breath in its muttered prayer,
And danced I then, in wild delight,

To see the trembling wretch's fright!

Gods! how I crushed his hated bones

'Gainst the jagged wall and the dungeon-stones! And plunged my arm adown his throat, And dragged to life his beating heart,

And held it up that I might gloat

To see its quivering fibers start!
Ho! how I drank of the purple flood,
Quaffed, and quaffed again, of blood,

Till my brain grew dark, and I knew no more
Till I found myself on this dungeon floor,
Fettered and held by this iron chain;

Ho! when I break its links again,
Ha! when I break its links again,
Woe to the daughters and sons of men!