He called his child-no voice replied;
He searched with terror wild;
Blood! blood! he found on every side,
But nowhere found the child!
"Hell-hound! by thee my child's devoured!"
The frantic father cried;
And to the hilt his vengeful sword
He plunged in Gelert's side.
His suppliant, as to earth he fell,
No pity could impart ;
But still his Gelert's dying yell
Passed heavy o'er his heart.
Aroused by Gelert's dying yell,
Some slumberer wakened nigh;
What words the parent's joy can tell,
To hear his infant cry!
Concealed beneath a mangled heap,
His hurried search had missed,
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
His cherub boy he kissed!
Nor scratch had he, nor harm nor dread,
But the same couch beneath
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead;
Tremendous still in death!
Ah, what was then Llewellyn's pain!
For now the truth was clear;
The gallant hound the wolf had slain,
To save Llewellyn's heir.
Vain, vain was all Llewellyn's woe;
"Best of thy kind, adieu!
The frantic deed which laid thee low
This heart shall ever rue!"
And now a gallant tomb they raise
With costly sculpture deck'd;
And marbles storied with his praise
Poor Gelert's bones protect.
Here never could the spearman pass,
Or forester, unmoved;
Here oft the tear-besprinkled grass
Llewellyn's sorrow proved.
And here he hung his horn and spear,
And oft, as evening fell,
In fancy's piercing sounds would hear
Poor Gelert's dying yell.
PRINCIPAL WRITINGS:-The Seasons; Liberty; Castle of Indolence.
Some to the holly-hedge
Nestling repair, and to the thicket some;
Some to the rude protection of the thorn
Commit their feeble offspring: The cleft tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,
Their food its insects, and its moss their nests.
Others apart far in the grassy dale,
Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave.
But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks,
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook,
Whose murmurs soothe them all the live-long
day,
When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots
Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream,
They frame the first foundation of their domes;
Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,
And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought
But restless hurry through the busy air,
Beat by unnumber'd wings. The swallow sweeps
The slimy pool, to build his hanging house
Intent. And often, from the careless back
Of herds and flocks a thousand tugging bills
Pluck hair and wool: and oft, when unobserv'd,
Steal from the barn a straw: till soft and warm,
Clean and complete, their habitation grows.
MARTIN F. TUPPER, D.C.L., F.R.S.
All's for the Best!
LL'S for the best! be sanguine and cheerful,
Trouble and Sorrow are friends in disguise,
Nothing but Folly grows faithless and fearful,
Courage for ever is happy and wise:
All for the best,-if a man would but know it
Providence wishes us all to be blest;
This is no dream of the pundit or poet,
Heaven is gracious, and-All's for the best!
All for the best! set this on your standard,
Soldier of sadness, or pilgrim of love,
Who to the shores of Despair may have wander'd,
A way-wearied swallow, or heart-stricken dove:
All for the best !-be a man but confiding,
Providence tenderly governs the rest,
And the frail bark of His creature is guiding
Wisely and warily all for the best.
All for the best! then fling away terrors,
Meet all your fears and your foes in the van,
And in the midst of your dangers or errors
Trust like a child, while you strive like a man:
All's for the best!-unbiassed, unbounded,
Providence reigns from the East to the West; And, by both wisdom and mercy surrounded, Hope and be happy that All's for the best!
Once More.
A Lesson from the Bruce's Spider.*
WITH six defeats half mad,
The hunted Bruce in his lair
At Rachrin's Isle, all sullen and sad,
Lion-like brooded there:
"And must I yield me to shame,
Humbling my crown to the foe?
Shall English Edward soar in his fame
With Scotland's Bruce laid low?
Alas! that the Red Comyn bled
Beneath my dagger's blow,-
Yes, yes; my guilt, O thou Great Dead,
Must pay for it, woe for woe,-
And Holy Land, in dear Scotia's stead,
To the fallen Bruce be a funeral bed,—
Ah me! that it must be so!"
It was a peasant's cot,
With rafters rotten and old,
And the Bruce lay there, but he heeded not That his canopy was not gold:
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