24. VIOLETS. Welcome, maids of honour! In the Spring, And wait upon her. She has virgins many, Yet you are More sweet than any. You're the maiden posies; And so graced; To be placed 'Fore damask roses. Yet, though thus respected, By and by Ye do lie, Poor girls, neglected. R. HERRICK 25. THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE. He cannot walk, he cannot speak, He is the weakest of the weak, And has not strength to hold a pen. He has no pocket and no purse, He rules his parents by a cry, A despot, strong through infancy, He lies upon his back and crows, Or looks with grave eyes on his mother What can he mean? But I suppose They understand each other. Indoors or out, early or late, And, Turk-like, has his slaves to dress him; His subjects bend before him too: I'm one of them, God bless him! J. DENNIS. 26. THE IVY GREEN. O a dainty plant is the Ivy green, On right choice food are his meals, I ween, The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, To pleasure his dainty whim; And the mouldering dust that years have made Is a merry meal for him. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green. Fast he steals on, though he wears no wings, How closely he twineth, how close he clings Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, But the stout old Ivy shall never fade The brave old plant in its lonely days For the stateliest building man can raise Creeping on where Time has been, C. DICKENS. 27. HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By fairy hands their knell is rung; W. COLLINS. 28. AN INVOCATION. Come, spirit watchers at the golden gateway Reveal to us the splendour and the wonder The opening hawthorn and the blackbird's song. So shall we turn again with gladder faces So may the spells ye taught us still be ours In Life's chill Autumn; when the nights are long, And still our hearts find treasure of late flowers, And hear, through rain and mist, the redbreast's song. 29. THE LOSS OF THE "BIRKENHEAD." Right on our flank the crimson sun went down, The stout ship Birkenhead lay hard and fast, Her timbers thrilled as nerves, when through them passed And ever, like base cowards who leave their ranks In danger's hour, before the rush of steel, Drifted away, disorderly, the planks, From underneath her keel. Confusion spread; for, though the coast seemed near, "Out with those boats, and let us haste away," We knew our duty better than to care For such loose babblers, and made no reply; Till our good colonel gave the word, and there Formed us in line-to die. There rose no murmur from the ranks, no thought So we made women with their children go. What followed why recall? The brave who died, F. H. DOYLE. 30. LOCK THE DOOR, LARISTON. "Lock the door, Lariston, lion of Liddesdale; Lock the door, Lariston, Lowther comes on; The Amstrongs are flying, The widows are crying, The Castletown's burning, and Oliver's gone! "Lock the door, Lariston, high on the weather-gleam See how the Saxon plumes bob on the sky Yeoman and carbineer, Billman and halberdier, Fierce is the foray, and far is the cry! |