KING CANUTE.

KING CANUTE was weary-hearted; he had reigned for years a score,
Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more;
And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.

'Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps sedate,
Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks great,
Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages, all the officers of state.

Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause,

If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped their jaws; If to laugh the King was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.

But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and young: Thrice his Grace had yawned at table, when his favorite gleemen sung, Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue.

'Something ails my gracious master," cried the Keeper of the Seal. "Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served to dinner, or the veal?" "Psha!" exclaimed the angry monarch. "Keeper, 't is not that I feel.

""T is the heart, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest impair: Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care?

Oh, I'm sick, and tired, and weary."- Some one cried, "The King's armchair!"

Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my Lord the Keeper nodded, Straight the King's great chair was brought him, by two footmen ablebodied;

Languidly he sank into it: it was comfortably wadded.

"Leading on my fierce companions," cried he, "over storm and brine, I have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine?" Loudly all the courtiers echoed : Where is glory like to thine?"

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"What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am I now and old; Those fair sons I have begotten long to see me dead and cold; Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould!

"Oh, remorse, the writhing serpent! at my bosom tears and bites; Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights; Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed at nights.

"Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires;

Mothers weeping, virgins screaming: vainly for their slaughtered sires."— "Such a tender conscience," cries the Bishop, "every one admires.

"But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gracious lord, to search.
They 're forgotten and forgiven by our Holy Mother Church;
Never, never, does she leave her benefactors in the lurch.

"Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which your Grace's bounty raised: Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily praised: You, my lord, to think of dying? on my conscience I'm amazed!"

"Nay, I feel," replied King Canute, "that my end is drawing near." "Don't say so," exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear). "Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year."

"Live these fifty years!" the bishop roared, with actions made to suit. "Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King Canute! Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will do 't.

"Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Cainan, Mahaleel, Methusela,

Lived nine hundred years apiece, and may n't the King as well as they?" "Fervently," exclaimed the Keeper, —“fervently I trust he may."

"He to die?" resumed the Bishop.

"He a mortal like to us? Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus: Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus.

"With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete,
Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet;
Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet.

"Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill,
And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still?
So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will."

"Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop?" Canute cried;
"Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride?
If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.

"Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?" Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, "Land and sea, my lord, are thine." Canute turned towards the occan-"Back!" he said, "thou foaming brine.

"From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;
Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat:
Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!"

But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar,
And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore;
Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the King and courtiers bore.

And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay,
But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey:
And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day.
King Canute is dead and gone: Parasites exist alway.

Argent, a dexter sinople, and gules an | TITMARSH'S CARMEN LILLI

azure field:

There ne'er was nobler cognizance on

knightly warrior's shield.

The first time England saw the shield 't was round a Norman neck,

On board a ship from Valery, King

William was on deck.

A Norman lance the colors wore, in
Hastings' fatal fray

St. Willibald for Bareacres ! 't was double gules that day!

O Heaven and sweet St. Willibald ! in many a battle since

A loyal-hearted Bareacres has ridden by his Prince!

At Acre with Plantagenet, with Edward at Poictiers,

The pennon of the Bareacres was fore

most on the spears!

"T was pleasant in the battle-shock to
hear our war-cry ringing:
O grant me, sweet St. Willibald, to
listen to such singing!
Three hundred steel-clad gentlemen,
we drove the foe before us,
And thirty score of British bows kept
twanging to the chorus!
O knights, my noble ancestors! and
shall I never hear

St. Willibald for Bareacres through

battle ringing clear?

I'd cut me off this strong right hand a
single hour to ride,

And strike a blow for Bareacres, my
fathers, at your side!
Dash down, dash down, yon Mandolin,
beloved sister mine!

Those blushing lips may never sing
the glories of our line:
Our ancient castles echo to the clumsy
feet of churls,

The spinning-jenny houses in the
mansion of our Earls.

Sing not, sing not, my Angeline! in
days so base and vile,
'T were sinful to be happy, 't were
sacrilege to smile.

I'll hie me to my lonely hall, and by

its cheerless hob

I'll muse on other days, and wishand wish I were- A SNOB.

ENSE.

LILLE, Sept. 2, 1843.

My heart is weary, my peace is gone,
How shall I e'er my woes reveal?
I have no money, I lie in pawn,
A stranger in the town of Lille.

I.

WITH twenty pounds but three weeks

since

From Paris forth did Titmarsh
wheel,

I thought myself as rich a prince
As beggar poor I'm now at Lille.

Confiding in my ample means

In troth, I was a happy chiel!
I passed the gates of Valenciennes,
I never thought to come by Lille.

I never thought my twenty pounds
Some rascal knave would dare to
steal;

I gayly passed the Belgic bounds
At Quievrain, twenty miles from
Lille.