When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not! in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. ON HIS BLINDNESS. WHEN I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide— "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait." JOHN MILTON. Oh! the troubadours of old! with their gentle minstrelsie Of hope and joy, or deep despair, whiche'er their lot might be For years they served their ladye-love ere they their passions told OH! the pleasant days of old, which so often Oh! wondrous patience must have had those people praise! True, they wanted all the luxuries that grace our modern days: Bare floors were strewed with rushes-the walls let in the cold; Oh! how they must have shivered in those pleasant days of old! troubadours of old! Oh! those blessed times of old with their chivalry and state; I love to read their chronicles, which such brave deeds relate; I love to sing their ancient rhymes, to hear their legends told— Oh! those ancient lords of old, how magnifi- But, heaven be thanked! I live not in those Her back-blown scarf an arched rainbow Some lay like Thetis' nymphs along the She skimmed the wavy flowers, as she passed made; by, shore, With ocean-pearl combing their golden locks, With fair and printless feet, like clouds along And singing to the waves for evermore— the sky. VII. One sat alone within a shady nook, With wild-wood songs the lazy hours beguiling; Or looking at her shadow in the brook, Trying to frown-then at the effort smiling; Her laughing eyes mocked every serious look; Sinking, like flowers at eve, beside the rocks, If but a sound above the muffled roar Of the low waves was heard. In little flocks Others went trooping through the wooded alleys, Their kirtles glancing white, like streams in sunny valleys. ΧΙ. "T was as if Love stood at himself reviling, They were such forms as, imaged in the She threw in flowers, and watched them float away; Then at her beauty looked, then sang a sweeter lay. VIII. Others on beds of roses lay reclined, night, Sail in our dreams across the heaven's steep blue, When the closed lid sees visions streaming bright, Too beautiful to meet the naked view The regal flowers athwart their full lips Like faces formed in clouds of silver light. thrown, And in one fragrance both their sweets com bined, Women they were! such as the angele knew Such as the mammoth looked on ere he fled, As if they on the self-same stem had Scared by the lovers' wings that streamed in |