366 FALSTAFF'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS SOLDIERS. Young Malcolm, at distance, crouched trembling, the while The glow-worm her wake-light, the rainbow her boom, The chieftain salute her-and shrink from her touch! I FALSTAFF'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS SOLDIERS. F I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press outrageously. I have got in exchange of an hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as have been asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a culverin worse than a struck deer or a hurt wild duck. I press me none but such toasts in butter, with hearts in their breasts no bigger than pins' heads; and they bought out their services; and ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN AMERICA. 367 now my whole charge consists of slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores, discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and hostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think I had an hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of St. Albans, or the red-nosed innkeeper of Daintry. But that's all one, they'll find linen enough on every hedge. ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN AMERICA. HE March wind shook the withered grass THE Along the lonesome prairie, As Dermod drank his cheerful glass, And talked with Irish Mary. 66 "Six years ago," he said, we fled Across the western ocean; My purse was light-my purse was lead; "We fled, because we saw our land When Famine's cold and bony hand Descended on the nation. "The crimson flames enwrapt our home, The signals of eviction; The landlord stood and scoffed, like some 368 SPARTACUS TO THE ROMAN ENVOYS. "The thick smoke veiled that poor abode, "And thus we fled-but as the ship "We fled, nor stayed till the Great West And on its tender, giant breast "The land we tread on is our own; "For on the soil that freemen till, "So here on Patrick's natal day So while the March wind bent the grass Upon the lonesome prairie, Did Dermod drink his cheerful glass, And talk with Irish Mary. EN SPARTACUS TO THE ROMAN ENVOYS. NVOYS of Rome, the poor camp of Spartacus is too much honored by your presence. And does Rome stoop to parley with the escaped gladiator, with the rebel ruffian, for whom here SPARTACUS TO THE ROMAN ENVOYS. 369 "He has it!" tofore no slight has been too scornful? You have come, with steel in your right hand, and with gold in your left. What heed we give the former, ask Cossinius; ask Claudius; ask Varinius; ask the bones of your legions that fertilize the Lucanian plains. And for your gold-would ye know what we do with that, go ask the laborer, the trodden poor, the helpless and the hopeless, on our route: ask all whom Roman tyranny has crushed, or Roman avarice plundered. Ye have seen me before; but ye did not then shun my glance as now. Ye have seen me in the arena, when I was Rome's pet ruffian, daily smeared with blood of men or beasts. One day-shall I forget it ever?-ye were present—I had fought long and well. Exhausted as I was, your munerator, your lord of the games, bethought him, it were an equal match to set against me a new man, younger and lighter than I, but fresh and valiant. With Thracian sword and buckler, forth he came, a beautiful defiance on his brow! Bloody and brief the fight. cried the People; "habet! habet!" But still he lowered not his arm, until, at length, I held him, gashed and fainting, in my power. I looked around upon the Podium, where sat your Senators and men of State, to catch the signal of release, of mercy. But not a thumb was reversed. To crown your sport, the vanquished man must die! Obedient brute that I was, I was about to slay him, when a few hurried words—rather a welcome to death than a plea for life--told me he was a Thracian. I stood transfixed. The arena vanished. I was a Thrace, upon my native hills! The sword dropped from my hands. I raised the dying youth tenderly in my arms. O, the magnanimity of Rome! Your haughty leaders, enraged at being cheated of their death-show, hissed their disappointment, and shouted, "Kill!" I heeded them as I would heed the howl of wolves. Kill him?—They might better have asked the mother to kill the babe smiling in her face. Ah! he was already wounded unto death; and, amid the angry yells of the spectators, he died. That night I was scourged for disobedience. I shall not forget it. Should memory fail, there are scars here to quicken it. Well; do not grow impatient. Some hours after, finding myself, with seventy fellow-gladiators, alone in the amphitheatre, the laboring thought broke forth in words. I said-I know not what. I only know that when I ceased, my comrades looked each other 370 EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN. in the face; and then burst forth the simultaneous cry-"Lead· on! lead on, O Spartacus!" Forth we rushed-seized what rude weapons Chance threw in our way, and to the mountains speeded There, day by day, our little band increased. Disdainful Rome sent after us a handful of her troops, with a scourge for the slave Spartacus. Their weapons soon were ours. She sent an army; and down from old Vesuvius we poured, and slew three thousand. Now it was Spartacus the dreaded rebel! A larger army, headed by the Prætor, was sent, and routed; then another still. And always I remembered that fierce cry, riving my heart, and calling me to "kill!" In three pitched battles, have I not obeyed it? And now affrighted Rome sends her two Consuls, and puts forth all her strength by land and sea, as if a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal were on her borders! Envoys of Rome! To Lentulus and Gellius bear this message : "Their graves are measured!" Look on that narrow stream, a silver thread, high on the mountain's side! Slenderly it winds, but soon is swelled by others meeting it, until a torrent, terrible and strong, it sweeps to the abyss, where all is ruin. So Spartacus comes on! So swells his force-small and despised at first, but now resistless! On, on to Rome we come! The gladiators come! Let Opulence tremble in all his palaces! Let Oppression shudder to think the oppressed may have their turn! Let Cruelty turn pale at thought of redder hands than his! O! we shall not forget Rome's many lessons. She shall not find her training was all wasted upon indocile pupils. Now, begone! Prepare the Eternal City for our games! EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN.-AYTOUN. EWS of battle!--news of battle! NEW Hark! 'tis ringing down the street: And the archways and the pavement Bear the clang of hurrying feet. News of battle!-who hath brought it? Tidings from our noble army, Greetings from our gallant King! |