Then Margery sprang on my stirrup,
Quick as page, in a crack,

And looped up my scarf fringed with orange,
With green and with black.

In my cap stuck her breast knot,—a favour
And token of love;

I kissed her white brow, 'twas as snowy
As breast of a dove.

My men loaded carbines, all lighting
Their dry coils of match,

And looked at their long swords and pistols,
The trigger and latch.

Then, doffing my steel cap and favour,
I drank to King Charles;

I saw they were frowning and cursing-
The crop-headed carles!

The ostler, he whistles and hisses -
The landlord says grace,

Not knowing a prayer more fitting;
Madge pulls at her lace.

My men are all scattered and drinking ;
One buckling a girth,

Another bent down at a stirrip;

All shouting in mirth.

Our powder was spent, but we struggled
With butt-end of pike;

My arm was so stiff and so weary,
I scarcely could strike.

When all of a sudden old Goring,

Scarce three dozen strong,

Broke in through the waves of the rabble,
And Meg led them on.

She was up in my arms in a moment,
And tight to my breast;

The knaves fled like sheep from the butcher,
First east and then west.

It was noon when we rode into Derby,
There was Villars and Digby and Hurst;
My Meg was the toast of the evening;
Charles drank to her first.

THE KING AT CHARING CROSS.

(RESTORATION).

SWING it out from tower and steeple! Now the dark crowds of the people Press and throng as if deep gladness ruled them as the moon the flood; How they scream and sway about-sing and swear, and laugh and flout, As if madness universal fevered the whole nation's blood.

Drowsy watchers on the tower start to hear the sudden hour
Beaten out from pier and jetty o'er the river's mimic waves,
When the bells with clash and clang into life and motion sprang,
As to rouse the dead and buried, peaceful sleeping in their graves.

Flags from every turret hung, thousands to the chimneys clung,
Crimson pennons gay and veering from the belfry chambers float;
Weary poets ceased to rhyme; brain-sick student at the chime

Closed his book, and joined the rabble, and with shouting strained his throat.

Every cooper left his vat-there was sympathy in that;

All the shops of Cheap and Ludgate were fast barred for that day ;

The red wine that bubbled up left the toper in his cup;

And his crutch and staff the cripple in his gladness threw away.

Noisy bullies left their dice; tailors leapt up in a trice;

The smith's fire upon the forge died in smoulder slowly out; The Protector, in his tomb slumbering till the crack of doom,

Might have frowned and slowly wakened at the thunder of that shout.

The hot brazier hushed his clamour, throwing by his ponderous hammer :
The strong shipwright, arm upraising the dog-shores to knock away,
Let them stand just as they were, and ran out and left his care;
And the sailors, flocking after, helped to swell the crowd that day.

Then the chemist, worn and pale, left the lead that cannot fail-
Purged to brighten, growing, growing into pure and perfect gold;
And the baker, ghastly white, stares up through the chink for light,
Weary of his long night watchings and his labour manifold.

Some were waiting for the gun; some hold ale up to the sun;

While the bona roba's eyes, love sparkling, gather lustre from the wine; Thames was all alive with barges, silver prows and blazoned targes,

With the matrons' hoods of satin that by thousands glow and shine.

There were bullies, thieves, and churls-men from peasants up to earls;
Noisy crowds of fluttering varlets and beribboned serving men ;
Merry children held on high laugh to see the banners fly,

Shouting, as their fathers tell them, "Our good king is come again!"

Then the tramp of many feet echoes through each lane and street,
Like the heaving undulations of a tempest-driven tide;

Lofty belfries reel and rock with the joy-bells' sudden shock

Pulsing out fresh peals of "Welcome !" ere the last glad sounds subside.

And the prentices all mustered, round each door and penthouse clustered;
At the merchant's stately windows hung rich robings of brocade,
Cloth of gold and Indian stuff, quite in ample store enough
All the princes of the East to have gorgeously arrayed.

Close by every window stood maidens veiled in silken hood,
Half retreating, coy and modest, half delighting to be seen;
Many a wild rose you may seek ere you match the blushing cheek,
And each prentice thinks his mistress beautiful as any queen.

Dark crowds down each winding street hurry, for the tramp of feet
Echoes louder than the pealing of the loud-tongued cannons' near;
Like the wild Atlantic tide press the people on each side,
With a din so deep and murmurous it is terrible to hear.

Now the sword-blades in the sun glitter, as the signal gun

Flashes through the flags and pennons and the masts that line the shore; Then fast swinging from each steeple, far above the noisy people, Joy-bells over roof and gable all their thunder music pour.

Oh! the horns blew long and loudly, and the kettle-drums throbbed proudly;
Like the lark's voice mid the thunder rose the shrill cry of the flute;
Whilst the stormy acclamation of a new-delivered nation
Filled the air with crowding echoes ere the Abbey-bells grew mute.

Fast the dull beat of the drum struggles through the din and hum;
Now the pikeheads gleam and glitter past the Palace and the Park;
How the crop-heads foam and mutter as the royal banners flutter;
And the bonfires are all piling, ready to light up the dark!

Black and heaving roll the crowds, like the tempest-driven clouds,

As from out that thunderous silence break the sudden shout and cheer, From the turrets and the roofs; for the sound of coming hoofs Each one listens, like a hunter waiting silent for the deer.

For indeed one common soul seemed to animate the whole;
Louder than the bells or cannon gave the multitude a shout;
From the Thames alive with boats all the rowers strain their throats,
From amid the striped awnings and the flags that float and flout.

You should hear the thunder claps, as the royal banner flaps,
While the stream of lords and ladies file in close procession by,--
Like the clamour of a storm when the dark clouds without form
Drift in whirlwind headlong, wildly 'cross the chasms of the sky.