Thus though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,-

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,

Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree,

And should my youth—as youth is apt, I know— Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.

And as, when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The Holly leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?-

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,
More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN MY LIBRARY

M

Y DAYS among the Dead are passed;
Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old;

My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;

And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedewed
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them

I live in long-past years,

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,

Partake their hopes and fears,

And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead: anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on

Through all futurity;

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

THE INCHCAPE ROCK

O STIR in the air, no stir in the sea:

N°

The ship was still as she could be;

Her sails from heaven received no motion;

Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;

So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that Bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The sun in heaven was shining gay;

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round,
And there was joyance in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green:
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.

13684

He felt the cheering power of spring;
It made him whistle, it made him sing:
His heart was mirthful to excess,

But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,

And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;

Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,

And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the Bell with a gurgling sound;

The bubbles rose and burst around:

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;

He scoured the seas for many a day:

And now, grown rich with plundered store,

He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high:
The wind hath blown a gale all day;
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand;
So dark it is, they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon."

"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore."
"Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell."

They hear no sound; the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock:
“O Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock!"

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair:

The waves rush in on every side;

The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even in his dying fear,

One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,-
A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out:
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by:

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,

Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round

Was wasted far and wide;

And many a childing mother then,

And new-born baby, died:

But things like that, you know, must be

At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight

After the field was won;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun:

But things like that, you know, must be,

After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,

And our good Prince Eugene."

"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"

Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he:

"It was a famous victory,