Then will I seek the dreary mound
That wraps thy mouldering clay,
And weep and linger on the ground,
And sigh my heart away.

STANZAS,

ON THE THREATENED INVASION, 1803.

OUR bosoms we'll bare for the glorious strife,
And our oath is recorded on high,

To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,

Or crushed in its ruins to die!

Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

"Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust-
God bless the green Isle of the brave!
Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers' dust,

It would rouse the old dead from their grave! Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

In a Briton's sweet home shall a spoiler abide,
Profaning its loves and its charms?

Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side?
To arms! oh, my Country, to arms!

Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen! - No!
His head to the sword shall be given —

A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe,
And his blood be an offering to Heaven!

Then rise, fellow freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

THE RITTER BANN.

THE Ritter Bann from Hungary
Came back, renowned in arms,
But scorning jousts of chivalry,
And love and ladies' charms.

While other knights held revels, he
Was wrapped in thoughts of gloom,
And in Vienna's hostelrie

Slow paced his lonely room.

There entered one whose face he knew,—

Whose voice, he was aware,

He oft at mass had listened to,

In the holy house of prayer.

'Twas the Abbot of St. James's monks,
A fresh and fair old man :

His reverend air arrested even
The gloomy Ritter Bann.

But seeing with him an ancient dame
Come clad in Scotch attire,

The Ritter's color went and came,
And loud he spoke in ire.

"Ha! nurse of her that was my bane,
Name not her name to me;

I wish it blotted from my brain:
Art poor? take alms, and flee."

"Sir Knight," the Abbot interposed,
"This case your ear demands;"
And the crone cried, with a cross enclosed
In both her trembling hands:-

"Remember, each his sentence waits;
And he that shall rebut

Sweet Mercy's suit, on him the gates
Of Mercy shall be shut.

"You wedded, undispensed by Church,
Your cousin Jane in Spring;
In Autumn, when you went to search
For Churchmen's pardoning,

"Her house denounced your marriage-band,
Betrothed her to De Grey,
And the ring you put upon her hand
Was wrenched by force away.

"Then wept your Jane upon my neck.
Crying, 'Help me, nurse, to flee

To my Howel Bann's Glamorgan hills;'
But word arrived ah me!

"You were not there; and 'twas their threat, By foul means or by fair, To-morrow morning was to set

The seal on her despair.

"I had a son, a sea-boy, in

A ship at Hartland Bay;

By his aid from her cruel kin
I bore my bird away.

"To Scotland from the Devon's

Green myrtle shores we fled; And the Hand that sent the ravens To Elijah, gave us bread.

"She wrote you by my son, but he
From England sent us word
You had gone into some far countrie,
In grief and gloom he heard.

"For they that wronged you, to elude
Your wrath, defamed my child;
And you-ay, blush, Sir, as you should-
Believed, and were beguiled.

"To die but at your feet, she vowed

To roam the world; and we

Would both have sped and begged our bread,

But so it might not be:

"For when the snow-storm beat our roof,

She bore a boy, Sir Bann,

Who grew as fair your likeness proof

As child e'er grew like man.

""Twas smiling on that babe one morn,
While health bloomed on the moor,
Her beauty struck young Lord Kinghorn
As he hunted past our door.

"She shunned him, but he raved of Jane, And roused his mother's pride:

Who came to us in high disdain,

"Has witched my boy to wish for one So wretched for his wife?

Dost love thy husband? Know, my son
Has sworn to seek his life.'

"Her anger sore dismayed us,

For our mite was wearing scant, And, unless that dame would aid us, There was none to aid our want.

"So I told her, weeping bitterly,
What all our woes had been;
And, though she was a stern ladie,
The tears stood in her een.

"And she housed us both, when, cheerfully

My child to her had sworn,

That even if made a widow, she

Would never wed Kinghorn."

Here paused the nurse, and then began
The Abbot, standing by: :-
"Three months ago a wounded man
To our abbey came to die.

"He heard me long, with ghastly eyes And hand obdurate clenched,

Speak of the worm that never dies,

And the fire that is not quenched.

"At last by what this scroll attests
He left atonement brief,

For years of anguish to the breasts
His guilt had wrung with grief.

"There lived,' he said, 'a fair young dame Beneath my mother's roof;