A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, dearth of woman's tears; But a comrade stood beside him, while his lifeblood ebbed away, name To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame, And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he And to hang the old sword in its place (my famight say. ther's sword and mine) The dying soldier faltered, and he took that com- For the honor of old Bingen, — dear Bingen on rade's hand, the Rhine. Tell her the last night of my life (for, ere the moon | And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew, be risen, My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison), I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder, Craftily purposed, when his arms withdrew, To make him thought still housed there, like the thunder: On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, -fair Bingen on And it so fell; for when the winds blew right, the Rhine. They woke their trumpets to their calls of might. [In Eastern history are two Iskanders, or Alexanders, who are sometimes confounded, and both of whom are called Doclkar stirred, Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard. But when the winters marred the mountain shelves, And softer changes came with vernal mornings, Something had touched the trumpets' lofty selves, And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings; Fewer and feebler; as when silence spreads In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs, left dying, Fail by degrees upon their angry beds, Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing. One by one, thus, their breath the trumpets drew, Till now no more the imperious music blew. Is he then dead? Can great Doolkarnein die? Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed? Were the great breaths that blew his minstrelsy Phantoms, that faded as himself receded? Or is he angered? Surely he still comes; This silence ushers the dread visitation; Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums, And then will follow bloody desolation. nein, or the Two-Horned, in allusion to their subjugation of East So did fear dream; though now, with not a sound and West, horns being an Oriental symbol of power. One of these heroes is Alexander of Macedon; the other a conqueror of more ancient times, who built the marvellous series of ramparts on Mount Caucasus, known in fable as the wall of Gog and Magog, that is to say, of the people of the North. It reached from the Euxine Sea to the Caspian, where its flanks originated the subsequent appellation of the Caspian Gates.] WITH awful walls, far glooming, that possessed The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains, Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West, Shut up the northern nations in their mountains; To scare good hope, summer had twice crept round. Then gathered in a band, with lifted eyes, The neighbors, and those silent heights ascended. Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprise, They met, though twice they halted, breath suspended: Once, at a coming like a god's in rage With thunderous leaps, but 't was the piled snow, falling; And once, when in the woods an oak, for age, Unhurt they lay, like caverns above ground, The rifted rocks, for hands, about them clinging, Their tubes as straight, their mighty mouths as round And firm as when the rocks were first set ringing. Fresh from their unimaginable mould They might have seemed, save that the storms had stained them With a rich rust, that now, with gloomy gold In the bright sunshine, beauteously engrained them. Breathless the gazers looked, nigh faint for awe, Then leaped, then laughed. What was it now they saw? Myriads of birds. Myriads of birds, that filled The trumpets all with nests and nestling voices! The great, huge, stormy music had been stilled By the soft needs that nursed those small, sweet noises! O thou Doolkarnein, where is now thy wall? Where now thy voice divine and all thy forces? Great was thy cunning, but its wit was small Compared with nature's least and gentlest LAST night, among his fellow roughs, A drunken private of the Buffs, That with the cries they make The very earth did shake; Trumpet to trumpet spake, Thunder to thunder. Well it thine age became, To our hid forces; Struck the French horses, With Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts, Stuck close together. When down their bows they threw, Not one was tardy; This while our noble king, As to o'erwhelm it; And many a deep wound lent, Bruiséd his helmet. Glo'ster, that duke so good, With his brave brother, Clarence, in steel so bright, Though but a maiden knight, Yet in that furious fight Scarce such another. Warwick in blood did wade; Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up. Suffolk his axe did ply; Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right doughtily, Ferrers and Fanhope. Upon St. Crispin's day Fought was this noble fray, Which fame did not delay To England to carry ; O, when shall Englishmen With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed again MICHAEL DRAYTON. HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FOP. BUT I remember, when the fight was done, And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held He gave his nose, and took 't away again ; He questioned me; among the rest, demanded I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, Out of my grief and my impatience, He should, or he should not; for he made me mad -- And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth And that it was great pity, so it was, SHAKESPEARE. MARMION AND DOUGLAS. NOT far advanced was morning day, When Marmion did his troop array To Surrey's camp to ride; |