Part 28 (2/2)

A youthful warrior, warm and young, She takes me prisoner with her tongue, Aye! and she keeps me,--on parole,-- Till paid the ransom of my soul.

III.

I swear the foeman, arm'd for war From _cap-a-pie_, with many a scar, More mercy finds for prostrate foe Than she who deals me never a blow.

IV.

And so 'twill be, this many a day; She comes to wound, if not to slay.

But in my dreams,--in honied sleep,-- 'Tis I to smile, and she to weep!

PRO PATRIA.

AN ODE TO SWINBURNE.

[”We have not, alack! an ally to befriend us, And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us.

Let the German touch hands with the Gaul, And the fortress of England must fall.

Louder and louder the noise of defiance Rings rage from the grave of a trustless alliance, And bids us beware, and be warn'd, As abhorr'd of all nations and scorn'd.”

_A Word for the Nation, by A. C. Swinburne._]

I.

Nay, good Sir Poet, read thy rhymes again, And curb the tumults that are born in thee, That now thy hand, relentful, may refrain To deal the blow that Abel had of Cain.

II.

Are we not Britons born, when all is said, And thou the offspring of the knightly souls Who fought for Charles when fears were harvested, And Cromwell rose to power on Charles's head?

III.

O reckless, roystering bard, that in a breath Did'st find the way to flout thy fathers' flag!

Is't well, unheeding what thy Reason saith, To seem to triumph in thy country's death?

IV.

<script>