And o'er it many, round and small,
The clustered marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarlèd bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

And ever when the moon was low,

And the shrill winds were up and away,

In the white curtain, to and fro,

She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,

And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.

She only said, 'The night is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;

She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

All day within the dreamy house,

The doors upon their hinges creaked; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,

Or from the crevice peered about.

Old faces glimmered thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,

The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moated sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, 'I am very dreary,
He will not come,' she said;
She wept, 'I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!'

THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW.

DEDICATORY POEM TO THE PRINCESS ALICE.

DEAD PRINCESS, living Power, if that, which lived
True life, live on and if the fatal kiss,
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not
From earthly love and life- if what we call
The spirit flash not all at once from out
This shadow into Substance- then perhaps
The mellowed murmur of the people's praise

From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm,
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light,
Ascends to thee; and this March morn that sees
Thy Soldier-brother's bridal orange-bloom
Break thro' the yews and cypress of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,

May send one ray to thee! and who can tell-
Thou- England's England-loving daughter - thou
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag
Borne on thy coffin - where is he can swear
But that some broken gleam from our poor earth
May touch thee, while remembering thee, I lay
At the pale feet this ballad of the deeds
Of England, and her banner in the East?

BANNER of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast thou

Floated in conquering battle or flapt to the battle-cry! Never with mightier glory than when we had reared thee on high

Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Luck

now

Shot thro' the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised thee

anew,

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England

blew.

Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our lives

Women and children among us, God help them, our children and wives!

Hold it we might—and for fifteen days or for twenty at

most.

'Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!'

Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence the best of the brave:

Cold were his brows when we kissed him- we laid him

that night in his grave.

'Every man die at his post!' and there hailed on our houses and halls

Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannonballs,

Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight barricade,

Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stoopt to the spade,

Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell

Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro' it, their shot and their shell,

Death-for their spies were among us, their marksmen were told of our best,

So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that could

think for the rest;

Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet

Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels that girdled us round

Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a street,

Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in the ground!

Mine? yes, a mine! Countermine! down, down! and creep thro' the hole!

Keep the revolver in hand! You can hear him—the murderous mole.

Quiet, ah! quiet-wait till the point of the pickaxe be thro'!

Click with the pick, coming nearer and nearer again than before

Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no

more;

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.

Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced

on a day

Soon as the blast of that underground thunderclap echoed

away,

Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hell

Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell

Fiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell.

What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan!

Storm at the Water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm,

and it ran

Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drowned by the tide

So many thousands that if they be bold enough, who shall

escape?

Kill or be killed, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men!

Ready! take aim at their leaders

gapped with our grape —

their masses are

Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward again,

Flying and foiled at the last by the handful they could not

subdue;

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England

blew.

Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and

in limb,

Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure,

Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on

him;

Still-could we watch at all points? we were every day fewer and fewer.

There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that

past;

'Children and wives.

unawares

if the tigers leap into the fold

Every man die at his post—and the foe may outlive us at

last

Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into

theirs!'

Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy

sprung