LXXXIX NAPOLEON AND THE SAILOR Napoleon's banners at Boulogne Arm'd in our island every freeman, His navy chanced to capture one Poor British seaman. They suffer'd him-I know not how- His eye, methinks, pursued the flight A stormy midnight watch, he thought, At last, when care had banish'd sleep, He saw one morning-dreaming-doating, An empty hogshead from the deep Come shoreward floating; He hid it in a cave, and wrought Until he launch'd a tiny boat By mighty working. Heaven help us! 'twas a thing beyond For ploughing in the salt sea-field, It would have made the boldest shudder; Untarr'd, uncompass'd, and unkeel'd, No sail-no rudder. From neighbouring woods he interlaced But Frenchmen caught him on the beach, Till tidings of him chanced to reach With folded arms Napoleon stood, Address'd the stranger : 'Rash man that wouldst yon channel pass On twigs and staves so rudely fashion'd; Thy heart with some sweet British lass Must be impassion'd.' 'I have no sweetheart,' said the lad; To see my mother.' 'And so thou shalt,' Napoleon said, He gave the tar a piece of gold, Our sailor oft could scantly shift T. Campbell XC BOADICEA An Ode When the British warrior queen, Sage beneath a spreading oak Princess! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 'Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues. Rome shall perish-write that word Rome, for empire far renown'd, Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame. Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command. Regions Cæsar never knew Thy posterity shall sway; Where his eagles never flew, None invincible as they. Such the bard's prophetic words, She, with all a monarch's pride, Ruffians, pitiless as proud, Heaven awards the vengeance due; Shame and ruin wait for you. W. Cowper XCI THE SOLDIER'S DREAM Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground, overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track; 'Twas autumn-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, sung. |