YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND: A NAVAL ODE. Ye Mariners of England! That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, Your glorious standard launch again And sweep through the deep, While the stormy winds do blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow. The spirits of your fathers For the deck it was their field of fame, Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak, She quells the floods below As they roar on the shore, When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow. The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn; Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow. SIR WALTER SCOTT: 1771-1832. Walter Scott, the son of a writer to the Signet, was born in Edinburgh, where he was educated for the bar, to which he was called in 1792. From 1796 to 1805, he published translations of several German ballads, and edited The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and the metrical romance of Sir Tristrem. In 1805 appeared his Lay of the Last Minstrel, a Border story of the sixteenth century, which instantly stamped him as one of the greatest of the living poets. It was followed in 1808 by his great poem, Marmion, a tale of Flodden field. In 1810 appeared The Lady of the Lake; in 1811, The Vision of Don Roderick; in 1813, Rokeby, a tale of the English civil wars of the seventeenth century; and in 1814, The Lord of the Isles, a Scottish story of the days of Bruce. Scott's popularity as a poet had begun to decline when in 1814 he issued the first of the long series of brilliant fictions known as The Waverley Novels, which appeared from 1814 to 1831. He was created a baronet in 1820. (For a specimen of Scott's prose, see Readings in English Prose, p. 169.) THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN. From Marmion. Even so it was ;-from Flodden ridge The Scots beheld the English host The Till by Twisel Bridge. High sight it is, and haughty, while They dive into the deep defile; By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree, And sweeping o'er the Gothic arch, .... And why stands Scotland idly now, And sees, between him and his land, What vails the vain knight-errant's brand ?- O for one hour of Wallace wight, From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn, 'But see! look up-on Flodden bent, From the sharp ridges of the hill, Told England, from his mountain-throne They close in clouds of smoke and dust, Of sudden and portentous birth, Long looked the anxious squires; their eye And plumed crests of chieftains brave, But nought distinct they see: Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again, Wild and disorderly. [Evening fell on the deadly struggle, and the spectators were forced from the agitating scene.] But as they left the darkening heath, That fought around their king. But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good No thought was there of dastard flight; Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, Till utter darkness closed her wing Then did their loss his foemen know; Their king, their lords, their mightiest low, They melted from the field as snow, When streams are swoln and south winds blow, Dissolves in silent dew. Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash, While many a broken band, Disordered, through her currents dash, To gain the Scottish land; To town and tower, to down and dale, Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear, FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE. THE TROSACHS. The western waves of ebbing day |