SANTA FILOMENA. WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought, The tidal wave of deeper souls Out of all meaner cares. Honour to those words or deeds Raise us from what is low! Thus thought I, as by night I read The trenches cold and damp, The wounded from the battle-plain, The cheerless corridors, Lo! in that house of misery Pass through the glimmering gloom, And slow, as in a dream of bliss, Upon the darkening walls. As if a door in heaven should be The light shone and was spent On England's annals, through the long That light its rays shall cast A lady with a Lamp shall stand Heroic womanhood. Nor even shall be wanting here The symbols that of yore Saint Filomena bore. THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE. A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS. OTHERE, the old sea-captain, Who dwelt in Helgoland, To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, His figure was tall and stately, Hearty and hale was Othere, His cheek had the colour of oak; And Alfred, King of the Saxons, And wrote down the wondrous tale "So far I live to the northward, To the east are wild mountain-chains, "So far I live to the northward, More than a month would you "I own six hundred reindeer, With sheep and swine beside; "I ploughed the land with horses, With their sagas of the seas;- "Of Iceland and of Greenland, For thinking of those seas. sail. "To the northward stretched the desert How far I fain would know; So at last I sallied forth, And three days sailed due north, "To the west of me was the ocean, But I did not slacken sail For the walrus or the whale, Till after three days more "The days grew longer and longer, Till they became as one, And southward through the haze 1 saw the sullen blaze Of the red midnight sun. "And then uprose before me, "The sea was rough and stormy, The tempest howled and wailed, And the sea-fog, like a ghost, Haunted that dreary coast; But onward still I sailed. "Four days I steered to eastward, Four days without a night: Round in a fiery ring Went the great sun, O King, Here Alfred, King of the Saxons, Aut Othere, the old sea-captain, And wrote down every word. |