The man upon his weary back A coffin bore of rudest frame.

Why, who art thou?" exclaimed the king;
"6 And what is that I see thee bear?"
"I am a labourer in the wood,
And 'tis a coffin for Pierre.
Close by the royal hunting-lodge
You may have often seen him toil;
But he will never work again,
And I for him must dig the soil."

The labourer ne'er had seen the king,
And this he thought was but a man,
Who made at first a moment's pause,
And then anew his talk began:
"I think I do remember now,—
He had a dark and glancing eye,
And I have seen his slender arm
With wondrous blows the pick axe ply.

"Pray tell me, friend, what accident
Can thus have killed our good Pierre?"
'Oh! nothing more than usual, sir;
He died of living upon air.

'Twas hunger killed the poor good man,
Who long on empty hopes relied;
He could not pay gabell and tax,
And feed his children, so he died."

The man stopped short, and then went on,

64

It is, you know, a common thing;

Our children's bread is eaten up
By courtiers, mistresses, and king."
The king looked hard upon the man,
And afterwards the coffin eyed,
Then spurred to ask of Pompadour,
How came it that the peasants died.

MIRABEAU.1

Not oft has peopled earth sent up
So deep and wide a groan before,
As when the word astounded France
"The life of Mirabeau is o'er!"
From its one heart a nation wailed,
For well the startled sense divined
A greater power had fled away
Than aught that now remained behind.
The scathed and haggard face of will,
And look so strong with weaponed thought,

1 A few of Sterling's minor lyrics, such as "Mirabeau," are eloquent, and, while defaced by conceits and prosaic expressions, show flashes of imagination which brighten the even twilight of a meditative poet.E. C. Stedman.

Had been to many million hearts
The all between themselves and naught;
And so they stood aghast and pale,
As if to see the azure sky

Come shattering down, and show beyond
The black and bare infinity.

For he, while all men trembling peered
Upon the future's empty space,
Had strength to bid above the void
The oracle unveil its face;

And when his voice could rule no more,
A thicker weight of darkness fell,
And tombed in its sepulchral vault
The wearied master of the spell.

A myriad hands like shadows weak,
Or stiff and sharp as bestial claws,
Had sought to steer the fluctuant mass
That bore his country's life and laws;
The rudder felt his giant hand,
And quailed beneath the living grasp
That now must drop the helm of fate,
Nor pleasure's cup can madly clasp.

France did not reck how fierce a storm
Of rending passion, blind and grim,
Had ceased its audible uproar
When death sank heavily on him;
Nor heeded they the countless days
Of toiling smoke and blasting flame,
That now by this one final hour
Were summed for him as guilt and shame.

The wondrous life that flowed so long
A stream of all commixtures vile,
Had seemed for them in morning light
With gold and crystal waves to smile.
It rolled with mighty breadth and sound
A new creation through the land,
Then sudden vanished into earth,
And left a barren waste of sand.

To them at first the world appeared
Aground, and lying shipwrecked there,
And freedom's folded flag no more
With dazzling sun-burst filled the air;
But 'tis in after years for men
A sadder and a greater thing,
To muse upon the inward heart
Of him who lived the people's king.

O! wasted strength! O! light and calm
And better hopes so vainly given!
Like rain upon the herbless sea
Poured down by too benignant heaven-
We see not stars unfixed by winds,
Or lost in aimless thunder-peals,
But man's large soul, the star supreme,
In guideless whirl how oft it recls!

I KENNA WHAT'S COME OWER HIM.

I kenna what's come ower him,
He's no the lad he used to be;
I kenna what's come ower him,

The blythe blink has left his e'c.
He wanders dowie by himsel',

Alang the burn and through the glen: His secret grief he winna tell

I wish that he would smile again.

There was a time-alake the day

Ae word o' mine could mak' him glad;

But noo, at every word I say,

I think he only looks mair sad. The last time I gaed to the fair

Wi' Willie o' the birken-cleugh, Like walkin' ghost he met us thereAnd sic a storm was on his broo!

I'm wae to see the chiel sae glum, Sae dismal-like frae morn to e`en; Than sic a cast as this had come,

I'd rather Willie ne'er ha'e seen. I kenna what's come ower him,

He's no the lad he used to be: I kenna what's come ower him— The blythe blink has left his e'e.

THE EARTHQUAKE.

Her parents and her lover waved adieu

From out the vine-clad cottage, and away The maiden pass'd, like sunbeam from the day, Into the ancient forest, to renew Her wonted task of gath'ring lowly flowers

For the far city:-Innocent and young She wander'd, singing to the birds, that sung Amid the balmy foliage of the bowers. Eve fell at length-and to the well-known steep, That gave again her native vale to view, The maiden came.-Earth shook-and, bursting thro',

She sees an ocean o'er that valley sweep.Ah, me!--she has, 'neath heaven's all-circling dome,

No parent-and no lover-and no home!

THE GIPSIES.

It is the night-and ne'er from yonder skies,
High-piled amid the solitudes of time,
And based on all we vainly call sublime,

Did she look lovelier with her starry eyes;

The music of the mountain-rill comes down, As if it came from heaven with peace to earth, And from yon ruin'd tower, where ages gone Have left their footsteps-hark! the voice of mirth:

The gipsy wanderers, with their little band Of raven-tressèd boys and girls, are there;

And when the song of that far-distant land, From whence they sprung, is wafted through the air,

I dream of scenes where towers the mystic pile

The Arab and his wastes-the rushings of the Nile!

FALLING LEAVES.

Down fall the leaves; and, o'er them as we tread, "Tis strange to think they were the buds of spring,

Whose balm-breath met us on the zephyr's wing,

When mirth and melody were round us spread, And skies in placid brightness overhead,

And streams below with many a dimpled ring! "Tis strange to think, that when the bee did sing

Her sunny song, on summer's flowery mead,

They were the locks that waved on summer's brow!

But stranger far, to think, that the white boncs
We tread upon, among the churchyard stones,
Once moved about, as we are moving now
In youth, in manhood, and in hoary age-
Oh! then, let time and change our though.t3
engage!

RETROSPECTION.

We look upon ourselves of other days,
As if we looked on beings that are gone;
For fancy's magic ray hath o'er them thrown
A glory, that grows brighter as we gaze!
Then, then, indeed, was pleasure's mirthful mazo
Our own, and happiness no shade as now:
We met her on the mead, and on the brow
Of the unpeopled mountain, and her ways
Were where our footsteps wandered. Still we

see

Her phantom form, that flits as we pursue

O'er the same scenes, where jocund once and free,

And all unsought, she with our young thoughts grew!

So, to the parting sailor, evermore

She seems to linger on his native shore.