Gens de bien et gentilshommes,

Bons amis,
De la famille Agassiz."

Ils arrivent trois à trois,
Montent l'escalier de bois
Clopin-clopant! quel gendarme
Peut permettre ce vacarme,

Bons amis,
À la porte d'Agassiz!

“ Ouvrez donc, mon bon Seigneur,

Ouvrez vite et n'ayez peur ;
Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes !

Chut, ganaches ! taisez-vous !
C'en est trop de vos glouglous
Épargnez aux Philosophes
Vos abominables strophes !

Bons amis,
Respectez mon Agassiz!

KILLED AT THE FORD.
He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,-
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was as blithe as a bugle call
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.
Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,
To visit the picquet-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,
He was humming the words of some old song :
“Two red roses he had on his cap,
And another he bore at the point of his sword."
Sudden and swift a whistling ball
Came out of the wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill:
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room when some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.
We lifted him on his saddle again,
And through the mire, and the mist, and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,
And laid him as if asleep on his bed;
And I saw, by the light of the surgeon's lamp,
Two white roses upon his cheeks,
And one just over his heart blood-red !
And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat

Without a murmur, without a cry;
And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,
For one who had passed from cross to crown,-
And the neighbours wondered that she should die.

CHRISTMAS BELLS.

I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“ There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“ For hate is strong,

And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead ! nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Shall surround thee on every side, This city and all its lands,
And attend thee night and day.” Shall be given to me again.”
But the sullen Scribe replied :
“Our pathways here divide;

Then to the Castle White
Mine leadeth not thy way."

He rode in regal state,

And entered in at the gate And even as he spoke

In all his arms bedight, Fell a sudden scimitar stroke,

And gave to the Pasha
When no one else was near;

Who ruled in Croia
And the Scribe sank to the ground, The writing of the King,
As a stone, pushed from the brink Sealed with his signet ring.
Of a black pool, might sink

And the Pasba bowed his head,
With a sob and disappear :

And after a silence said : And no one saw the deed;

“ Allah is just and great! And in the stillness around

I yield to the will divine,
No sound was heard but the sound The city and lands are thine ;
Of the hoofs of Iskander's steed, Who shall contend with fate ?”
As forward he sprang with a bound.

Anon from the castle walls
Then onward he rode and afar,

The crescent banner falls, With scarce three hundred men, And the crowd beholds instead, Through river and forest and fen, Like a portent in the sky, O'er the mountains of Argentar; Iskander's banner fly, And his heart was merry within The Black Eagle with double head; When he crossed the river Drin, And a shout ascends on high, And saw in the gleam of the morn For men's souls are tired of the Turks, The White Castle Ak-hissar,

And their wicked ways and works, The city Croia called,

That have made of Ak-Hissar The city moated and walled,

A city of the plague; The city where he was born,

And the loud, exultant cry
And above it the morning star. That echoes wide and far

Is: “Long live Scanderbeg !"
Then his trumpeters in the van
On their silver bugles blew,

It was thus Iskander came
And in crowds about him ran

Once more unto his own; Albanian and Turkoman,

And the tidings, like the flame
That the sound together drew.

Of a conflagration blown
And he feasted with his friends, By the winds of summer, ran,
And when they were warm with wine, Till the land was in a blaze,
He said: “O friends of mine, And the cities far and near,
Behold what fortune sends,

Sayeth Ben Joshua Ben Meir,
And what the fates design!

In his Book of the Words of the Days, King Amurath commands

“ Were taken as a man That my father's wide domain, Would take the tip of his ear.'

THE RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER.

It was Sir Christopher Gardiner, And first it was whispered, and then it Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,

was known, From Merry England over the sea, That he in secret was harbouring there Who stepped upon this continent A little larly with golden hair, As if his august presence lent

Whom he called his cousin, but whom A glory to the colony.

he had wed

In the Italian manner, as men said; You should have seen him in the street And great was the scandal everywhere. Of the little Boston of Winthrop's time, His rapier dangling at his feet,

But worse than this was the vague Doublet and hose and boots complete,

surmisePrince Rupert hat with ostrich plume,

Though none could vouch for it or averGloves that exhaled a faint perfume,

That the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre Luxuriant curls and air sublime,

Was only a Papist in disguise ; And superior manners now obsolete!

And the more to embitter their bitter He had a way of saying things

lives, That made one think of courts and kings,

And the more to trouble the public mind, And lords and ladies of high degree;

Came letters from England, from two So that not having been at court

other wives, Seemed something very little short

Whom he had carelessly left behind ;

| Both of them letters of such a kind Of treason or lese-majesty, Such an accomplished knight was he.

As made the governor hold his breath;

The one imploring him straight to send His dwelling was just beyond the town, The husband home, that he might amend; At what be called his country seat;

The other asking his instant death,
For, careless of Fortune's smile or frown, As the only way to make an end.
And weary grown of the world and its
ways,

The wary governor deemed it right,
He wished to pass the rest of his days When all this wickedness was revealed,
In a private life and a calm retreat. To send his warrant signed and sealed,
But a double life was the life be led;

And take the body of the knight.
And, while professing to be in search
Of a godly course, and willing, he said,

d Armed with this mighty instrument, Nay, anxious to join the Puritan Church,

The marshal, mounting his gallant steed, He made of all this but small account,

| Rode forth from town at the top of his And passed his idle hours instead

speed, With roystering Morton of Merry Mount,

And followed by all his bailiffs bold, That pettifogger from Furnival's Inn,

"As if on high achievement bent, Lord of misrule and riot and sin,

To storm some castle or stronghold, Who looked on the wine when it was red.

Cballenge the warders on the wall,

And seize in his ancestral hall
This country-seat was little more A robber-baron grim and old.
Than a cabin of logs; but in front of
the door

But when through all the dust and heat
A modest flower-bed thickly sown He came to Sir Christopher's country-seat,
With sweet alyssum and columbine No knight he found, nor warder there,
Made those who saw it at once divine But the little lady with golden hair,
The touch of some other hand than his Who was gathering in the bright sunshine
own,

The sweet alyssum and columbine;