2. Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

3. High on the hill-top
The old King sits;

He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,

On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,

To sup with the Queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

4. They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;

When she came down again,
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.

5. By the craggy hill-side,

Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees,
For pleasure, here and there.
Is any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!

One last look at the white-walled town,

And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!

She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

29

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
Born 1800-Died 1861.

THE FORCED RECRUIT AT SOLFERINO.1

1. In the ranks of the Austrian you found him,
He died with his face to you all;

Yet bury him here where around him

You honour your bravest that fall.

1 Solferino, a village of Northern Italy. Here the Austrians were defeated by the French in 1859.

2. Venetian, fair-featured and slender,
He lies shot to death in his youth,
With a smile on his lips, over-tender
For any mere soldier's dead mouth.

3. No stranger, and yet not a traitor,

Though alien the cloth on his breast;
Underneath it how seldom a greater

Young heart has a shot sent to rest!

4. By your enemy tortured and goaded

To march with them, stand in their file,
His musket, see, never was loaded,

He facing your guns with that smile!

5. As orphans yearn on to their mothers, He yearned to your patriot bands ;— "Let me die for our Italy, brothers,

If not in your ranks, by your hands!

6." Aim straightly, fire steady, spare me A ball in the body which may Deliver my heart here, and tear me

This badge of the Austrian away!"

7. So thought he, so died he this morning.
What then? many others have died.
Ay, but easy for men to die scorning
The death-stroke, who fought side by side-

8. One tricolor floating above them;

Struck down 'mid triumphant acclaims
Of an Italy rescued to love them

And blazon the brass with their names.

9. But he, without witness or honour,

There, shamed in his country's regard,
With the tyrants who march in upon her,
Died faithful and passive-'twas hard.

10. 'Twas sublime. In a cruel restriction
Cut off from the 'guerdon of sons,
With most filial obedience, conviction,
His soul kissed the lips of her guns.

[reward.

11. That moves you? Nay, grudge not to show it, While digging a grave for him here:

The others who died, says your poet,
Have glory, let him have a tear.