Let not Cæsar's servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low;

'T was no foeman's arm that felled him,
'T was his own that struck the blow:
His who, pillowed on thy bosom,
Turned aside from glory's ray-
His who, drunk with thy caresses,
Madly threw a world away.

Should the base plebeian rabble
Dare assail my name at Rome,
Where my noble spouse, Octavia,
Weeps within her widowed home-
Seek her; say the gods bear witness-
Altars, augurs, circling wings—
That her blood, with mine commingled,
Yet shall mount the throne of kings.

As for thee, star-eyed Egyptian

Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
Light the path to Stygian darkness,
With the splendor of thy smile;
Give the Cæsar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine;
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.

I am dying, Egypt, dying!

Hark! the insulting foeman's cry; They are coming-quick, my falchion! Let me front them ere I die.

24

32

40

c. 1860.

Ah! no more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell;
Isis and Osiris guard thee-

Cleopatra-Rome-farewell!

William Haines Lytle.

48

THE LAST BUCCANEER

OH, England is a pleasant place for them that 's rich and high,

But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I;

And such a port for mariners I ne'er shall see

again

As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main.

There were forty craft in Avès that were both swift and stout,

All furnish'd well with small arms and cannons round about;

And a thousand men in Avès made laws to fair

and free

To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally.

Thence we sail'd against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold,

Which he wrung by cruel tortures from the InIdian folk of old;

Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone,

Which flog men and keel-haul them, and starve them to the bone.

12

Oh, the palms grew high in Avès, and fruits that shone like gold,

And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold;

And the negro maids to Avès from bondage fast did flee,

To welcome gallant sailors a-sweeping in from

sea.

16

Oh, sweet it was in Avès to hear the landward

breeze,

A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees,

With a negro lass to fan you, while you listen'd

to the roar

Of the breakers on the reef outside, that never

touched the shore.

But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things

must be;

So the King's ships sail'd on Avès, and quite

put down were we.

All day we fought like bulldogs, but they burst

the booms at night;

20

And I fled in a piragua, sore wounded, from the

fight.

24

Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass

beside,

Till for all I tried to cheer her, the poor young

thing she died;

But as I lay a-gasping, a Bristol sail came by, And brought me home to England here, to beg until I die.

28

And now I'm old and going-I 'm sure I can't tell where;

One comfort is, this world's so hard, I can't be worse off there:

If I might be a sea-dove, I 'd fly across the

main,

To the pleasant Isle of Avès, to look at it once

again.

1857.

Charles Kingsley.

32

LIFE'S PHILOSOPHY