Leave him to God's watching eye;

Trust him to the hand that made him.

Mortal love weeps idly by ;

God alone has power to aid him.

Lay him low, lay him low,

In the clover or the snow!

What cares he? he cannot know;

Lay him low!

GEORGE HENRY BOKER.

A

Dirge for a Soldier.

NOTHER brave in a soldier's grave
Hath laid him down to sleep:

In the battle-smoke, by the sabre-stroke,
No more his steps shall keep.

The heart so leal, and the hand of steel,

Are palsied aye for strife,

But the noble deed, and the patriot's meed,
Are left of the hero's life.

The sods may close o'er his calm repose,
With our country's flag around him,
Yet Liberty's hand with a victor's band
In Death's cold arms hath bound him.

Not length of years, nor woes, nor fears,
Compose a record grand;

Who grasp the right, and speed its might,

Serve God and fatherland.

Drop we a tear o'er the early bier,

In token of our sorrow,

While the army bleeds, that the hands she needs

Must idle be to-morrow.

THE CAVERN OF THE THREE TELLS. 163

But the bugle call and the battle ball
Again shall rouse him never:

He fought and fell, he served us well;

His furlough lasts forever.

SAMUEL P. Merrill.

The Cavern of the Three Tells.

H! enter not yon shadowy cave,

Seek not the bright spars there,

Though whispering pines that o'er it wave

With freshness fill the air;

For there the patriot three,

In the garb of old arrayed,

By their native forest-sea

On a rocky couch are laid.

The patriot three, that met of yore
Beneath the midnight sky,

And leagued their hearts on the Grütli shore

In the name of liberty!

Now silently they sleep

Amidst the hills they freed;

But their rest is only deep

Till their country's hour of need.

They start not at the hunter's call,
Nor the lammergeyer's cry,
Nor the rush of a sudden torrent's fall,
Nor the lauwine thundering by.

And the Alpine herdsman's lay,
To the Switzer's heart so dear,
On the wild wind floats away,
No more for them to hear.

But when the battle-horn is blown

Till the Schreckhorn's peaks reply,

When the Jungfrau's cliffs send back the tone Through the eagle's lonely sky,

When the spear-heads light the lakes,

When the trumpets loose the snows, When the rushing war-steed shakes The glacier's mute repose,

When Uri's beechen woods wave red
In the burning hamlets' light,
Then from the cavern of the dead
Shall the sleepers wake in might!

With a leap like Tell's proud leap,
When away the helm he flung,
And boldly up the steep

From the flashing billow sprung!

They shall wake beside their forest-sea,
In the ancient garb they wore

When they linked the hands that made us free,
On the Grütli's moonlit shore ;

And their voices shall be heard,
And be answered with a shout,

Till the echoing Alps are stirred,
And the signal-fires blaze out.

And the land shall see such deeds again
As those of that proud day,

When Winkelried, on Sempach's plain,
Through the serried spears made way ;
And when the rocks came down
On the dark Morgarten dell,

And the crowned casques, o'erthrown,
Before our fathers fell!

For the Kühreihen's notes must never sound
In a land that wears the chain,

THE SNUG LITTLE ISLAND.

And the vines on freedom's holy ground
Untrampled must remain !

And the yellow harvests wave
For no stranger's hand to reap,
While within their silent cave

165

The men of Grütli sleep!

FELICIA HEMANS.

DA

The Snug Little Island.

ADDY NEPTUNE, one day, to Freedom did say,
"If ever I lived upon dry land,

The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!"

Says Freedom, "Why, that 's my own island!"
Oh, it's a snug little island!

A right little, tight little island!

Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.

Julius Cæsar, the Roman, who yielded to no man,

Came by water, he could n't come by land;

And Dane, Pict, and Saxon, their homes turned their backs on, And all for the sake of our island.

Oh, what a snug little island!

They'd all have a touch at the island!
Some were shot dead, some of them fled,
And some stayed to live on the island.

Then a very great war-man, called Billy the Norman,
Cried, "Drat it, I never liked my land.

It would be much more handy to leave this Normandy,
And live on your beautiful island.”

Says he, "'T is a snug little island;

Sha'n't us go visit the island?"

Hop, skip, and jump, there he was plump,

And he kicked up a dust in the island.

But party deceit helped the Normans to beat;

Of traitors they managed to buy land;

By Dane, Saxon, or Pict, Britons ne'er had been licked,
Had they stuck to the king of their island.

Poor Harold, the king of our island !

He lost both his life and his island.

That's all very true: what more could he do?
Like a Briton he died for his island!

The Spanish armada set out to invade

'T will sure, if they ever come nigh land. They could n't do less than tuck up Queen Bess, And take their full swing on the island.

O the poor queen of the island!

The Dons came to plunder the island:
But snug in her hive the queen was alive,

And "buzz" was the word of the island.

These proud puffed-up cakes thought to make ducks and drakes

Of our wealth; but they hardly could spy land,

When our Drake had the luck to make their pride duck
And stoop to the lads of the island!

The good wooden walls of the island;

Devil or Don, let them come on;

And see how they 'd come off the island!

Since Freedom and Neptune have hitherto kept tune,
In each saying, "This shall be my land";

Should the "Army of England," or all it could bring, land,
We'd show 'em some play for the island.

We'd fight for our right to the island;

We'd give them enough of the island;
Invaders should just-bite once at the dust,

But not a bit more of the island.

THOMAS DIBDIN.