Hugged in the clinging billow’s clasp,
  From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather,
The British oak with rooted grasp
  Her slender handful holds together;—­
With cliffs of white and bowers of green,
  And Ocean narrowing to caress her,
And hills and threaded streams between,—­
  Our little mother isle, God bless her!

In earth’s broad temple where we stand,
  Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us,
We hold the missal in our hand,
  Bright with the lines our Mother taught us;
Where’er its blazoned page betrays
  The glistening links of gilded fetters,
Behold, the half-turned leaf displays
  Her rubric stained in crimson letters!

Enough!  To speed a parting friend
  ’Tis vain alike to speak and listen;—­
Yet stay,—­these feeble accents blend
  With rays of light from eyes that glisten. 
Good-bye! once more,—­and kindly tell
  In words of peace the young world’s story,—­
And say, besides,—­we love too well
  Our mother’s soil, our fathers’ glory!

When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had been coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited, as you may have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up.  The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write verses.  At any rate, he has often tried, and now he was determined to try again.  So when some professional friends of his called him up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular “freshet” of soul which had lasted two or three hours, he read them these verses.  He introduced them with a few remarks, he told me, of which the only one he remembered was this:  that he had rather write a single line which one among them should think worth remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams.  It was all right, I don’t doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious; however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can’t be a kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the other day.

You must listen to this seriously, for I think the Professor was very much in earnest when he wrote it.

THE TWO ARMIES.

As Life’s unending column pours,
  Two marshalled hosts are seen,—­
Two armies on the trampled shores
  That Death flows black between.

One marches to the drum-beat’s roll,
  The wide-mouthed clarion’s bray,
And bears upon a crimson scroll,
  “Our glory is to slay.”

One moves in silence by the stream,
  With sad, yet watchful eyes,
Calm as the patient planet’s gleam
  That walks the clouded skies.

Along its front no sabres shine,
  No blood-red pennons wave;
Its banner bears the single line,
  “Our duty is to save.”