Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love? 
    Ah, surely affection ennobles the strain! 
  But how can my numbers in sympathy move,
    When I scarcely can hope to behold them again?

  Can I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done,
    And raise my loud harp to the fame of my sires? 
  For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone! 
    For Heroes’ exploits how unequal my fires!

  Untouch’d, then, my lyre shall reply to the blast;
    ’Tis hush’d; and my feeble endeavours are o’er;
  And those who have heard it will pardon the past,
    When they know that its murmurs shall vibrate no more.

  And soon shall its wild erring notes be forgot,
    Since early affection and love is o’ercast: 
  Oh! blest had my fate been, and happy my lot,
    Had the first strain of love been the dearest, the last.

  Farewell, my young Muse! since we now can ne’er meet;
    If our songs have been languid, they surely are few: 
  Let us hope that the present at least will be sweet;
    The present—­which seals our eternal Adieu.

1807. [Now first published.]

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS

FUNERAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

The death of William, almost every reader knows, was occasioned by a hurt in the belly from the pummel of his saddle, while reducing the town of Mantes to ashes, at Rouen on Sep. 9, 1086, in the 63rd year of his age and 21st of his reign.

The king’s decease was the signal for general consternation throughout the metropolis of Normandy.  The citizens, panic struck, ran to and fro as if intoxicated, or as if the town were upon the point of being taken by assault.  Each asked counsel of his neighbour, and each anxiously turned his thoughts to the concealing of his property.  When the alarm had in some measure subsided, the monks and clergy made a solemn procession to the abbey of St. George, where they offered their prayers for the repose of the soul of the departed duke:  and Archbishop William commanded that the body should be carried to Caen, to be interred in the church of St. Stephen, which William had founded.  But the lifeless king was now deserted by all who had participated in his bounty.  Every one of his brethren and relations had left him; nor was there even a servant to be found to perform the last offices to his departed lord.  The care of the obsequies was finally undertaken by Herluin, a knight of that district, who, moved by the love of God and the honour of his nation, provided at his own expense, embalmers and bearers, and a hearse, and conveyed the corpse to the Seine, whence it was carried by land and water to the place of its destination.