it is no cheere;
  Bisket we like, and Bonny Clabo here. 
  There we complain of one wan roasted chick;
  Here meat worse cookt ne’re makes us sick. 
  At home in silken sparrers, beds of Down,
  We scant can rest, but still tosse up and down;
  Here we can sleep, a saddle to our pillow,
  A hedge the Curtaine, Canopy a Willow. 
  There if a child but cry, O what a spite! 
  Here we can brook three larums in one night. 
  There homely rooms must be perfumed with Roses;
  Here match and powder ne’re offend our noses. 
  There from a storm of rain we run like Pullets;
  Here we stand fast against a shower of bullets. 
  Lo, then how greatly their opinions erre,
  That think there is no great delight in warre;
    But yet for this, sweet warre, He be thy debtor,
    I shall forever love my home the better.

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON.

* * * * *

ALFRED THE HARPER.

  Dark fell the night, the watch was set,
  The host was idly spread,
  The Danes around their watchfires met,
  Caroused, and fiercely fed.

  The chiefs beneath a tent of leaves
  And Guthrum, king of all,
  Devoured the flesh of England’s beeves,
  And laughed at England’s fall. 
  Each warrior proud, each Danish earl,
  In mail of wolf-skin clad,
  Their bracelets white with plundered pearl,
  Their eyes with triumph mad.

  From Humber-land to Severn-land,
  And on to Tamar stream,
  Where Thames makes green the towery strand,
  Where Medway’s waters gleam,—­
  With hands of steel and mouths of flame
  They raged the kingdom through;
  And where the Norseman sickle came,
  No crop but hunger grew.

  They loaded many an English horse
  With wealth of cities fair;
  They dragged from many a father’s corse
  The daughter by her hair. 
  And English slaves, and gems and gold,
  Were gathered round the feast;
  Till midnight in their woodland hold,
  O, never that riot ceased.

  In stalked a warrior tall and rude
  Before the strong sea-kings;
  “Ye Lords and Earls of Odin’s brood,
  Without a harper sings. 
  He seems a simple man and poor,
  But well he sounds the lay;
  And well, ye Norseman chiefs, be sure,
  Will ye the song repay.”

  In trod the bard with keen cold look,
  And glanced along the board,
  That with the shout and war-cry shook
  Of many a Danish lord. 
  But thirty brows, inflamed and stern,
  Soon bent on him their gaze,
  While calm he gazed, as if to learn
  Who chief deserved his praise.

  Loud Guthrum spake,—­“Nay, gaze not thus,
  Thou Harper weak and poor! 
  By Thor! who bandy looks with us
  Must worse than looks endure. 
  Sing high the praise of Denmark’s host,
  High praise each dauntless Earl;
  The brave who stun this English coast
  With war’s unceasing whirl.”