XIX BRING BACK THE CHAIN. It was an aged man, who stood And hailed the time-worn captive free! "Bring back the chain, whose weight so long "Then have I stretched my yearning arms, And bid me bless my envied fate: Where? I am desolate ! "The boundless hope, the spring of joy Felt when the spirit's strength is young, Which slavery only can alloy, The mockeries to which I clung, The eyes whose fond and sunny ray Made life's dull lamp less dimly burn, The tones I pined for day by day · Can ye bid them return? "Bring back the chain ! Its clanking sound "Bring back the chain! that I may think 'Tis that which weighs my spirit so: And, gazing on each galling link, Dream, as I dreamt, of bitter woe! "Freedom! though doomed in pain to live, The freedom of the soul is mine; But all of slavery you could give Around my steps must ever twine. 3 Raise up the head which age hath bent; Till then I am a slave!" HON. MRS. NORTON. XX THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN. (ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY.) Scots wha hae with Wallace bled, Now's the day and now's the hour; Who will be a traitor knave? Coward turn and flee! Who for Scotland's king and law Let him come wi' me! By oppression's woes and pains! Lay the proud usurpers low! Let us do, or die! BURNS. XXI THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, "Forward, the Light Brigade! Some one had blundered. Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them, Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well Into the jaws of death; Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred. Flashed all their sabres bare, All the world wondered; Plunged in the battery smoke, Right through the line they broke, Cossack and Russian Reeled from the sabre stroke Shattered and sundered; Then they rode back, but not Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them, Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, |