Once, as they neared the middle stream, So strong the torrent swept,

That scarce that long and living wall,

Their dangerous footing kept. Then rose a warning cry behind, A joyous shout before:

"The current's strong-the way is longThey'll never reach the shore!

See, see! They stagger in the midst,
They waver in their line!

Fire on the madmen! break their ranks,
And whelm them in the Rhine!'

IX.

Have you seen the tall trees swaying
When the blast is piping shrill,
And the whirlwind reels in fury
Down the gorges of the hill?
How they toss their mighty branches,
Striving with the tempest's shock;
How they keep their place of vantage,
Cleaving firmly to the rock?

Even so the Scottish warriors

Held their own against the river; Though the water flashed around them, Not an eye was seen to quiver; Though the shot flew sharp and deadly, Not a man relaxed his hold:

For their hearts were big and thrilling With the mighty thoughts of old. One word was spoke among them, And through the ranks it spread— "Remember our dead Claverhouse !" Was all the Captain said.

Then, sternly bending forward,

They struggled on awhile,

Until they cleared the heavy stream,

Then rushed towards the isle.

X.

The German heart is stout and true,
The German arm is strong;
The German foot goes seldom back
Where armed foemen throng.
But never had they faced in field
So stern a charge before,
And never had they felt the sweep
Of Scotland's broad claymore.
Not fiercer pours the avalanche
Adown the steep incline
That rises o'er the parent-springs
Of rough and rapid Rhine-

Scarce swifter shoots the bolt from heaven
Than came the Scottish band,
Right up against the guarded trench,
And o'er it, sword in hand.
In vain their leaders forward press-
They meet the deadly brand!

O lonely island of the Rhine,

Where seed was never sown,
What harvest lay upon the sands,

By those strong reapers thrown?
What saw the winter moon that night,
As, struggling through the rain,
She poured a wan and fitful light

On marsh, and stream, and plain?

A dreary spot with corpses strewn,
And bayonets glistening round;
A broken bridge, a stranded boat,
A bare and battered mound;
And one huge watchfire's kindled pile,
That sent its quivering glare

To tell the leaders of the host

The conquering Scots were there!

XI.

And did they twine the laurel-wreath
For those who fought so well?
And did they honour those who lived,
And weep for those who fell ?

What meed of thanks was given to them

Let aged annals tell.

Why should they twine the laurel-wreathWhy crown the cup with wine?

It was not Frenchmen's blood that flowed So freely on the Rhine

A stranger band of beggared men

Had done the venturous deed:

The glory was to France alone,
The danger was their meed.
And what cared they for idle thanks
From foreign prince and peer?
What virtue had such honied words
The exiles' hearts to cheer?

What mattered it that men should vaunt
And loud and fondly swear,

That higher feat of chivalry

Was never wrought elsewhere?

They bore within their breasts the griet That fame can never heal

The deep, unutterable woe

Which none save exiles feel.

Their hearts were yearning for the land
They ne'er might see again-
For Scotland's high and heathered hills,
For mountain, loch, and glen-

For those who haply lay at rest
Beyond the distant sea,

Beneath the green and daisied turf
Where they would gladly be!

XII.

Long years went by. The lonely isle
In Rhine's impetuous flood
Has ta'en another name from those
Who bought it with their blood:
And though the legend does not live,

For legends lightly die,

The peasant, as he sees the stream
In winter rolling by,

And foaming o'er its channel-bed

Between him and the spot

Won by the warriors of the sword,
Still calls that deep and dangerous ford
The Passage of the Scot.

Aubrey de Vere.

1814-1902.

AUBREY DE VERE has high claims both as a poet and prose writer, but it is not only on this account that his career is interesting. The fact that in an age of ever-increasing strain and mental unrest he preserved throughout a literary life of almost fifty years the same tranquillity of mood and the same pure and lofty aims with which he started has given him a somewhat special place among the writers of his day. Doubtless this tranquillity of mood arose, in some measure, from the influence of his master Wordsworth. For if he was not, like Wordsworth, a revealer of things hidden, the interpreter of new and unsuspected relations" with nature, he was a "sanctifier of things common." His descriptions of nature are generally vivid and always true to fact. His language is simple and unadorned, yet in all his best work he solved the problem of how to be simple without being bald and unpoetic.

But the tranquillity of mood, of which I have just spoken, arose not alone from the influence of what Matthew Arnold so happily called "Wordsworth's sweet calm" in the interpretation of nature and in the conception of the aims of life; it was partly the result of the poet's own settled and strong convictions in matters of religious faith: convictions, it