BOETRY.

ODE TO ENGLAND.

ARM! England, arm ! for all men point the finger Toward thee with scorn they little care to veil : " Doth not the mouldering hull of England linger Upon her sea of gold, with idle sail ? Once she was other ! once we shrank dismayed Before the lightning of her baring blade ; Once thro' the storm her ocean glory burst,— She, stormy petrel,—she, the ocean-nurst, Upon her foes, who pale beheld the stream Of her bright ensign like Aurora gleam Over foam-billows bounding wild : hurrah ! England is drowsier than at Trafalgar !"

Arm! England, arm ! the halcyon hour must wait When Love and Righteousness shall vanquish Hate. Jesusof old was royal hailed in scorn : Now the world crowns him—still it is with thorn ! Nobles and kings go armed to the teeth : Lo! where thy loving sister bleeds beneath Their haughty feet : she calls thee to her side : They clank their swords at thee with insolent pride :- "Old England, mumbling, paralyzed, and cold, Shrinks closer, clutching at her hoards of gold!" Why should the mailed sons of tyranny taunt Thee, champion of the free, with windy vaunt? Arm ! England, arm! they mouth at Liberty, Who with a mother's impulse turns to thee ! Fair is our dream of universal peace ;

But there be wolves, and lambs of tender fleece. Tyranny summons all her swarms of slaves, Horrent with weapons : Daughter of the waves Is it a time for thee to loll and bask,

And murmur at the burden of thy casque?

Yea, thou art sedulous to nurse thy health, Resentful of a menace to thy wealth : But in the hour of thine extremity, Look for no pitying tear to cloud one eye Among the sister nations loitering by I Now that thy faithful friend is in the dust, Whose features fair may next inflame the lust.

Of her inexorable conqueror, Or of his mailed kinsman emperor? If thou, the hope of Freedom, lie supine, Indifferent beyond thy belt of brine, While Freedom wrestles with a libertine, Beware for thine !

Shall not God judge the race that cannot feel Itself a member of one living commonweal?

That nation dies ; elects to be alone ; Severed in Booth, dead lumber, shall be thrown Among bare buried piles of bone !

Canst thou, then, fear to arm thy children free, Who cradled lay upon the breast of Liberty ?

Whom from herself she nourished, whom with motiora And lullabys of the everlasting ocean She soothed from earliest infancy, While in loud winds and waves careering, she Sings to her mariners who rule the sea !

Arm all thy children ! not a caste of drones :

Then shalt thou see those Anarchs on their thrones

Abase their domineering front—behold Helvetia, splendid, blithe, and bold !

The sons who breathe her liberal mountain air, The men who scale her precipice and dare All dangers of her bleak eternal snows, A race of hardy hunters, who repose Fearless beneath her sparkling stars, nor blanch To dream their bed may prove a thunderous avalanche-, Whose spirits with their native eagle soar, • Whose kindred souls dilating, love the roar Of icy cataracts, the Aar, the Rhine,

The Rhone that foams among the murmuring pine— Are these not armed ? Yea, every man will bleed

For the fair land of Arnold Winkelried ! France waved the banner of the free, When it fell from the bands of Italy : Alas ! she fails,—but England, thou Bast a daughter of starry brow, . Whose arms receive thy setting sun ; -She, in a forest vast and lone, With awful gladness hears intone Niagara, and the Amazon Freedom before her mountain citadel Flaced you, two giants, each her wakeful sentinel !

RODEN NOEL.