YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND:

A NAVAL ODE.

Ye Mariners of England!

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow;

While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave!-

For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak,

She quells the floods below

As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow;

When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

The meteor flag of England

Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,

And the star of peace return.

Then, then, ye ocean warriors!

Our song and feast shall flow

To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: 1771-1832.

Walter Scott, the son of a writer to the Signet, was born in Edinburgh, where he was educated for the bar, to which he was called in 1792. From 1796 to 1805, he published translations of several German ballads, and edited The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and the metrical romance of Sir Tristrem. In 1805 appeared his Lay of the Last Minstrel, a Border story of the sixteenth century, which instantly stamped him as one of the greatest of the living poets. It was followed in 1808 by his great poem, Marmion, a tale of Flodden field. In 1810 appeared The Lady of the Lake; in 1811, The Vision of Don Roderick; in 1813, Rokeby, a tale of the English civil wars of the seventeenth century; and in 1814, The Lord of the Isles, a Scottish story of the days of Bruce. Scott's popularity as a poet had begun to decline when in 1814 he issued the first of the long series of brilliant fictions known as The Waverley Novels, which appeared from 1814 to 1831. He was created a baronet in 1820. (For a specimen of Scott's prose, see Readings in English Prose, p. 169.)

THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN. From Marmion.

Even so it was ;-from Flodden ridge

The Scots beheld the English host
Leave Barmore-wood, their evening post,
And heedful watched them as they crossed

The Till by Twisel Bridge.

High sight it is, and haughty, while

They dive into the deep defile;
Beneath the caverned cliff they fall,
Beneath the castle's airy wall.

By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree,
Troop after troop are disappearing;
Troop after troop their banners rearing,
Upon the eastern bank you see.
Still pouring down the rocky den,
Where flows the sullen Till,
And rising from the dim-wood glen,
Standards on standards, men on men,
In slow succession still,

And sweeping o'er the Gothic arch,
And pressing on, in ceaseless march,
To gain the opposing hill.

....

And why stands Scotland idly now,
Dark Flodden! on thy airy brow,
Since England gains the pass the while,
And struggles through the deep defile?
What checks the fiery soul of James?
Why sits that champion of the Dames
Inactive on his steed,

And sees, between him and his land,
Between him and Tweed's southern strand,
His host Lord Surrey lead?

What vails the vain knight-errant's brand ?-
O Douglas, for thy leading wand!
Fierce Randolph, for thy speed!

O for one hour of Wallace wight,
Or well-skilled Bruce, to rule the fight,
And cry-Saint Andrew and our right!'
Another sight had seen that morn,

From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn,
And Flodden had been Bannock-bourne!—
The precious hour has passed in vain,
And England's host has gained the plain;
Wheeling their march, and circling still,
Around the base of Flodden-hill.

'But see! look up-on Flodden bent,
The Scottish foe has fired his tent.'
And sudden as he spoke,

From the sharp ridges of the hill,
All downward to the banks of Till,
Was wreathed in sable smoke;
Volumed and vast, and rolling far,
The cloud enveloped Scotland's war,
As down the hill they broke;
Nor martial shout, nor minstrel tone,
Announced their march; their tread alone,
At times one warning trumpet blown,
At times a stifled hum,

Told England, from his mountain-throne
King James did rushing come.
Scarce could they hear or see their foes,
Until at weapon-point they close.

They close in clouds of smoke and dust,
With sword-sway and with lance's thrust;
And such a yell was there,

Of sudden and portentous birth,
As if men fought upon the earth,
And fiends in upper air. . .

Long looked the anxious squires; their eye
Could in the darkness nought descry.
At length the freshening western blast
Aside the shroud of battle cast;
And, first, the ridge of mingled spears
Above the brightening cloud appears;
And in the smoke the pennons flew,
As in the storm the white sea-mew.
Then marked they, dashing broad and far,
The broken billows of the war,

And plumed crests of chieftains brave,
Floating like foam upon the wave;

But nought distinct they see:
Wide raged the battle on the plain ;
Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain;
Fell England's arrow-flight like rain;

Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again,

Wild and disorderly.

[Evening fell on the deadly struggle, and the spectators were forced from the agitating scene.]

But as they left the darkening heath,
More desperate grew the strife of death.
The English shafts in volleys hailed,
In headlong charge their horse assailed:
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep,
To break the Scottish circle deep,

That fought around their king.

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow,
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,

Unbroken was the ring;

The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,
Each stepping where his comrade stood,
The instant that he fell.

No thought was there of dastard flight;
Linked in the serried phalanx tight,

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well;

Till utter darkness closed her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded king.
Then skilful Surrey's sage commands
Led back from strife his shattered bands;
And from the charge they drew,
As mountain-waves from wasted lands
Sweep back to ocean blue.

Then did their loss his foemen know;

Their king, their lords, their mightiest low,

They melted from the field as snow,

When streams are swoln and south winds blow,

Dissolves in silent dew.

Tweed's echoes heard the ceaseless plash,

While many a broken band,

Disordered, through her currents dash,

To gain the Scottish land;

To town and tower, to down and dale,
To tell red Flodden's dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.
Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong:
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife and carnage drear
Of Flodden's fatal field,

Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield!

FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

THE TROSACHS.

The western waves of ebbing day
Rolled o'er the glen their level way;
Each purple peak, each flinty spire,
Was bathed in floods of living fire.
But not a setting beam could glow
Within the dark ravines below,