VI.

  He was the first that bent the knee
    When the STANDARD waved abroad,
  He was the first that charged the foe
    On Preston’s bloody sod;
  And ever, in the van of fight,
    The foremost still he trod,
  Until, on bleak Culloden’s heath,
    He gave his soul to God,
      Like a good old Scottish cavalier,
        All of the olden time!

  VII.

  Oh! never shall we know again
    A heart so stout and true—­
  The olden times have passed away,
    And weary are the new: 
  The fair White Rose has faded
    From the garden where it grew,
  And no fond tears save those of heaven
    The glorious bed bedew
      Of the last old Scottish cavalier,
        All of the olden time!

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

BLIND OLD MILTON

  Place me once more, my daughter, where the sun
  May shine upon my old and time-worn head,
  For the last time, perchance.  My race is run;
  And soon amidst the ever-silent dead
  I must repose, it may be, half forgot. 
  Yes!  I have broke the hard and bitter bread
  For many a year, with those who trembled not
  To buckle on their armour for the fight,
  And set themselves against the tyrant’s lot;
  And I have never bowed me to his might,
  Nor knelt before him—­for I bear within
  My heart the sternest consciousness of right,
  And that perpetual hate of gilded sin
  Which made me what I am; and though the stain
  Of poverty be on me, yet I win
  More honour by it, than the blinded train
  Who hug their willing servitude, and bow
  Unto the weakest and the most profane. 
  Therefore, with unencumbered soul I go
  Before the footstool of my Maker, where
  I hope to stand as undebased as now! 
  Child! is the sun abroad?  I feel my hair
  Borne up and wafted by the gentle wind,
  I feel the odours that perfume the air,
  And hear the rustling of the leaves behind. 
  Within my heart I picture them, and then
  I almost can forget that I am blind,
  And old, and hated by my fellow-men. 
  Yet would I fain once more behold the grace
  Of nature ere I die, and gaze again
  Upon her living and rejoicing face—­
  Fain would I see thy countenance, my child,
  My comforter!  I feel thy dear embrace—­
  I hear thy voice, so musical, and mild,
  The patient, sole interpreter, by whom
  So many years of sadness are beguiled;
  For it hath made my small and scanty room
  Peopled with glowing visions of the past. 
  But I will calmly bend me to my doom,
  And wait the hour which is approaching fast,
  When triple light shall stream upon mine eyes,
  And heaven itself be opened up at last
  To him who dared foretell its mysteries. 
  I have had visions in this drear eclipse