Tis a bandy-legg’d, high-shoulder’d, worm-eaten seat,
     With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;
     But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,
     I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom’d chair.

     If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms,
     A thrill must have pass’d through your wither’d old arms! 
     I look’d and I long’d, and I wish’d in despair;
     I wish’d myself turn’d to a cane-bottom’d chair.

     It was but a moment she sat in this place,
     She’d a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face! 
     A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,
     And she sat there, and bloom’d in my cane-bottom’d chair.

     And so I have valued my chair ever since,
     Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;
     Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,
     The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom’d chair.

     When the candles burn low, and the company’s gone,
     In the silence of night as I sit here alone—­
     I sit here, alone, but we yet are a pair—­
     My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom’d chair.

     She comes from the past and revisits my room;
     She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom
     So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
     And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom’d chair.

THE ALMA.

September 20th,

1854.  BY WILLIAM C. BENNET.

Yes—­clash, ye pealing steeples! 
Ye grim-mouthed cannon, roar! 
Tell what each heart is feeling,
From shore to throbbing shore! 
What every shouting city,
What every home would say,
The triumph and the rapture
That swell our hearts to-day.

And did they say, O England,
That now thy blood was cold,
That from thee had departed
The might thou hadst of old! 
Tell them no deed more stirring
Than this thy sons have done,
Than this, no nobler triumph,
Their conquering arms have won.

The mighty fleet bore seaward;
We hushed our hearts in fear,
In awe of what each moment
Might utter to our ear;
For the air grew thick with murmurs
That stilled the hearer’s breath,
With sounds that told of battle,
Of victory and of death.

We knew they could but conquer;
O fearless hearts, we knew
The name and fame of England
Could but be safe with you. 
We knew no ranks more dauntless
The rush of bayonets bore,
Through all Spain’s fields of carnage,
Or thine, Ferozepore.

O red day of the Alma! 
O when thy tale was heard,
How was the heart of England
With pride and gladness stirred! 
How did our peopled cities
All else forget, to tell
Ye living, how ye conquered,
And how, O dead, ye fell.

Glory to those who led you! 
Glory to those they led! 
Fame to the dauntless living! 
Fame to the peaceful dead! 
Honour, for ever, honour
To those whose bloody swords
Struck back the baffled despot,
And smote to flight his hordes!