Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms--the day
Battle's magnificently stern array!
The thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse:--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent.

Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine:
Yet one would I select from that proud throng.
---- to thee, to thousands, of whom each
And one as all a ghastly gap did make
In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake;
The Archangel's trump, not glory's, must awake
Those whom they thirst for.--BYRON.

Two Donkeys and the Geese lived on the Green, and all other residents
of any social standing lived in houses round it. The houses had no
names. Everybody's address was, "The Green," but the Postman and the
people of the place knew where each family lived. As to the rest of
the world, what has one to do with the rest of the world, when he is
safe at home on his own Goose Green? Moreover, if a stranger did come
on any lawful business, he might ask his way at the shop.

Most of the inhabitants were long-lived, early deaths (like that of
the little Miss Jessamine) being exceptional; and most of the old
people were proud of their age, especially the sexton, who would be
ninety-nine come Martinmas, and whose father remembered a man who had
carried arrows, as a boy, for the battle of Flodden Field. The Grey
Goose and the big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly persons who
kept their ages secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any
one's age, or recalled the exact year in which anything had happened.
She said that she had been taught that it was bad manners to do so "in
a mixed assembly."

The Grey Goose also avoided dates, but this was partly because her
brain, though intelligent, was not mathematical, and computation was
beyond her. She never got farther than "last Michaelmas," "the
Michaelmas before that," and "the Michaelmas before the Michaelmas
before that." After this her head, which was small, became confused,
and she said, "Ga, ga!" and changed the subject.

But she remembered the little Miss Jessamine, the Miss Jessamine with
the "conspicuous" hair. Her aunt, the big Miss Jessamine, said it was
her only fault. The hair was clean, was abun