erkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes,--
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
I could not well make out;
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide;
And many a childing mother there,
And new-born baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won,--
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know must be
After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene."
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"
Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay, nay, my little girl!" quoth he,
"It was a famous victory.

"And everybody praised the duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he;
"But 'twas a famous victory."

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

* * * * *

AT GIBRALTAR.

I.

England, I stand on thy imperial ground
Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow,
I feel within my blood old battles flow,--
The blood whose ancient founts are in thee found
Still surging dark against the Christian bound
While Islam presses; well its peoples know
Thy heights that watch them wandering below:
I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.

I turn and meet the cruel, turbaned face.
England! 'tis sweet to be so much thy son!
I feel the conqueror in my blood and race;
Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun
Startles the desert over Africa.

II.

Thou art the rock of empire set mid-seas
Between the East and West, that God has built;
Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt,
While run thy armies true with his decrees;
Law, justice, liberty,--great gifts are these.
Watch that they spread where English blood is spi