Slowly passed that August Presence Down the thronged and shouting street; Village girls as white as angels, Scattering flowers around his feet. Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow Deepest fell, his rein he drew On his stately head, uncovered, Cool and soft the west-wind blew. And he stood up in his stirrups, Looking up and looking down On the hills of Gold and Silver Rimming round the little town,-- On the river, full of sunshine, To the lap of greenest vales Winding down from wooded headlands, Willow-skirted, white with sails. And he said, the landscape sweeping Slowly with his ungloved hand, "I have seen no prospect fairer In this goodly Eastern land." Then the bugles of his escort Stirred to life the cavalcade And that head, so bare and stately, Vanished down the depths of shade. Ever since, in town and farm-house, Life has had its ebb and flow; Thrice hath passed the human harvest To its garner green and low. But the trees the gleeman planted, Through the changes, changeless stand; As the marble calm of Tadmor Mocks the desert's shifting sand. Still the level moon at rising Silvers o'er each stately shaft; Still beneath them, half in shadow, Singing, glides the pleasure craft; Still beneath them, arm-enfolded, Love and Youth together stray; While, as heart to heart beats faster, More and more their feet delay. Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, On the open hillside wrought, Singing, as he drew his stitches, Songs his German masters taught, Singing, with his gray hair floating Round his rosy ample face,-- Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen Stitch and hammer in his place. All the pastoral lanes so grassy Now are Traffic's dusty streets; From the village, grown a city, Fast the rural grace retreats. But, still green, and tall, and stately, On the river's winding shores, Stand the Occidental plane-trees, Stand, Hugh Taliant's sycamores. 1857. THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW. An incident of the Sepoy mutiny. PIPES of the misty moorlands, Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills! Not the braes of broom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your sweetest strain! Dear to the Lowland reaper, And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The Scottish pipes are dear;-- Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch O'er mountain, loch, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The pipes at Lucknow played. Day by day the Indian tiger Louder yelled, and nearer crept; Round and round the jungle-serpent Near and nearer circles swept. "Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-- Pray to-day!" the soldier said; "To-morrow, death's between us And the wrong and shame we dread." Oh, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair; And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer. Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground "Dinna ye hear it?--dinna ye hear it? The pipes o' Havelock sound!"