"We are not talk'd to thus: Yet will we say for children, would they grew Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well: But children die; and let me tell you, girl, Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die: They with the sun and moon renew their light Forever, blessing those that look on them: Children--that men may pluck them from our hearts, Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves-- O--children--there is nothing upon earth More miserable than she that has a son And sees him err:" A song on "The days that are no more," seems to us to be too laboured, nor is the other lyric introduced, "The Swallow," much more to our satisfaction. It is a mixture of prettinesses: the first four triplets run thus, ending in a poetic beauty-- "O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. "O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And _dark_ and true and tender is the North. "O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And _cheep and twitter twenty million loves_. "O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, _and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died_." The prince saves the princess from being drowned, when the secret explodes like a roll of gun cotton, and a grand turmoil ensues. The rival kings approach to confines in battle array, and the princess resumes the declaration of war:-- "A tide of fierce Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, As waits a river level with the dam Ready to burst and flood the world with foam: And so she would have spoken, but there rose A hubbub in the court of half the maids Gather'd together; from the illumin'd hall Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, And gold and golden heads; they to and fro Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, same pale, All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light, Some crying there was an army in the land, And some that men were in the very walls, And some they cared not; till a clamour grew As of a new-world Babel, woman-built, And worse-confounded: high above them stood The placid marble Muses, looking peace." She denounces the perils outside and in--