And shields are rent, and swords are bent, And limbs bestrew the ground, Yet skeletons, with strength unspent, Strike where a breast is found. And skulls are cleft on right and left Till shines the morn o’erhead— Till twice five thousand coffins stand Alone, flanking the dead. O, keen the wind and cold the air That sweeps above the plain! Yet must the hollow coffins bear The skeletons again. O’er the silent field they haste, To gather limb and bone: Though skulls and limbs are wide displaced, Each coffin knows its own. Soon every limb is gathered in— Soon every lid is fast— And falling into rank again They turn toward the East. And marching o’er the frozen plain, With swift and gliding tread, They stand beside the graves again Where sleep the evil dead. Two death’s-heads stand above each mound; A fearful watch they keep! The coffins sink into the ground, Another year to sleep. But when another year is fled— When comes St. Stephen’s night, The death’s-heads shall unloose their dead To battle on the height. And when five hundred years have passed, The penance shall be done; The skeletons shall sleep at last, And moulder, limb and bone. * * * * * SHAKSPEARE. BY ERASTUS W. ELLSWORTH. What more extolling from the tongue of Fame Can Shakspeare need than his suggested name; Who, in a volume so compactly writ, Has hived the honey of all human wit. Praise suits where merit in a corner lies, But seems uncomely to th’acknowledged wise— Praise suits where laboring art at times succeeds, And the shrewd reader pardons as he reads; But fails—in wonder—where the leaves dispense Infinite resource of intelligence— Where the great player, at his game of chess, Frolicks through all to glorious success; Thrids, with exulting ken, a boundless maze, Plays with his kings, and kings it in his plays. Swan of the Avon—genius of the Thames, “That so didst take Eliza and [king] James;” Muse of so vast a flight, so ample pinion, Whose name is as the name of a dominion! Though kings be great, give glory to the pen, A whole-souled poet is the king of men. King and high-priest one bard, at least, has been Lo! where we lesser Levites pause and quail. How grandly goes before, within the vail, Our great Melchisedek, without compeers, Without progenitor nor end of years. * * * * * THE MASTER’S MATE’S YARN. BY H. MILNOR KLAPP. (_Concluded from page 539._)