"Perish the memory of feud, And deeds of savage strife! Blood still hath led to deeds of blood, And life hath paid for life! "My darling Edith shall be thine-- My blood with thine shall blend-- The Saxon with the Norman line-- In love our feuds shall end. "In age I'll watch ye bless the poor, And smile upon your love; And, when my pilgrimage is o'er, I hope to meet above "Him who on earth a Babe was born In lowliness, as on this morn,-- And tabernacled here below, Lessons of brotherhood to show!" * * * * * High was the feast, and rich the song, For many a day, that did prolong The wedding-revelry: But more it needeth not to sing Of our fathers' festive revelling:-- How will the dream agree With waking hours of famished throngs, Brooding on daily deepening wrongs-- A stern reality!-- With pictures, that exist in life, Of thousands waging direful strife With gaunt Starvation, in the holds Where Mammon vauntingly unfolds His boasted banner of success? Oh, that bruised hearts, in their distress, May meet with hearts whose bounteousness Helps them to keep their courage up,-- "Bating no jot of heart or hope!"[17] My suffering brothers! still your hope Hold fast, though hunger make ye droop! Right--glorious Right--shall yet be done! The Toilers' boon shall yet be won! Wrong from its fastness shall be hurled-- The World shall be a happy world!-- It shall be filled with brother-men,-- And merry Yule oft come again! NOTES. I. TORKSEY'S HALL. The remains of this ancient erection (of which a representation is given in the accompanying vignette) form an interesting antiquarian object beside the Trent, twelve miles from Lincoln, and seven from Gainsborough. The entire absence of any authentic record, as to the date of the foundation, or its former possessors, leaves the imagination at full liberty to clothe it with poetic legend. Visits made to it, in my childhood, and the hearing of wild narratives respecting the treasures buried beneath its ruins, and the power of its lords in the times of chivalry, fixed it, very early, in my mind, as the fit site for a tale of romance. In addition to the beautiful fragment of a front on the Trent bank, massive and extensive foundations in the back-ground show that it must have been an important building in by-gone times.