MARTIN RELPH.

My grandfather says he remembers he saw when a

youngster long ago,

On a bright May day, a strange old man with a beard as white as snow,

Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument

of woe,

And striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the reason. so!

If I last as long as Methuselah I shall never forgive myself:

But God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin

Relph,

As coward, coward I call him-him, yes, him! Away from me!

Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I

used to be!

What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare,

all eyes, no tongue ?

People have urged “You visit a scare too hard on a

lad so young!

You were taken aback, poor boy," they urge, no

time to regain your wits:

Besides it had maybe cost you life." Ay, there is the cap which fits!

So, cap me, the coward,— thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does good :

The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at

the brain for food.

See now, here certainly seems excuse for a

moment, I trust, dear friends,

The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if mine, I have made amends!

For, every day that is first of May, on the hill-top,

here stand I,

Martin Relph, and I strike my brow, and publish

the reason why,

When there gathers a crowd to mock the fool.

fool, friends, since the bite

No

Of a worm inside is worse to bear: pray God I have

baulked him quite !

I'll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It came of the way they cooped

Us peasantry up in a ring just here, close huddling because tight-hooped

By the red-coats round us villagers all: they meant we should see the sight

And take the example, see, not speak, for speech was the Captain's right.

"You clowns on the slope, beware!" cried he

"This woman about to die

Gives by her fate fair warning to such acquaintance

as play the spy.

Henceforth who meddle with matters of state above

them perhaps will learn

That peasants should stick to their plough-tail,

leave to the King the King's concern.

"Here's a quarrel that sets the land on fire, between

King George and his foes :

What call has a man of your kind—much less, a to interpose?

woman

Yet you needs must be meddling, folks like you,

not foes so much the worse!

The many and loyal should keep themselves unmixed with the few perverse.

"Is the counsel hard to follow! I gave it you plainly a month ago,

And where was the good? The rebels have learned just all that they need to know.

Not a month since in we quietly marched : a week, and they had the news,

From a list complete of our rank and file to a note of our caps and shoes.

"All about all we did and all we were doing and

like to do!

Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture who

wrote it, too.

Some of you men look black enough, but the milk

white face demure

Betokens the finger foul with ink: 'tis a woman who writes, be sure !

"Is it 'Dearie, how much I miss your mouth !'

good natural stuff, she pens?

Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about cocks and hens,

How 'robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came to grief

Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in famous leaf.'

But all for a blind! she soon glides frank into 'Horrid the place is grown

With Officers here and Privates there, no nook we

may call our own:

And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and

lodging will be to seek

For the second Company sure to come ('tis whis

pered) on Monday week.'