Sleep, Mr. Speaker, and dream of the time,
When loyalty was not quite a crime,
When Grant was a pupil in Canning's school,
And Palmerston fancied Wood a fool.
Lord, how principles pass away--
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may.

The following is a spirited version of a dramatic scene in the second
book of the Annals of Tacitus:

ARMINIUS.

Back, Back;--he fears not foaming flood
Who fears not steel-clad line:--
No warrior thou of German blood,
No brother thou of mine.
Go earn Rome's chain to load thy neck,
Her gems to deck thy hilt;
And blazon honor's hapless wreck
With all the gauds of guilt.

But wouldst thou have _me_ share the prey?
By all that I have done,
The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun;
The legion's trampled panoply
The eagle's shattered wing.
I would not be for earth or sky
So scorned and mean a thing,