A BALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

"The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around."-COLERIDGE.

"O, WHITHER sail you, Sir John Franklin ?
Cried a whaler in Baffin's Bay.
To know if between the land and the pole
I may find a broad sea-way.

I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,
As you would live and thrive;

For between the land and the frozen pole
No man may sail alive.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And spoke unto his men :

Half England is wrong, if he is right;
Bear off to westward then.

O, whither sail you, brave Englishman ?
Cried the little Esquimaux.

Between your land and the polar star
My goodly vessels go.

Come down, if you would journey there,
The little Indian said;

And change your cloth for fur clothing,
Your vessel for a sled.

But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,
And the crew laughed with him too:-

A sailor to change from ship to sled,
I ween, were something new!

All through the long, long polar day,

The vessels westward sped;

And wherever the sail of Sir John was blown,

The ice gave way and fled:

Gave way with many a hollow groan,

And with many a surly roar,

But it murmured and threatened on every side,

And closed where he sailed before.

Sir John, the night is black and long,

The hissing wind is bleak,

The hard, green ice is strong as death:-
I prithee, Captain, speak!

The night is neither bright nor short,
The singing breeze is cold,

The ice is not so strong as hope-
The heart of man is bold!

What hope can scale this icy wall,
High over the main flag-staff?
Above the ridges the wolf and bear
Look down, with a patient, settled stare,
Look down on us and laugh.

The summer went, the winter came-
We could not rule the year;
But summer will melt the ice again,
And open a path to the sunny main,
Whereon our ships shall steer.

The winter went, the summer went,
The winter came around;

But the hard, green ice was strong as death,
And the voice of hope sank to a breath,
Yet caught at every sound.

Hark! heard you not the noise of guns?— And there, and there, again?

'Tis some uneasy iceberg's roar,

As he turns in the frozen main.

Hurra! hurra! the Esquimaux
Across the ice-fields steal:

God give them grace for their charity!
Ye pray for the silly seal.

Sir John, where are the English fields,
And where are the English trees,

And where are the little English flowers
That open in the breeze?

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!

You shall see the fields again,

And smell the scent of the opening flowers, The grass, and the waving grain.

Oh! when shall I see my orphan child?

My Mary waits for me.

Oh! when shall I see my old mother,

And pray at her trembling knee?

Be still, be still, my brave sailors!
Think not such thoughts again.
But a tear froze slowly on his cheek;
He thought of Lady Jane.

Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold,
The ice grows more and more ;
More settled stare the wolf and bear,
More patient than before.

Oh think you, good Sir John Franklin,
We'll ever see the land?

"Twas cruel to send us here to starve,
Without a helping hand.

'Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here,
So far from help or home,

To starve and freeze on this lonely sea:
I ween, the Lords of the Admiralty
Would rather send than come.

Oh! whether we starve to death alone,
Or sail to our own country,

We have done what man has never done-
The truth is founded, the secret won-

We passed the Northern Sea!"

TO ENGLAND.

"LEAR and Cordelia ! 'twas an ancient tale
Before thy Shakspeare gave it deathless fame :
The times have changed, the moral is the same.
So like an outcast, dowerless and pale,
Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale
Spread her young banner, till its sway became
A wonder to the nations. Days of shame
Are close upon thee: prophets raise their wail.
When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand
Points his long spear across the narrow sea-
Lo! there is England!' when thy destiny

Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand
Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land,-
God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be!"

PARIS IN 1814, ON THE FALL OF NAPOLEON.

BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

ALTHOUGH Considerably weakened by the disasters of the Russian campaign in 1812, by the lost battles of 1813 in Germany, and by the protracted warfare in the Peninsula, attended by repeated defeats, the French armies still maintained their deserved reputation for intrepidity and professional prowess, and the prestige of Napoleon had lost nothing of its magic influence. His name alone was still a host in itself, and inspired the allies with an awe they would not have felt had they been acquainted with the pent-up feelings of the inhabitants of France. In spite, then, of the invasion of his empire, by the united forces of all Europe, on its northern, southern and eastern boundaries, in spite of the daily breaking up of some portion of his political fabric, so accustomed had men become to behold his almost fabulous fortunes ever on the ascendant, few could be brought to believe that they were about to be closed in discomfiture and ruin.

It was the 30th of March, at four in the morning, the day after that in which the deluded inhabitants of Paris had been lulled into fancied security by a lying proclamation of Joseph Bonaparte, the titular King of Spain, recently arrived after his disgraceful flight from Vittoria, and appointed the Emperor's Lieutenant in the capital, when they were startled from their slumbers by sounds which told but too plainly that "grimvisaged War" had reached their cherished hearths, that for the first time for three centuries past Paris was beleaguered by a foreign foe. The day of retribution was at last come, the day in which France was to expiate years of unjust aggressions; when her capital also, like Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Lisbon, Madrid, all of which, with many more, she had visited in her wrath and rapaciously mulcted and despoiled, was now, in its turn, to undergo the direful pains and penalties of a conquered city.

Napoleon had been out-marched and cut off from his capital, and every one felt, as if by instinct, and as he himself must have done, that Paris, once lost, his empire had passed away. The struggle before the walls was long and bloody. The little army under Marshals Marmont and Mortier did its duty gallantly during that eventful day, fighting desperately against fearful odds, till five in the afternoon, when, to save the "Capital of Civilization" from being taken by storm, or entered by force of arms, Marmont, the senior in command, in accordance with a resolution of the municipal authorities of Paris, signed a capitulation, by which that city was to be delivered up to the allies on the following morning. Ere the capitulation, however, had been entered into or even thought of, Joseph had decamped, together with the Empress Maria Louisa, her infant son, the imperial ministers and the great officers of state, and taken refuge at Blois.

Few of the Parisians slept that night. The excitement produced by the deadly contest of the day was succeeded by apprehensions for the morrow, when Paris, that Paris so idolized by Frenchmen, the centre of arts, taste, fashion, of all worldly enjoyments and pleasures, was to be given up into the hands of men whom they designated as "barbarians." The barbarians, however, kept their faith to the letter, and, though flushed with success and in possession of several entrances to the city, not one allied soldier crossed the Barrière. The town remained per